find you’d rather do battle with the PlayStation® rather than practice and rehearse, it
might be time to think of a different career path.
Lots of people in all sorts of professions know what they need to do to be successful,
yet they don’t do it for a variety of reasons. It might seem too tough. It could be fear.
They simply might be too lazy. They may think they don’t have the resources and rather
than find alternate ways to find those resources, they just give up.
To sum up, you might be the most talented player around, but without the drive and
ambition to back it up, unfortunately, it means little.
Defining Your Music
In business, there’s a thing called an elevator pitch. It a short blurb you say when some-
body asks you what you do. Typically, people response with their job title, “I’m an ac-
countant,” “I’m a photographer,” “I play in a band.” The problem with these responses is
that they’re not engaging, or worse, utterly boring. They do nothing to open a dialogue
with the other person.
The trick is to think of words and/or phrases that truly describe your music, particu-
larly if you play originals. It should be brief, but capture the attention of the other person.
Something along the lines of (and this is a stretch), “Our music is like the intersection
where Metallica meets Jewel.” The other person should come away thinking, “Wow! I
need to hear that.” Of course, this is much easier said than done.
The words you use to describe your music need to be tightly honed and so appealing
as to encourage people do something–buy/download a tune or a ticket, tell a friend, etc.