Of more interest today was a nearly instant reply to an email to Paul McCartney’s personal agent. (The email mentioned last week did not go through, this one did.) My guess is, from the reaction, that they have never had an approach quite like the one I composed. It proposes that Paul have a “reunion” because he is the one who was most impressed by my client. The agent was deeply impressed by the scans I attached. So, I guess I can name-drop. McCartney is on vacation this week. I’ll wait and see if he gets back to us. The gears are already churning how to create a mutually beneficial publicity event out of this. McCartney will instantly recall that moment (43 years ago) when he sees that attachment. He better, I had to take it out of the frame and scan it six times to get the right effect, so give me some credit here. If you read back far enough, I may have published an earlier version of this picture.
I was at Borders, which reminded me to correct a mistaken impression from an earlier post here. If read literally, it states that the Knights Templar were a thousand-year-old Order. I know quite well that they were fully-armored knights and such did not appear on the scene until later in history. What I meant was that these types of “brotherhoods”, protecting church property from other “brotherhoods” have been around since day one. They should have known the church would eventually side with someone (like a king) to put a stop to it [the protection racket]. The original Knights Templar could not have been formed before the First Crusade, which I think was in 1099 A.D.
Getting back here at 4:00 p.m. gave me time to plan out the rehearsal for tonight. This means that Mike and I had a clear if somewhat argumentative discussion about the role of band managers and practices. By pointing out we had done it the “right” way for over six weeks, I extracted the concession of trying it my way for the next two weeks.
In the larger sense there is nothing novel about how I conduct a practice. However, the application of tested management theory is something most musicians have never experienced. Too many of them think the way they learned things is the only way. I apply “management by exception”.
Practice only those things that are giving trouble. There is no need to practice the whole song except to test the results. Furthermore, music theory rather than rote repetition is applied to the problems areas. Within an hour, it was evident this produces excellent results. You should hear Cowboy Mike play a lead break now. No more sloppy guesswork and more importantly, no more thought that the old way had any advantages. Ask Mike what he thinks of theoretical analysis after just one hour.
So why didn’t I just do this sooner and in every other band? Simply because too many guitarists do not like to “obey the rules” under some half-baked theory that it inhibits their musical expressiveness where in fact they lack the ability to adapt. My way sounds easy until you realize that in a musical group, it can only work when one person has near total power to command.
After tonight, Cowboy Mike is sold. And I have nearly another two weeks to make things even better. As a teacher, I know that look of wonderment when things begin to fall into place. Practices are fun again and we are set for Wednesday. I not only know my way works, I get a chance to apply tons of non-standard solutions to the new batch predictable problems that will now occur, the problems of professional stage presentation. Problems that even the fantastically talented could use a lot of help with, no names mentioned.
This way when Paul McCartney jams with us, things will work out right.
