I put together a music sampler on Noisetrade.com featuring all of the bands and songwriters I’ll be sharing the stage with on tour. It’s day three for my tour with Paul Federici, and we are having a blast!
Like to support a worthy cause? All tips are being donated to 826michigan, a nonprofit writing center for kids!
If you won the lottery, what would you do?
If you won the lottery, what would you do?
It’s a fun question to ponder, and I bet your answer falls into one of these categories:
1.Splurging, materialistic purchase
2. Making a life change
3. Helping others
The odds are against us of ever winning the jackpot, but there is something to be learned from our pondering of the possibilities.
Who says you can’t reach the essence of the goal in small steps? Sure, we might not be able to afford a $400,000 boat, but if one’s dream is to enjoy the water more a year, you make that happen on a budget.
And if your answer was a category three, we can often find a way to be generous with time, not only generous with money.
Attention to detail, that’s what makes the difference.
I asked my wife what she thought makes Wes Anderson’s films so special. The above statement was her answer.
The same goes for all forms of art.
Sometimes the only change a song needs is a few different words in a lyric, a slight variation of a chord, a minor change to the drum beat. It’s the small changes that can be the difference between good and great.
You can’t over plan, but you can over wait.
In less than a week, my friend Paul Federici and I leave for a five week tour, 4000+ miles across the US and Canada. It’s the longest tour either of us will have done.
How long did we plan this? I pitched the idea to Paul in late March; and the legwork began the first week of April. (Some smaller details are still getting finished!)
Yep, five to six months…You can’t over plan. That’s a motto Crystal Palace taught me during my early teaching years.
However, you can over wait.
We often confuse procrastination with planning. We might say, “I’m not ready to do this project. I need to think about it more.” But we aren’t thinking; we’re waiting.
I waited too long during my first recording project’s sessions. I took me a full year to finish my first EP, and I’ll admit there was quite a bit of procrastinating between sessions one, two, three, four. (And grading a lot of papers in between those sessions, too!).
My third EP took a week. Start to finish of recording, mixing, and mastering.
Sure, brainstorming is important. But soon, you just have to commit, jump in, feet first, and embrace the challenge.
Write to write, play to play, jog to jog
Somedays, you just need to write to write. No assignment, no task, no burning inspiration. No other purpose than to enjoy the process of journaling.
Or play guitar to simply play. You sit in front of the tv, mind wandering, fingers dancing along the frets with no direction. Just playing…
Shooting hoops for fun in the driveway. Going for jog, but not recording the distance, not timing the run…
Guess what. It still counts, even when you rely on your craft as a job.
