audience

Get better in what you are good at – because it’s fun!

Get better in what you are good at already. That’s the motto of one of the big Dutch all-round speed-skate champions Gianni Romme. He’s a successful speed-skate trainer now. If you are not Dutch, you probably didn’t notice. Last weekend were the World Championships in all-round speed skating in Berlin. With speed-skating, the skaters compete in pairs in an oval of 400 m. dressed in tight jump-suits. All-round speed-skating means, that it’s about the overall winner in 4 distances. For […]

Authenticity: plan A and plan B

Last night I went to the city theater to hear the Dutch comedian Daniel Arends talking about plan A and plan B. Plan A is who you are. You can grow in who you are, but you can’t really change it. Plan B is how you appear to others. You are authentic when you appear as who you are. Often we want to appear different than who we are. Many musicians are shy but want to appear spontaneous and confident. […]

Seducing the audience

There are many ways to seduce someone. My Dutch friends on Facebook talk about it, because Julien Blanc is planning to visit the Netherlands. He teaches men to seduce women by overpowering and dominating them. Men pay thousands of dollars to him to learn  that they have to force the face of a women to their dick.  Various countries have banned Blanc and in the Netherlands we have a petition to politicians to ban him too. I’m against his methods, […]

Get the audience you want

As musician you want your music to be heard, you want to reach an audience. In the past, the best tool was to record your music and sell it, and than get played on the radio.  Booking a tour was a tool to sell more albums. You needed an expensive studio to record your music, labels and distributors to distribute it throughout the country and record shops to sell it. The infrastructure is still in place, though the situation has […]

Creative or commercial success – a paradox? 4

Traditionally, many artists think that you can’t have both, creative success and commercial success. You can only be really creative, if you don’t give a damn about commerce. And if you do want to become rich, you make so many compromises that you can’t call yourself creative anymore. A thought that is doing quite well recently in business theories, is that if you show your true self  and if you discover your unique talents, that commercial success will come to […]

Prince, photos and the clash of expectations

Last Sunday Prince played two surprise shows at Paradiso in Amsterdam. It started with a fuss about the high ticket prices. Still, the shows were sold out within no time. It was a unique opportunity for fans to see their idol in such an intimate setting. I wasn’t there. On Monday I read in the papers about what I call a clash of expectations. First let’s take Prince. He’s a star, used to be a public figure and having very […]