LIVE, BREATHE, BE ONE with the MUSIC.....

What makes an Artist's band truly amazing? Most people are drawn to the flashy arrangements and a thousand and one chops all over the place. Yes, that stuff is amazing and exciting, but at the end of the show, did you play all that for yourself or the Artist/audience?

I had a conversation with a dynamite singer/co-worker of mine for a major artist and we got into a deep insightful discussion about the subject of being a backing band. My philosophy is a simple one that I applied to myself early on and continue to preach to this day: LIVE as the music, BREATHE the music, BE ONE with the BODY of the music.

Musicians, take a moment to think about how you walk down the street; pay attention to how EVERYTHING works together to make this walk possible. You don't breathe fast like you've been sprinting when you walk, you breathe harmoniously with the speed you're traveling. We walk swinging our arms lightly opposite of our legs, we look forward, etc. This is exactly how a Band needs to approach each song on a gig. Breathe with the groove of the music, this is where the POCKET comes from. If you're not focusing on LIVING as the song, you're not going to be able to truly compliment the song.

Once you master yourself in the moment of the music, the key is to focus on everybody around you to build the sound, most importantly the artist you're backing. No matter how nasty as chord can be or how complicated an arrangement is, if it doesn't work with the lyrics and mood of the song IT DOESN'T WORK!!! And nothing burns me up inside more than to hear musicians (drummers especially) losing the "one" or singers missing the first note/word of a phrase because they decided to go off on a tangent and "express themselves" in the middle of the song. Think back to the walking example: you start breathing out of wack with the rest of your body, you have to stop to catch your breath. If your left legs decides to do it's own thing, you'll fall over.

Everything has a role in life and msuic, and every trip a destination. PLAY YOUR PART musicians, and the journey the Artist is taking will be so much sweeter and meaningful for the audience and for you (plus you'll keep the gig, take it from a dude that's NEVER been fired....).

- r s.g.

p.s. - if you don't believe me, check this out and apply the example to EVERY instrument/voice you hear on stage...