I've been dealing with this realization for quite some time. This is a tough one, especially for someone who isn't naturally outgoing like myself.
The excuses are as numerous as they are easy. "Can't I just play my music?" "They came here for music, I shouldn't have to go around meeting and greeting." "It doesn't matter anyways. If they like my music they'll remember me."
It amounts to wussing out. We know this is what the game is all about. But that doesn't make it any easier.
In last week's post I introduced the concept of the velocity of your fans. Guess what spurred that idea on?
Your music doesn't seek out people's ears. (Although that'd make a sweet music video.) You've got to carry it there. And even then, there's no guarantee people will remember you even if it's amazing music. The world is built around personal connections. Use this truth to spread your music.
Good people skills helps in two ways.
1. Increases the chance that someone who hears you will like and remember you.
Even seemingly trivial things have a profound effect on how people remember things. You want a fan to be able to say 'Oh yeah, I met ______. They're awesome, really cool to talk with. Here, I'll play you a song." This will increase the chance that someone who hears your music will remember it, like you, and (possibly) become a fan.
2. Increases the number of people that will hear you.Surprise! For as good as social networking is for contacting people, they're not nearly as effective as face-to-face contact for building relationships. Don't bother friending random people on Myspace, your time is better spent at a concert for a band similar to yours, talking to everyone in line about your band.
In later posts I'll detail little nuggets of knowledge about what "good people skills" exactly are. It's been a difficult process developing these talents, but they're already paid off a million-fold. Social skills are AMAZING to have.
Yes, it's hard if you're not naturally out schmoozing.
But yes, it will get your band results.
3/18/10
You Can't Be An Ass Anymore (Fan Velocity)
You've got your music. But that will only carry you so far.
The real multiplier for your music career's success is the velocity of your fans. Do they rabidly promote your band because they connect with you and love what you stand for? (As much as I dislike them, you can't deny the efficacy of Juggalos for supporting their band.) Or do the people you've touched actively go out of their way to discourage others from listening to your music?
It used to be that there was an invisible wall between the artist and their fans. PR spokesmen, artist managers, burly security guards, tinted limos etc. If you didn't want to talk to the public beyond your music, you would have someone step in for you and create a buffer. You could live in space when you weren't on stage as far as anyone was concerned. Rest assured there was someone out there actively interacting with fans, spreading the gospel of your music.
But the middlemen are disappearing.
Today it's just you and the fan. They can interact with you directly through twitter, myspace, forums, email, carrier pigeon... If they see you before or after a show, they wanna talk to you. The fan *expects* to be able to interact with you. This is part of your job description as an artist. Communicating emotion involves communication.
Why is this?
Choosing to listen to a band is an identity decision.
When I say "I'm a HUGE fan of Boris", it's an identity statement. Music is all about emotions, philosophy, and stories. When we state our preferences, we're explicitly saying "I identify with the message they are conveying to the world. This band and their music represents how I see the world." We project the person we want to be onto our artists.
As such, we as your fans want to know as much as we can about who we have decided is worthy of membership into our "Personal Identity Club". This is a club for cool people *only*, because we're the president of it!
So if we finally interact with an idol and they look down on us, blow us off, or call us chumps, they're out of our club. Gone. Even worse, any time the former-fan hears the artists name, they're gonna chime in saying "They're a dick! Don't listen to em!".
Even not replying to their messages is a slight. If you don't respond to fans' attempt to connect with you, to them it feels the same as a gorgeous woman who won't return their calls. It hurts.
You can't ignore or hate on your fans anymore. They're the only ones keeping you afloat.
Know your fan velocity. Do everything in your humanly power to maximize it.
The real multiplier for your music career's success is the velocity of your fans. Do they rabidly promote your band because they connect with you and love what you stand for? (As much as I dislike them, you can't deny the efficacy of Juggalos for supporting their band.) Or do the people you've touched actively go out of their way to discourage others from listening to your music?
It used to be that there was an invisible wall between the artist and their fans. PR spokesmen, artist managers, burly security guards, tinted limos etc. If you didn't want to talk to the public beyond your music, you would have someone step in for you and create a buffer. You could live in space when you weren't on stage as far as anyone was concerned. Rest assured there was someone out there actively interacting with fans, spreading the gospel of your music.
But the middlemen are disappearing.
Today it's just you and the fan. They can interact with you directly through twitter, myspace, forums, email, carrier pigeon... If they see you before or after a show, they wanna talk to you. The fan *expects* to be able to interact with you. This is part of your job description as an artist. Communicating emotion involves communication.
Why is this?
Choosing to listen to a band is an identity decision.
When I say "I'm a HUGE fan of Boris", it's an identity statement. Music is all about emotions, philosophy, and stories. When we state our preferences, we're explicitly saying "I identify with the message they are conveying to the world. This band and their music represents how I see the world." We project the person we want to be onto our artists.
As such, we as your fans want to know as much as we can about who we have decided is worthy of membership into our "Personal Identity Club". This is a club for cool people *only*, because we're the president of it!
So if we finally interact with an idol and they look down on us, blow us off, or call us chumps, they're out of our club. Gone. Even worse, any time the former-fan hears the artists name, they're gonna chime in saying "They're a dick! Don't listen to em!".
Even not replying to their messages is a slight. If you don't respond to fans' attempt to connect with you, to them it feels the same as a gorgeous woman who won't return their calls. It hurts.
You can't ignore or hate on your fans anymore. They're the only ones keeping you afloat.
Know your fan velocity. Do everything in your humanly power to maximize it.
3/11/10
Against Virtuosity
---
When we were a young band and had only four songs, two of them had bass solos. (What can I say? I love me up some soloing: the spontaneity, the intensity, the release.) I always felt like a champ after pulling one off, yet the crowd response was tepid. (Insert joke about bassist) I couldn't figure out why. I executed it perfectly!
---
You ever meet that kid in high school on debate team? You know the one I'm talking about. He had a giant vocabulary and wasn't afraid to whip it out at the slightest provocation. This loquacious, verbose and obtuse individual filibustered colleagues with his voluminous repertoire of lexicon in perpetuum.
People thought he was smart. And a dick. With no friends.
What was his goal in hedging his language like this?
The purpose of speaking is communication. Using unnecessarily complicated language obfuscates the message. Don't put big words in sentences just because you can. Likewise, don't put solos or crazy-technical passages in your music unless they're required to convey the message of your song. It's about the music, not how fast you can sweep-pick scales in 17/8.
---
Confession: I was that kid. Still recovering.
When we were a young band and had only four songs, two of them had bass solos. (What can I say? I love me up some soloing: the spontaneity, the intensity, the release.) I always felt like a champ after pulling one off, yet the crowd response was tepid. (Insert joke about bassist) I couldn't figure out why. I executed it perfectly!
---
You ever meet that kid in high school on debate team? You know the one I'm talking about. He had a giant vocabulary and wasn't afraid to whip it out at the slightest provocation. This loquacious, verbose and obtuse individual filibustered colleagues with his voluminous repertoire of lexicon in perpetuum.
People thought he was smart. And a dick. With no friends.
What was his goal in hedging his language like this?
The purpose of speaking is communication. Using unnecessarily complicated language obfuscates the message. Don't put big words in sentences just because you can. Likewise, don't put solos or crazy-technical passages in your music unless they're required to convey the message of your song. It's about the music, not how fast you can sweep-pick scales in 17/8.
---
Confession: I was that kid. Still recovering.
3/9/10
The Grateful Dead's Business Model
Check out this article over at The Atlantic on the business model for the Grateful Dead. Seriously ahead-of-the-times thinking that people are only now starting to recognize.
The takeaways from this articles are (surprise!) stuff I've already said works. Represent.
-Reward fans for increasing their devotion to you (capped ticket prices, easy access, notification ahead of other fans) The Dead's cult following isn't a mistake.
-Be easy to talk to. The Dead had a phone list to directly contact their important fans and were eager to open a dialog.
-Increasing visibility increases reward (both monetary & intangible, such as fame). They realized you can't control the distribution of bootlegs, so they actively encouraged it. This empowered their fans to actively network with each other and proudly show off their collections/dedication to new possible fans. Not only was the band amazing, they had their fans go around proselytizing their greatness. Now that's a band.
The takeaways from this articles are (surprise!) stuff I've already said works. Represent.
-Reward fans for increasing their devotion to you (capped ticket prices, easy access, notification ahead of other fans) The Dead's cult following isn't a mistake.
-Be easy to talk to. The Dead had a phone list to directly contact their important fans and were eager to open a dialog.
-Increasing visibility increases reward (both monetary & intangible, such as fame). They realized you can't control the distribution of bootlegs, so they actively encouraged it. This empowered their fans to actively network with each other and proudly show off their collections/dedication to new possible fans. Not only was the band amazing, they had their fans go around proselytizing their greatness. Now that's a band.
3/4/10
Your First Fans
...are the bands that go on after you and the friends they've brought with them.
There are so few people who actively go out to local shows with unknown artists, it just doesn't happen often enough to reliable. When's the last time you walked past a *real* small venue, heard some music and thought, "Hmm, I'm going to walk in there knowing nothing about the bands and give four hours of my friday night with full attention to everything these bands are doing!"?
Attention is a limited resource. People only have one set of ears. As a musician, you're competing against every act on iTunes. Oh, and you're competing against youTube videos of cute cats, getting boozed with friends, video games loaded with explosions, etc. It's a tough world for a musician.
So who can you count on to start building your music career? Where Everyone playing after you is going to be there for your set, if only just so they get their chance to play. The band's girlfriends at their merch table are bored. The (kinda) close friends who got wrangled into going to see the band are anxiously looking for amusement. Talk to them! They're bored, captive, and probably like the musical genre you play. What more could you ask for?!? (Read this part again and pretend you hear me telepathically yelling).
Go talk with them, schmooze, be charming. Promote.
There are so few people who actively go out to local shows with unknown artists, it just doesn't happen often enough to reliable. When's the last time you walked past a *real* small venue, heard some music and thought, "Hmm, I'm going to walk in there knowing nothing about the bands and give four hours of my friday night with full attention to everything these bands are doing!"?
Attention is a limited resource. People only have one set of ears. As a musician, you're competing against every act on iTunes. Oh, and you're competing against youTube videos of cute cats, getting boozed with friends, video games loaded with explosions, etc. It's a tough world for a musician.
So who can you count on to start building your music career? Where Everyone playing after you is going to be there for your set, if only just so they get their chance to play. The band's girlfriends at their merch table are bored. The (kinda) close friends who got wrangled into going to see the band are anxiously looking for amusement. Talk to them! They're bored, captive, and probably like the musical genre you play. What more could you ask for?!? (Read this part again and pretend you hear me telepathically yelling).
Go talk with them, schmooze, be charming. Promote.
2/25/10
Who Do We Reward More, The Best or The Most Visible?
Since you've been reading my blog and know how I roll, you can probably figure this one out. (Read this fantastic post by Eric Barker for the science.)
The most visible are consistently more rewarded than their performance merits.
That's why Nickleback has sold over 6 million albums. They're everywhere, whether you like it or not. Magazines, blogs, radio, tv, etc. Pretty much everyone knows about them. Yuck.
So what's going on here? Why is this? Is this a giant troll that the world is going to unveil in a few years? (a la Andy Kaufman's style).
Nope. Once again the peculiar human brain is at work.
Cognitive Fluency: The ease with which an idea is recalled directly relates to how the brain processes it. Information that's easy to recall is treated as more true and important than other information.
(More Science)
Remember what I said about flyer design? If it's not legible, you're wasting your time.
Before we were Onward We March, one of the names we went through was The Cask of Amontillado (based off that AMAZINGLY metal story by Edgar Allen Poe where a guy is buried alive.) I still love the story, but whenever we'd mention our name to someone they'd get confused. Even worse, neither Tito nor I could actually spell Amontillado without looking it up. We changed our name, people remember. Lesson learned.
Flip on youtube and you'll find fifty million people who can play their instrument better than you ever will. They're 12 and they play years ahead of many professional players. Whatever. Who do we think of when we think guitar gods? It's not jUssGTR33, it's Dimebag Darrell.
Talent can only do so much. If people have to strain to remember anything about you, you're selling yourself and all your hard work short.
Be visible. Be easily memorable. Promote.
The most visible are consistently more rewarded than their performance merits.
That's why Nickleback has sold over 6 million albums. They're everywhere, whether you like it or not. Magazines, blogs, radio, tv, etc. Pretty much everyone knows about them. Yuck.
So what's going on here? Why is this? Is this a giant troll that the world is going to unveil in a few years? (a la Andy Kaufman's style).
Nope. Once again the peculiar human brain is at work.
Cognitive Fluency: The ease with which an idea is recalled directly relates to how the brain processes it. Information that's easy to recall is treated as more true and important than other information.
(More Science)
Remember what I said about flyer design? If it's not legible, you're wasting your time.
Before we were Onward We March, one of the names we went through was The Cask of Amontillado (based off that AMAZINGLY metal story by Edgar Allen Poe where a guy is buried alive.) I still love the story, but whenever we'd mention our name to someone they'd get confused. Even worse, neither Tito nor I could actually spell Amontillado without looking it up. We changed our name, people remember. Lesson learned.
Flip on youtube and you'll find fifty million people who can play their instrument better than you ever will. They're 12 and they play years ahead of many professional players. Whatever. Who do we think of when we think guitar gods? It's not jUssGTR33, it's Dimebag Darrell.
Talent can only do so much. If people have to strain to remember anything about you, you're selling yourself and all your hard work short.
Be visible. Be easily memorable. Promote.
2/18/10
Creating vs. Honing
The more time you spend as a musician you'll begin to realize the importance of listening to your moods. Sometimes practice will be super-productive, other times you might as well be sniffing paint it's that pointless.
Do you know the difference between the moods of creativity?
-=Creating is when you're drawing new ideas out of the great cosmic jar of idea-plasm and giving them a basic shape. You do not criticize ideas during this phase, it's pure idea generation. Neuroscientists have shown that during phases of pure and spontaneous creation, your brain turns off self-censoring and inhibition. A new idea is highly disruptive and challenging to your current schema of the world, so it only makes sense that your defense mechanisms would kick in to shut down this idea that would cause too much of a ruckus. If you've got an over-active internal censor, you risk shutting down millions of brilliant ideas before they have had time to breathe. This is *part* of writer's block. (To be discussed in a later post)
-=Honing is where you're chiseling and chipping away the rough edges and giving definition to the idea-plasm. This is where you get fussy about how long you swing the third eighth in the second repeat. Unless you're full of more hubris than Kanye, you realize that not every idea is generation-defining, so you weed out the bad ones here. As such, make sure that when you're in this mood you're using it properly. When you're feeling analytical, now is not the time to try being creative and making music, you'll just end up pissed off that you can't come up with any ideas. Go retool an old song or woodshed some scales while your brain is in this mode.
Don't get confused of which phase you're in. It'll stunt your art.
Do you know the difference between the moods of creativity?
-=Creating is when you're drawing new ideas out of the great cosmic jar of idea-plasm and giving them a basic shape. You do not criticize ideas during this phase, it's pure idea generation. Neuroscientists have shown that during phases of pure and spontaneous creation, your brain turns off self-censoring and inhibition. A new idea is highly disruptive and challenging to your current schema of the world, so it only makes sense that your defense mechanisms would kick in to shut down this idea that would cause too much of a ruckus. If you've got an over-active internal censor, you risk shutting down millions of brilliant ideas before they have had time to breathe. This is *part* of writer's block. (To be discussed in a later post)
-=Honing is where you're chiseling and chipping away the rough edges and giving definition to the idea-plasm. This is where you get fussy about how long you swing the third eighth in the second repeat. Unless you're full of more hubris than Kanye, you realize that not every idea is generation-defining, so you weed out the bad ones here. As such, make sure that when you're in this mood you're using it properly. When you're feeling analytical, now is not the time to try being creative and making music, you'll just end up pissed off that you can't come up with any ideas. Go retool an old song or woodshed some scales while your brain is in this mode.
Don't get confused of which phase you're in. It'll stunt your art.
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