Music Archive - The Art of Communicating

Does it groove?

“I will not be thinking theory.”

Victor Wooten, a famous Jazz bassist, prefers groove over theory. For him, it’s obvious that when it grooves, the theory doesn’t matter.

Which doesn’t mean that Wooten wouldn’t know theory. Quite the opposite. He’s a great teacher who can explain in great detail why the groove grooves and what to do to make something groove.

But for him that theory is not the starting point. It’s a helping hand. Here’s how his quote continues:

“Theory only comes in if there is a problem. If I need it. Theory is a tool. And like riding in a car, the tools are in the trunk. They’re not in the passenger’s seat. I hope I never need the tools.”

Wooten doesn’t create a groove from theory.
He creates it from experience.
He creates it through exploration.

Theory is always there as a fix when he gets stuck. But it’s not the starting point.

And that’s exactly what’s wrong with executive communication. It’s often formulaic because it relies heavily on the tools in the trunk.

The speeches that have been written by professional speech writers. The jargon that marketing agencies create. The strategy language that consultants have created.

These often originate in the theory.

The rhetorical devices? Eloquent, but often boring.
The fancy names? Cool, but intangible.
The clever structure? Smart, but not exactly exciting.

Which is why they don’t groove.
It’s only theory and no groove.

When you use these tools as a means to an end, it gets the order wrong. You’ll fit the narrative into the devices, rather than finding the device that fits the narrative.

You’ll have an argument that’s sound, but not groovy.

But groove is what creates change. If you want to move your team, your investors, your cusomters, they need to resonate with your words.

Groove creates resonance.
Groove creates movement.

“Smoke on the Water” and duplicate content

If Deep Purple ended a concert without having played “Smoke on the Water”, the fans would almost certainly be very angry with them.

Most content creators treat their greatest hit rather differently. They shy away from posting duplicate content and try to constantly produce fresh content.

A question worth asking is whether that’s also what your audience wants.

While “Smoke of the Water” is surely not the only reason fans come to a Deep Purple show, I bet that it is among the top reasons most fans come to the show, even almost 50 years after its publication.

The fans want to hear “Smoke on the Water”. They are ok with new tracks. But one of the top reasons why many love Deep Purple is their greatest hit.

Similar observations are true for most bands (with, of course, some notable exceptions, such as Phish).

Now, what about your content? Are your fans only looking for fresh tunes? Or would they prefer to hear their favorite tune more often?

What’s your “Smoke on the Water”? Feel free to share it in the comments!

How to become a virtuoso

Becoming a virtuoso is actually kind of easy: Practice slowly.

The hard part is patience. The patience to actually go as slow as it takes. And the patience to trust the process and stick with it until you’re there. (We’re talking a really long time of really long hours of practicing. Steve Vai, one of the guitar virtuosos of our time, is said to have practiced 12-15 hours each and every day.)

The fascinating part is that if you do show up with that patience it can feel as if there are no boundaries to what you can achieve.

For example, Steve Vai had this to say about his time with Frank Zappa’s band (whose live recordings wer aptly named “You Can’t Do That On Stage Anymore”):

When the Zappa gig came along and he was like, “Can you play this?” I was like, “Of course I can play it.” ’Cause all you gotta do is work on it. Slowly, slowly, note by note. It was unfathomable to me that any guitar player couldn’t do it. And I realized why. They just didn’t have the chutzpah to sit there and work on it.

Do you have the patience to go slowly?

(Careful what you ask for, though, because Vai adds: “But that won’t make you a great musician.” Keep in mind that virtuoso and musician are rather different goals.)

How to become a megastar

Here’s an interesting piece from Apple Music on the band Coldplay:

You don’t become one of the biggest bands in the world without sticking to a system. In Coldplay’s case, that means starting every album with an agreed-upon title that dictates the project’s direction, from songwriting to production style to visuals. “It allows us a little bit of discipline in the studio knowing what we’re trying to build,” bassist Guy Berryman tells Apple Music. “If you’re building a building without any kind of architect’s drawings, you would just start piling bricks on top of each other.”

It’s easy to assume that artists are these creative geniuses that just wait for their genius to strike. That they just pick up their instruments and come up with some great idea. But this quote from Guy Berryman proves that this is not how the music business works.

It’s not only a lot of effort. It’s also a disciplined approach. And one that starts with clarity.

The same is true for almost any endeavor – such as building products, founding companies, writing books, you name it.

Getting clarity about where you’re headed before you actually build the thing will lead you to build something much more meaningful … much faster.

First you hate ’em, then you love ’em

The leaders who push you to your best results are often the leaders who you hate in the moment but admire in hindsight.

As a teenager, I hated my guitar teacher. The degree to which he forced me to get it right, to adjust my fingers ever so slightly, to repeat the line over and over until I nailed it, to slow down even more etc. all of that was super annoying in the moment. I hated it.

But it also made me a way better guitar player. It allowed me to play tunes that others couldn’t because I was used to figuring out how to get it right. It’s what allowed me to play the joyful things. The cool licks.

Even today, some 30 years later, decades after I’ve dismissed the thought of turning pro, I’m still benefitting from what that teacher taught me. I can basically pick up the guitar today and discover new things each and every time.

Who was a leader you hated back then but admire today?

How do you push your team to do better?

The practice drug

In a world of get-rich-quick advice it’s an eye-opening journey to explore the realm of world class musicians who practice an insane amount of time to get to the level they’re at.

Tosin Abasi is one of them. He’s the lead guitarist of Animals as Leaders and you probably haven’t heard of him (their music is at times hard to digest for some). His unique technique is crazy and he does things on the guitar that even experienced players wouldn’t even consider possible.

When he was asked if he indeed practised 15 hours a day and why, he replied:

What happens is there’s this revelation that if you put in work on something you can’t do at first, eventually you can do it. And the first time that happens it is kind of like an addiction. You want it to happen again. And the more it happens, the more you’re confident that it can happen. So you start chasing your potential.

For Abasi, practice is a drug. A drug that provides him with the feeling of achievement and possibility.

Through practice he is able to turn the knowledge that something can be done into the ability to do it. At the same time, by pushing the boundaries of what he’s able to do, he also pushes the boundaries of what he knows to be possible.

You might not be willing to invest 15 hours a day practising your craft. But if there’s something you can’t do but see others doing, it might just be that they have been willing to invest the time to practise.

Knowing that something can be done is quite different from being able to do it. The former can be achieved by reading inspirational blogs or watching YouTube, the latter often requires practise.

It’s either good or bad

“Oh, that’s like Instagram but for poems.”

When we see or hear something, our brain automatically compares it to the things we know. We put it in context of the things we have experienced before and find a category for it.

Sometimes, though, we make the mistake of using this category as an automatic measure of quality. We shouldn’t.

Duke Ellington, the famous Jazz Big Band leader, made music in the category of “light music” – according to traditionally trained musicians (read: European classical music) who considered “light” music to be inferior to “serious” music.

Ellington vehemently disagreed with this assessment (as do I):

“You have to stop listening in categories. The music is either good or it’s bad.” – Duke Ellington

I think the same is true for almost any categorical thinking.

Let’s take presentations as an example. A presentation is either good or bad. It changes people’s minds or it doesn’t. It resonates or not.

Whether it took you 300 slides to do so or 3. Whether you told a story or presented plain, raw facts. Whether you were pacing up and down the stage or standing still.

If it resonated, it was good. It doesn’t matter if it was in the “Steve Jobs style” category or in the “my math teacher from junior high school” category.

In other words, never forget that it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.

Trespass

Here’s a random piece about my teenage years. It’s about trespassing. In fact, it’s about the album “Trespass” by Genesis.

I bought the album back in the days when CDs were still the hype (late 80s I assume). I liked Genesis’ popular tracks such as “Land of Confusion” and I liked the cover of “Trespass”. What I didn’t know was that it didn‘t have anything to do with the Genesis I knew from the charts. It’s their second studio album, recorded even before Phil Collins joined the band. Back at home, when I first listened to the album, I was totally surprised but also a bit angry. Being an experimental progressive rock album, it sounded so strange to my ears that had been exclusively trained on chart music.

But, well, I actually spent money for the album (also I didn’t own that many albums) so, I listened again. And again. And it turned into a revelation. It was way richer and denser than what I was accustomed to from the charts. For me, it was the beginning of a journey to discover the richness of music as a storytelling tool and as a way of expressing yourself. First, I discovered other progressive rock bands such as Pink Floyd and Yes, then I continued to Jazz which led me to discover Miles Davis and guitarists like John Scofield, Mike Stern, and Pat Metheny who inspired me during the time when I still thought I would become a professional guitarist.

Well, obviously I didn’t but I’m glad that I took that journey. Not sure if I would have trespassed the boundaries of pop music without “Trespass”.

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