Two weeks ago I visited my parents on the countryside where I grew up. My mom celebrated her 82nd birthday, and several of my aunts and uncles were there too. I was confronted again with the strong feeling of not-belonging that I had when I was young. It’s a small, tight-knit community where you have to adapt. Outsiders are not welcome.We all want to belong, we all want to be accepted in a group of peers. Humans are herd-animals, we […]
Last April I gave an online presentation (pre-recorded) for Inferno Music Conference about “Six Stages of Fame”, see below.I discuss the opportunities and issues for musicians at every stage. My model can aid musicians to recognize at which point of their career they currently are, how to anticipate future developments and how to avoid career-killing traps.
My nice, she’s a student now, told me recently very proud that she has a part time job in a destruction company, and how she loves to demolish old furniture. It’s exciting to play with danger, with destruction. It brings diversity in our predictable lives and it creates space for new creations. As a musician, you usually don’t have to worry, you life is not predictable. Still, many musicians flirt with destruction. The audience expects it, it’s what sells. Though […]
Narratives are very powerful. They give meaning to our actions, they lead us. In the music business, we have a lot of powerful narratives that work in a destructive way for artists. One of them is, that artists have to suffer in order to be creative. Here it’s pretty obvious why it’s destructive, because it glorifies suffering. Artists are stimulated to endure suffering and to refuse help. Looking for help is associated with losing your creativity. Another destructive narrative is, […]
Narratives are very powerful. They give meaning to our actions, they lead us. A very powerful narrative is the Christmas narrative. It has all aspects of a great film: a couple are looking for shelter, they are migrants. She is pregnant, but not from him. Where ever they knock on the door, they are turned away, until one guy offers them to join his animals in their shed. The child is born in that shed at night, a big star […]
An essential part of Spille’s Toolbox For A Healthy Mind In The Music Business is the Network Tree. it is a great basis for everything that has to do with your network. I will use it as basis later on for other tools from Spille’s Toolbox. A Network Tree is actually a combination of a (reversed) Family Tree and of the Mind Map technology, applied to your social network. Even though there are various apps to map your social media […]
A female association asked me to write a review of ‘Creative Quest‘, written by Questlove. Yes, Questlove, founder and drummer of The Roots, the house band of various talk shows with Jimmy Fallon. I was very curious to read about his view on creativity. The Roots is a hiphop band from the 80’s with many albums. In 2009 they became famous as the house band of the TV talk show ‘Late night with Jimmy Fallon (since 2016 ‘The Tonight Show […]
For many years I’m writing about the mental challenges in the music business. I also give coaching and guest lectures. Lectures though are too long to summarize in a blog post, and coaching sessions are confidential, so I don’t write about it. When a musician was very positive recently over the tools I use in coaching, I suddenly realized, that I can share my toolbox with you, Spille’s Toolbox for a Healthy Mind in the Music Business. Many musicians and […]
Since the murder of George Floyd, no one can deny systemic racism in society anymore. But the music business is different, I still hear some white people say. They believe that in the music business it’s-all-about-music, no matter what skin-color you have. Still, various initiatives show that in the music business we have to fight systemic racism as well. What is systemic racism? Racism is dividing society for centuries. We white folks made a division between white and not-white. We […]
None of us was prepared for something like Covid-19. The essence of the live music business is to bring people together to enjoy music. Now we can’t bring people together anymore, the heart of the business is hit. First out, last in. No wonder that I see people around me becoming very impatient. We all want to be able to enjoy live shows again, hug each other, sing along with the band. Impatience is a huge force, a huge power. […]
This trilogy is about the live music business and corona. In part I you can read about 6 reasons why people in the live music business have been hit extra hard by all corona measurements. Part II was about how to get through the crisis. Part III will be about how to prepare for after-lock-down. Here again I make a difference between business in general, your own finances, and your mental condition. Business will be different than we are used […]
In my previous post I mentioned 6 reasons why people in the live music business have been hit extra hard by all corona measurements. Now I tell how to get through this crisis. The next post will be about how to prepare for after the crisis. The 6 reasons can be categorized in three categories: business, finances and mental condition. BusinessWith first in last out and by no alternative (see previous post), all concerts have been cancelled and there is […]
The live music business was the first business that was hit by the measurements to control the corona pandemic. The immediate stop of all live shows is a global situation we have to deal with. It has of course a huge financial impact too. Next to the global situation and the financial impact, there is also a mental impact with anxiety. This is extra strong for people in the live music business, as you can read below. first in, last […]
Begin of this year, very surprisingly, I was nominated as Best Power Woman of 2019. What an honor! That was my first thought. But what is a Power Woman? Why that category? The same award organization had another category: Biggest Music Man. Only after protests, more than a week later, the organizers decided to create the category Best Power Woman. In my eyes, all nominees did deserve the title of Best Power Woman. Only for myself I wasn’t that sure. […]
We all want to belong, we all want to be accepted in a group of peers. Humans are herd-animals, we depend on each other. So no wonder that we seek the acceptance of a group. That’s what makes us so strong. We can diversify and delegate our work, we can specialize in a certain thing, like music. Group pressure though can be pretty strong and rigid, excluding everyone who is different, everyone who does not want to adapt. That’s how […]
