You Are All Awesome! Thank you!

I am blown away when I speak with an event coordinator or venue owner and they tell horror stories of nobody artists who bring a list of demands to the table. The artist gives attitude about breaks, stage setup, and attendance and the venue is left with a seriously bad taste in their mouth and the artist walks away unhappy and complaining.

This is a terrible lose-lose situation, when it so easily could have been a win-win. As an independent artist, it’s my responsibility to book shows and make sure the venue, my band, and my listeners are all happy. The sure fire way to ensure this is by having gratitude. It’s a big word that carries a lot of meaning. Gratitude.

When I start to think gratitude and express gratitude, relationships are instantly built, walls are broken down, deals are done, and I am even more thankful than when I walked in. Now, I understand that you may not also be an independent artist, but I felt it was so important to write about this, because it affects us all!

That person you work with that always seems to have a chip on their shoulder…the barista at a coffee shop who is clearly having a pissed off day and leaves a bad taste in your mouth, no pun intended, haha…your girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse/roommate that did that thing again that really annoys you. We run into negativity everyday in ourselves as well as others. Now, let pride roll off your back and turn it around:

At work, imagine saying, “Bob, you look really sharp today. I really like that tie and great work on the Ninja report. I hear that it’s going over very well upstairs!” You’d feel pretty good about yourself for putting that positivity and happiness on someone else right?! Plus, Bob might just respond with a smile! Weird, right!

At the coffee shop, imagine asking with a smile, “How’s your day going? It looks pretty busy in here!” Do you really think you’re going to get a pissed off response? And if you do, just say, “Well, I hope your day gets better”. By now, the barista has to at least flash a smile. J You feel good about yourself and can take that first sip of wonderful coffee with a smile.

At home, think to yourself, ‘You know what, I love my boyfriend and ya, he does this thing that annoys me, but it’s not on purpose and he also deals with my makeup and hair all over the bathroom. Plus, in the grand scheme of things, this is minor. It’s not worth fighting about or stressing about and I am so thankful to have such a great person in my life. I’ll just clean it up and go on being happy about us.’

Imagine how your life would change! With all this happiness, positivity, and gratitude, it’s going to be hard to stay upset about the minor things or let someone else’s negativity affect your day. And when it does, because we can’t always be chipper, we just remind ourselves of all the wonderful things in our life that we’re thankful for.

Gratitude is a magical thing. Instead of thinking how this person shouldn’t be doing xy&z to YOU, instead think what you can give to them and be thankful for everything that you have to be happy about. Give it out. Happiness and gratitude are not commodities that run out. They multiply like bunnies!

Have a fantastic day! Check back with you soon!

The Self-Corruption of Inaction

“I just don’t know what to do.” “Sure, I have a list of things I’d like to accomplish, but I don’t feel like doing those right now.” “I don’t know where to start.” “It’s like I want to do nothing and everything at the same time.…I think I’ll watch a little bit of TV while I decide[…3 hours later, still watching TV]”

I’ve been there! I think it’s a fair assessment to say that most of us have, at one point or another. It’s that place where your desires are so great and you are motivated to do what you love, but you’re afraid to screw it up! You don’t know where to start, so you don’t start at all. Sometimes, all you really need is to get out of your own way!

Whether you want to start your own company, lose weight, try a new hobby, travel the world, whatever it may be! No one is stopping you from getting a business license, doing the work you love, going to the gym, eating fewer calories than you burn, taking a hula class, buying a flight to Paris, or in my case, making music and sharing it with the world. So, why isn’t the world filled with tons of people just doing what they want?!

There are internal roadblocks that stop us. Pretty much every roadblock boils down to Fear. Fear that we can’t afford it, Fear that we won’t succeed. Fear that people won’t like us or the service or product we offer. Fear we won’t find the love of our lives and get married and have babies. Fear that we can’t make our dreams come true. Did you notice that all these things are fears of what we can’t or won’t do?

We’re not afraid that we will make a living doing what we love, that we’ll get married and live happily ever after, that people will love us, or all our dreams will come true. Why would that scare us?! That sounds amazing! So why are we stopped?

Taking action will only get you closer to AMAZING! You make a choice every time you choose to act or not. Every time, I write a song, book a show, or market my music, I am taking action. I’m making the decision to do something. It may not always be the best way, but it’s a way. It’s action. It’s something. I’m moving forward, even if I’m zig-zagging. 

All these thoughts hit me yesterday and filled my journal pages as I talked myself though this all. Now, I've boiled it down to one sentence…

Defying the Fear of Failure

I’ve been caught in this web of destruction myself. You’re so scared that you’ll screw up something so important to you that you wind up taking no action at all. The fear of failure debilitates you.

The other night, I had a revelation. It went something like this:

When all else fails, remember that no one knows you (yet). No one cares what you put out onto the inter-web, except your family and friends who already love you no matter what. If you suck, people will ignore it. If you’re deliciously terrible, you’ll make tons of money on YouTube ads. If you’re good, people will be impressed and they’ll do one of two things: 1) enjoy it and move on with their day, which you’ve now impacted :) or 2) share it on their social media and tell friends about it :D

Is there really a down side here? No one cares if you’re invisible, so dare to be invisible. You might just be so remarkable, they notice you.

Here's a video to show that I dare to be invisible: "Anything" by Carolyn Mescher 

Hopefully, you'll notice.  I'm not perfect, but I keep getting better, so this is me right now. 

Opening Smash Mouth like a Bat Out of Hell

Well, it’s been a fun week! By giving music everything I have, people started noticing me and my music and I was offered an opportunity to open for Smash Mouth! The show was Saturday, June 14 and dang, it felt so great to be on a big stage with all the big lights and space to move around.

Most importantly, it gave me a non-awkward setting to make my songs, not just sound different, but look different! I learned the importance of the look of your live performance by Tom Jackson, Taylor Swift’s live music producer. It turns out, humans process 80% of things visually! No wonder there're lights and pyrotechnics at big concerts! 

I had 11 songs to make look different, so for one of my slow songs, we brought out two stools for my guitar player and I to sit on. I played guitar on “He’s Mine”. For “One Night Man”, I did the infamous pointed finger with my arm straight up in the air on the "one night man" line. “Never Be Ready” was quiet and intimate and one woman even came up to me after the show and told me the story of her special surprise. She said she cried when I sang that song and ended up buying a CD, so she could hear it again and again. That’s what music is all about to me! “All I Need to See” finished up the show rocking it out and the Smash Mouth guitar player, Sean, even tweeted while I was on stage that I was “hitting it hard”!  

Playing that show was inspiring to me! It made me realize what I’m capable of and that I’m not afraid of a big stage, performing, or meeting fans. Those are my favorite parts! I get scared by the little things, the everyday to dos of booking shows and marketing myself, because they're the hardest parts for me. I don’t want to seem like the person constantly marketing and pushing myself on people, asking them to buy my music and support me. I want to be grateful, genuine, and provide opportunities and music that people love! As such, I’m now starting to offer backyard/barn/house concerts to people all over the country! That sounds like a blast to me and a great way to meet amazing people and music listeners! In fact, if you’re interested in hosting a house concert for a birthday, anniversary, event, or just for fun, send me a message! I’d love to speak with you about it!

www.CarolynMescher.com

Special thanks to www.tomjacksonproductions.com for teaching me about live stage production! 

How Cross-Pollination Can Help You Grow Your FanBase

Let’s talk about the birds and the bees. They go from flower to flower and cross-pollinate to allow the flowers to continue to grow.  But what does that have to do with music? It has everything to do with music!

I’m willing to bet money that every fan you have didn’t first see you playing on stage and decide they liked you and wanted to be your loyal fan. They saw your post that their friend reposted, a poster hung in their favorite store or coffee shop, got pulled to your show by a friend, ran across your music because it sounded like another artist’s song on Spotify, etc. Cross-pollination is the independent artist’s best friend. Still don’t believe me? Give these 6 cross-pollination techniques a try:

1. In press releases, write about yourself and similar artists, explaining how you are choosing to take a different approach to the industry, booking, marketing, whatever. A new angle is more likely to get picked up by press and the other artists you mention will likely put it on their websites, not to mention the article showing up when someone Googles the other artists’ names.
2. When you find interesting articles, videos, or songs, post them on your blog with maybe a write-up of your opinion or your take on it. The author of the original post will probably retweet or repost your blog entry as well.
3. Offer to open for another country artist (free of charge) in an area you have not played before to help grow your fan base in that area. If you do a great job, you may end up selling enough merchandise to make it worth it. Plus, you’ve made some loyal fans, who are worth playing for free one night.
4. Determine who your target fan base is for the content and style of your music. Think of creative ways you can play for your target fan base. If you’re truly interested in building a fan base, offer this for free. Loyal fans are worth their weight in gold. If you have to play for free to play for potential loyal fans, do it. They’ll promote you on their own, buy all the music and your merchandise.
5. Country music trends follow pop and rock by about 10 to 15 years. Opportunities to open for “washed up” pop or rock bands are actually great opportunities to target current country music listeners. The current trends in country are going to be similar in style with the rock and pop music of 10-15 years ago.
6. Use Twitter hash tags (no more than 3 in one message) to reach users interested in your style of music or content of your songs. For example, I may tweet about #rodeo, because I have songs written about rodeos and bull riders. Anyone looking at #rodeo tweets could see my tweet and choose to check out my music if they like country.

Now, get out there and start doing that birds and bees thing... cross-pollinating!




Written by independent country artist, Carolyn Mescher
www.CarolynMescher.com