by stinson on June 11, 2010
Sometimes it’s not as much about putting on the most incredible live show anyone has ever seen. Sometimes who you’re sharing the bill with is not all that important. Sometimes it does not matter how many people will come out.
Sometimes it’s just about getting out and playing live, so that there is kinetic energy around your band. So that you are participating in the scene. So that the team who is managing you, marketing you, investing in you has talking points in their social circles and business contacts. [continue reading…]
by stinson on June 7, 2010
If you’re spending all your time developing your skill set, and thinking about all the technicals involved with that, you’re not getting your creations out there.
I’ve fallen quarry to this for more than half my life. The first two years I spent at Belmont University, I attended as a music major. My thought process was that I would become “overqualified” to play the type of music I wanted to make. I would be a musician who could practically play and do anything on the guitar. And I spent so much time trying to perfect my performance of other people’s music, learn my way around the neck of the guitar, and being consumed with picking and rhythm techniques.
In parallel I had become obsessed with how certain records sounded. In particular how certain guitarists got the tones they got (The Smashing Pumpkins Siameese Dream, and Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness blew my mind). So I started trying to learn everything I could about recording-taking many extra studio classes in school that really didn’t apply to my major (until I bailed and switched majors later). By the time I graduated from college, I found myself working at a recording studio… recording other people’s projects… [continue reading…]
Years of Conditioning (bad education)
by stinson on June 9, 2010
I‘ve had a long day. This year has been a really long, tough year. A year of growth and challenges (good ones). And I’m exhausted.
So forgive me as I attempt to articulate a relatively disjointed and off-the-cuff thought at 1am…
As I was driving across town on the freeway tonite – making my way home – I began reflecting on what I’m trying to do in this chapter of my life. As I’ve set out to be an entrepreneur over the course of the last three years, I’ve studied the ideas shared by many brilliant entrepreneurs who have gone before me. One of the most impressive ideas I’ve picked up during this study is the idea of failure.
The reality in life is that you fail 100 times over for every success you have. That being the case, it really should not be that big of a deal. Yet failure hits our hearts so hard. We’re terrified of it. We do everything we can to avoid it when it’s utterly unavoidable. We experience constant anxiety about our work (which is the emotion of experiencing failure before it even happens – a hopelessly absurd state of mind), worried that the others we work with will come to think we’re totally incompetent if we don’t deliver an A+. [continue reading…]
{ 3 comments }