Today's Paradigm and The Working Musician

The self-proclaimed guru of the music business sits cross-legged on an Indian pillow.  The large rug beneath him is in a Mandala design.  Sitar music plays softly in the background.  All ears are tuned to him in expectation of his next words.  He slowly lowers the hose from the Hooka he has been inhaling from and softly speaks:

"Basically we all live in a paradigm that started with dialogue. When you were a baby and learned your first words the paradigm began. You know how your internal dialogue is constantly going during your waking hours? Well that is because this reality is based on those words. (I know, do not get too excited. I am not going space cadet on you. Just relax.) Those words make up this paradigm. We all are in agreement as to what those words mean and represent. For instance a car is a car to me and the same to you. However, if you took some kind of recorder and recorded your thoughts all day and then replayed those thoughts to someone else here is what would happen. Most of the thoughts would be in line with the other person's beliefs. Some though would be outside of what that person is thinking on a day to day basis. The thoughts that are within the same way of thinking are the basis of today's paradigm, or reality. Those that are outside of the other person's thinking are yours and belong to a personal paradigm. That personal paradigm is influenced by some degree, great or small, by the paradigm at large.

Here's what that does to us. Depending on how much we desire to belong to today's world, how much we desire to be popular or accepted, our actions are proportionately influenced. Without getting lost in this entire psychology let me explain what happens to the musician. He is caught up in a very weird state of affairs.

Besides self-preservation, most of our actions are motivated by four main issues. Those four motivators are food, sex, money, and acceptance. I know most musicians have noticed how the other sex is attracted to the performer, and money is good, but for the musician the main motivator is acceptance. He is driven and influenced by his desire to be accepted by music fans and other musicians. Because of the over whelming power of the existing paradigm the musician does not do what it takes to build a more powerful paradigm. You see, instead of buying into the prevailing paradigm and just self destructing, the musician can build a paradigm that the world buys into. You can be crazy as a bed bug and the world will love it, but you have to have a foundation that allows you to be crazy as a bed bug and build a big business. You see once a musician sells out to the world view of what a musician should be he is confronted by the absolute shallowness of the whole affair. The world is fickle. And the musician seeing this after many years feels there is no recourse, so he gives the world what they seem to be wanting. And that is self destruction. Ever notice how the musician goes down in flames as the world applauds? It does not have to be that way. You can create a paradigm that is structured in a way that actually profits from what the world seems to be wanting and at the same time grows stronger because of the set of rules it is guided by. And as it grows stronger it profits more, the world buys into it more, and it grows even stronger still.

Here is the starting point: You have to understand the paradigm that is world today. Here is my view on that. This is my view and I am not a professional in these matters. If you are a psychologist then you would have a field day if I let you play with my brain for a day. I learned to treat the paradigm in one way in order to build my own paradigm another way. The way I treat the paradigm is this. Everyone you know or will ever meet is just a kid who is in the third grade on the school playground. All social interactions today are based on this dynamic. Good business is not. But bad business practices are on this level. If you truly understand what I just wrote you will go a long way in your relationships in the world today. You see on the playground there were bullies, those being bullied, and those just trying to stay out of the way. You may be dealing today with someone who was bullied a great deal and is trying to overcome that feeling of helplessness that is still guiding and influencing his decisions today. Love everyone where they are, but try and understand that there is an underlying dynamic that you may be caught up in and have very little control over. You only have two options, now or anytime. You can take action, or you can walk away.

However the trick is to bring that person's dynamic into your own paradigm. You can do this with other musicians, band members, fans, and club owners. You have to understand the dynamic going on at the time. But first you have to make your paradigm yours and the stronger. And because you have been given a paradigm, much like a download in a computer, by your parents, friends, relatives, teachers, and the world at large, you have a great deal of work ahead of you. But it is worth the effort. Trust me.

Changing the paradigm.

You are what you think. However, and more important, you are what you believe. That belief is influenced in one of two ways. Positively in relationship to our wants, needs, and more important goals. Or negatively in the same areas. You have in your mind two very powerful guardians waiting to be called upon. And these guardians are dedicated to the job of letting you have what you really believe. If today you believe negatively then the negative guardian comes forth and protects that belief. If today you believe positively then the positive guardian comes forth and protects that belief. They do not judge right or wrong. They only protect that belief at all costs. And they are very, very good at their job.

"Today is a lousy day. I do not feel like practicing." Up comes the negative guardian and does a wonderful job of giving you what you asked for. And it works in the opposite way as well. You must sell out to this fact. It is a fact and you must learn to control your thoughts.

Roy Gene Horne is a songwriter, musician, performer with over 40 years professional experience. He has written hundreds of songs, recorded, performed, booked, managed, and fronted his own band for all of those years. His music can be heard at http://www.littleroygene.com.

2 Huge Mistakes Made By Young Bands

I do not claim to be any kind of expert.  I have played professionally for over 40 years.  I have gone through what you are going through.  Some of the bone head things I did in the past are not relevant to today.  Times have changed a great deal. There are two things that I see everyday and consider mistakes.  One concerns a new venue that I did not have access to and the other is a mistake made from day one by just about every band I have ever known.  I will start with the latter.

Most bands get some material together and find a gig.  Right?  But that is what you are suppose to do, right? Absolutely!  You have to start somewhere.  But, even if you live in a huge city like Dallas, you have to make sure you have a plan in which you only play your home city maybe 2 times a year.  What!  How in the world are you suppose to do that.  I think that playing your home town should be promoted as something special.  Not just another weekend gig.  You have to reach a point in your performance that it will make it worth it to your audience to come out and see you. And when you reach that point you want to promote it and make it into something that will be talked about until the next time.  You can not do that if you are playing every dive in town that will pay you 50 bucks a head.  So how do you manage this?  Draw a circle around your hometown or the nearest large city in which you are currently getting most of your gigs.  How big a circle is up to you and your band members.  If you guys are working days, and at this point you really should be, then you have to take in consideration the time factor of getting off work on Friday and trying to make the gig on time.  There is no law that says you can not take a gig close by on Friday and another a little farther away on Saturday.  What you are trying to accomplish, besides making a little money, is fine tuning your act in preparation for your return home.  It is hard but worth it.  Fine tuning your act in front of your hometown crowd will only cause you to lose more fans than you gather and will give most venues a preconceived impression of who you are and what you do.  If you want the larger, better paying venue it is imperative to show how you can gather a crowd. Just consider it and see where you thinking takes you.

The second mistake I see way too often concerns YouTube.  I see a lot of junk on there that maybe should have been thought through.  Bands are way to eager to post videos with something like, "Check us out playing at ABC Club last Friday night.  The video is from and I phone and the sound is bad.  Why would you be so eager to post something bad?  Anyone can film you with their phones these days, but you do not have to post it on your very own YouTube channel.  Everything you post should be professional.  The more you post as an amateur, the more you are perceived that way. Be professional.  Look like you know what you are doing.

New CD - What now?

Here is the way I see this, and keep in mind I am one old and burned out musician. So what the heck do I know!  However, let me take you on this little escapade of mine and if you are in the same stage of the process maybe we can work this out together.

I finally finished my "Full Grown Man" project, as far as: recording, cover art, hard disc pressing, cover wrapped and bar-coded,  registering with a distribution firm, ASCAP, BMI..the whole deal.  I think the studio was the easiest part, for me anyway.  But it is what it is.  So, what now?

Well there is a ton of stuff out there basically telling me the same thing.  I am supposed to be building these electronic relationships through social media sites, tweet a little but not too much, blogging (such as this), becoming recognized on certain forums (don't get burned!), adding and offering some kind of value to the community (I believe I do that by staying off the streets at night most of the time), and on and on and on.  All correct.  But it is time consuming and usually I get sleepy when I try and concentrate.  So, as Granddaddy Charlie used to say, "Here's the deal."

This is "Long Tail Marketing."  You have to keep that in mind.  Back in the day, and now really also, the Record Companies only concentrated on "Short Tail Marketing."  Which you can also if you have a couple of million bucks to promote yourself.  The Record Companies put in the cash to promote an artist, (By the way that money is paid back by the artist through the sales of the record. Most musicians are so ecstatic upon being offered a contract that they do not realize they are really paying for the whole deal), and this short term promotion leads to air play, album sales, and concerts.  The artist will make most of his money at first through the concert venue.  He or she can charge phenomenal amounts of money to perform and with all the promotion hype people will pay unusual amounts of money on tickets.  And after the Label has retrieved it's original investment for recording and promotion they continue to get a cut of proceeds from sales as do the artist and the writer of the material. All of this is negotiable, however you have to be able to fit into the stream of what is considered a viable product to promote.  You have to have the sound and the look.  And that ain't happening to most of us.  But...

In "Long Tail Marketing", instead of being a flash in the pan of some Label Guru, you can slowly promote yourself for years and years using the above mentioned vehicles. And, if you were to graph it out, instead of a quick spike and fall that the music industry lives on, you would show a steady climb over a 10 or 20 year period.  If you are lucky you could compare numbers and you would be in the ball game because you are already ahead in that you do not owe a Label millions of dollars for their recording and promotion expertise.Of course you are behind the eight ball in terms of ticket sales, but the actual product sales numbers might surprise you.  You can now record your own music for a nominal sum at small but worthy studio, or do it yourself at home.  The key to all of this in my mind is that wonderful venue: Youtube.

I think without a doubt that this is where the independent artist can promote effectively to his hearts content.
And I will write more on that next time.

Why Did The Band Break Up?

Why did our band break up?  We were really starting to gel.  I don't understand what happened.  If the answer to this question was that the musical styles and ideals do not jive then you are one lucky dude.  Because usually that is not the answer. If your musical styles do not jive and you see no future, then breaking up was the logical choice. But sometimes, and usually most of the times, musical style is not the culprit.

You have found each other at a club listening to a good band. You know some of the members of the band and they introduce you to someone who plays a killer guitar. You are a bass player, you know a drummer and voila, you have the start of a band. You get together, play and soon add a keyboard and it just goes from there. You spend hours upon hours getting the equipment right, the sound right, the vocals right, everything is falling into place and then....it just disappears. Why?  I believe that the start of the process was never really addressed as it should have been. And the specific part that was missing, that caused the demise of the group, the part that was never even discussed were the goals, dreams and aspirations of the other members.

The goals of each individual have to be in line with the entire group. Most musicians just want to play music. And if you are good enough to play on stage with the guys you are with then a common bond occurs in which there is a false sense of security. However, it does not take a lifetime for the real motives behind the music to come forward.  Why would you not want to bring those motives into the forefront before wasting all of the time and effort? Why would you not want to know if you are all on the same page business and career wise instead of just music wise? It is puzzling.

I was recently communicating with an outstanding performer from the upper Northwestern part of the U.S.  (By the way her name is Lucy Hammond. You should check her out at lucyhammondband.com) We have a lot in common in that we both put careers on hold to raise children.  She has jumped back in with both feet but the musicians she has been working with, counting on, and putting so much of her resources into seem to just want to stick their big toe in.  Now there is a huge difference between the both feet, all in mind set and the "let me just stick my toe in and if it works then I will be all in," attitude.  While she is sacrificing everything, the other players might not be on the same sacrificial level.

Most people that I have known that front a band take on the management roll also.  Not by choice I would say, but they are usually the responsible party.  Band members that are all in become part of every negotiation and are willing to sacrifice by decision because they have bought into a vision.  Band members that just want to know where and when to show up usually take no more interest in the gig than this one motive revealing question: "Do we get free drinks?"  That kind of shows what is going on.  This is a business.  You would not be a partner in any other business enterprise and ask a question like that.  Mixing art and business is extremely delicate.  One usually kills the other.  It is an extremely difficult task to manage.  My hats are off to those who can.

This Songwriter's Secret - How I Wrote Over 1,000 Songs

Who knows how songs get written. Sometimes the song comes from a dream, sometimes from a remark that someone makes, sometimes from an event. At any rate songs come from somewhere. I found a way to connect to the source of songs. For me a process began with my very first song at age eleven. I have used the same process for over forty years. I do not know if this process will work for others, but it has never failed me.

First I get my attitude right. This has nothing to do with being confident or positive. You can be very negative and write good music. What I do is tell myself that I am no more than a vessel. I try and become the perfect witness to the process. I do not believe the songwriter should be the judge of the end product. I would have canned at least half of the songs I have written if that were the case for me. Let others judge the value of the song. But remember that judgement is influenced by their life history. So I do not put much stock in their judgement either. I mean I like it when people like a song I wrote. But I am not bothered if they do not. At any rate just write the song and let the world take care of their part.

Next for me is always the absence of theme. I never sat down and intentionally wrote a song about a certain event or subject. I always felt that if I tried to write about something I was putting too much of my first attention in the deal. By first attention I am speaking of everyday consciousness. I promise I will not get too heavy into this. This is how it works for me. I could no more sit down and write a poem and try to make a song out of it then I could dunk a basketball. It just is not in my realm of reality.

So here is the process. I would sit down with a guitar and simply let my fingers do the walking. Always waiting for that time when a little lick or chord progression took over and refused to leave until I addressed the fact that it was here to stay. If that lick never came I would change guitars. If nothing came from that then I would change strings on all the guitars and start over. I would do this until I had a little "diddy" to work with. Then I would play that thing over and over until a word or line came to the forefront. Then I would simply play that over and over until the song took place. Once it gets started it can not be stopped. I have nothing to really do with the process but the actual sitting down and playing and letting my mind wander. I seem to have a knack of letting my mind wander. I never forced a song. I have hundreds if not thousands of parts of songs that I refuse to go back and try and finish. For me a song has to finish itself.

Anyway that is how I do it. I really think the separation of myself as much as possible is the key. And at least that way I can always say, "Don't blame me, I'm just the guitar player."

Great night of Music for a Cause

I will be selling my new Album and 100% of the proceeds will be given to the American Diabetic Association. Many local radio and television celebrities will be on hand to help.

Seven Laws Of The Universe And The Struggling Musician

Cacophony. Have you ever had the occasion to be standing outside the door of a junior high school band room? All the little ones have their new instruments that their parents want them to learn to play. And none have a clue what is going one. The sound is: cacophony. God bless the school music teacher. We need more teachers who can do this job. So why are we talking about a discourse of sound? I will get to that. Right now let me congratulate you for still being here.

Remember in high school physics you saw how the eyeball worked? Or you may have seen it in biology. But anyway, remember the photo of a tree on one side of the poster and an eyeball on the other side. The poster shows how the image of the tree enters the eye and is actually projected upside down on the back side of the eye. The brain does its marvelous thing and inverts the tree back to normal. You never know that this process is being done, it is just one of the things our brains do. Well in the same way all information that comes to you, whether from conversation, television, paintings, and music has to filter through the same brain path. And this brain path is filled with emotions, feelings, thoughts, fears, and beliefs. All of those things influence the outcome of what you perceive. It is a powerful thing. Let me explain.

We all know about the physical laws of the universe. Gravity is gravity whether you understand it or not. You can not deny gravity. And it has no emotion at all. It fulfills the law it defines without taking into consideration good or bad. If you jump off of an object that is three hundred feet high you will fall at a certain rate, another physical law, and you will impact the earth at a determined force. It does not matter one iota if you believe that to be true or not. Well there is another kind of immutable law and that law is a mental law. Mental laws are in effect all of the time just like physical laws. If you are unhappy or if you are not accomplishing what you would like to accomplish you are tampering with the mental laws. They have a more subtle appearance than physical laws. But they are there none the less.

The first law is the Law of Control. Basically this law says you feel good about yourself to the degree you feel you have control over your life. When you are whacked out it is from a feeling of loss of control. If you have ever been in a job that you believe you can not quit and you have a jerk of a boss, then you have some anxiety building up because you feel you life is controlled by your job and your boss. That is a bad feeling and almost everyone is in someway dealing with some issue. The thing is that the force that is bugging you can be external or internal. The only way to alleviate the anxiety is to take control of your mind. Self mastery is the only viable exercise to harmony and happiness. You have heard it since Kung Fu was a television show. No one can cause you distress unless you allow it. You really always have but two choices: take action and change the situation, or simply walk away.

Because of this law you have to know exactly what you want. If you know exactly what you want your focus becomes very pointed. The question is this: Am I holding myself back with a feeling of helplessness or am I taking daily action to obtain what I really want? Truthful self examination is required.

The second law is the Iron Law of the Universe. This law is more commonly known as the law of cause and effect. Here it is in a nutshell, and I will tell you beforehand that it is so simple that most people miss this entirely. Thoughts are causes and conditions are effects. Your thoughts are the cause of your condition. And everything you are is the result of a thought by you or someone else. You are what you think. If you do not want to be where you are at this moment then you have to start by changing the way you think. What is really great about this law is that by believing it, really believing it, you take control of all other aspects of your life. The Law of Cause and Effect applied correctly will bring you in harmony with the Law of Control. Every aspect of your music and your music career, success or failure, can be explained by this basic law. Simple as that.

The third law is the Law of Belief. Whatever you believe, with emotion or intensity will shape your reality. Your beliefs are a filter always editing out what does not conform. It is this way. You do not necessarily believe what you see, but you see what you believe. If you are to be a professional musician, you must believe with everything that is in you that you will succeed. You must have a belief that no matter what happens you will keep going forward. Always working toward you goal. Never, ever even consider quitting. And keep moving forward. You have to develop a belief that is separate from the paradigm of "being in the right place at the right time." That paradigm is placing your entire career in the realm of luck. You might as well try and win the lottery. Get the luckitis out of your life. You make your own luck by doing the right thing over and over and over. Believe and the belief will influence your actions. The cycle of beliefs works like this. The more I really, intensely believe, the more my actions are geared toward that belief. These actions in return result in positive growth in my profession which in turn enhances my belief which will in turn cause my actions to take on a more focused effect which effects my beliefs again, over and over and over. In the same way negative thinking does the exact same thing. It is a law of the universe. The opposite is negative thinking, bringing about setbacks, which bring about more negative thinking, which.....you get the idea. This is the key. I know you hear it all the time. I have seen the positive effects of this in my own life and I guarantee it works. You have to believe.

The fourth law is the Law of Self-fulfilling prophecy. You get what you expect to get. This goes a little beyond the just believing aspect. What you really expect to happen will happen. Your mind does not know the difference between what is visualized and what is real. You do not get what you want, you get what you deep down really expect to get. Those that are going around saying "if it wasn't for bad luck, I'd have not luck at all," are correct.

The fifth law is the Law of Attraction. At the time I am writing this there is a book out about this that everyone is talking about as if this were something new. But this is a universal law and as old as the universe. Let's take music as an example. Have you ever taken a pitch fork, say and A, and hit it on you knee and placed it on the face of your acoustic guitar. The vibration of the fork will cause the A string of the guitar to vibrate. In short any vibration will cause a like and sympathetic vibration in something of the same kind. You need to watch what you say. Words are powerful vibrations. You need to watch who you are hanging with. A negative person will cause you to be the same. The more emotion you attach to a thought will cause a strong attraction to bring that thought into fruition. That is what is making all of this happen, and at a great cost of energy. If you learn to harness your beliefs and have the discipline to bring your thoughts into harmony, then you will receive what you are expecting to receive.

The sixth law is the Law of Correspondence. Emerson wrote, "What you are shouts at me so loudly, that I can't hear a word you are saying." What you are on the inside corresponds to what you show on the outside. To be the musician you want to be, become that person/musician/performer on the inside. This does not mean to sell out to the world paradigm of what a musician should be. However remember that the crowds and the fans have aneed that you will be supplying. Part of that need is to see the musician on stage giving up his heart on a platter. That is what they really want. Most of the time the musician feels so inadequate, maybe not in his musical ability, but in his lack of personal growth that he mistakes what the crowd is really looking for. They want the honest truth as told in your music. They want your heart on a platter in complete, non-fearing trust. This is why musicians create an on stage persona. It is a self preservation technique. They are creating a character that they are throwing to the lions and hoping for the best. And if the crowd loves this persona, no matter if honest reflection of the music or not, then that feeds the persona which grows off stage. Finally, knowing the truth deep within, the poor musician feels somewhat raped. He finally has nothing more to offer. The road to self destruction is paved along these lines.

The seventh law is the Law of the Mind. Thoughts are things. First you have thoughts and then they have you. You actions are determined by what you are thinking most of the time. I have already said you are what you think and you are what you believe. This is similar except more in the realm of everyday, every minute thinking. What you are thinking will guide your actions. Sometimes those actions are not necessarily positive towards personal growth or toward our music business. Guarding our thoughts moment by moment may not be easy, but you can eliminate negative thoughts. You can also eliminate any thought of fear or doubt. This is so necessary. Fear of rejection is the prime motivator behind action or lack of action on our part. If we are afraid of failure we will act accordingly. Remember our mind and subconscious wants to fulfill what we are thinking and believing. Fear is ever present. To counter act fear you have to be prepared. You have to know your instrument and know your limitations. Sometimes bands or individual musicians try a little too hard to impress and step over the bounds of their musical ability. I am not saying playing it safe is what you do all the time. However when you go for it, I mean really go for it, you should know if it is the proper time, the proper song, the proper audience. You simply can notgo for it in every song.

Those are the mental laws of the universe. You need to take each one and see how your thoughts, beliefs, and words are affecting your health, your relationships, your business, your life as a whole. Your whole band should do this. Each alone and then as a group if you feel you have the guts. To become a band is to let down all the B.S. that we put up for the whole world. The crowd wants to see heart felt, non fearing honesty. It starts with a band having the same desires and beliefs. It starts with a band that is programming their minds for success.