I Don’t Understand You.

Hey, what's up gigging pros! It's Jared Judge. Welcome to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. I'm on my way to yet another venue tour, because it's all part of my Gig Vault strategy. And it's working. This one is even less convenient than the one that I mentioned the other day, the other podcast episode, I mentioned that I was going to one that was 40 minutes away. Well, this one is an hour away. But the good news is actually have two in the same town, which they're both would have been an hour away from my, my apartment. But I'm doing them back to back, which saves me two hours an hour round trip. So I'm excited about that. I actually played at this venue. Do you remember that gig that I talked about when I played for another quartet here in Denver, it was, I think, my first wedding gig in Denver. And it was actually at this venue, which the funny thing is I had this tour scheduled before the wedding. But when you're at somebody else's gig, it is totally inappropriate to market your own thing. But guess what, I'm not at my own gig, or I'm not at their gig right now I'm on my, my way to do my own venue tours. So I'm going to market the crap out of myself. So that's where I'm going right now. It's Villa Parker. It's in the town of Parker, which is the southeast corner of Denver. very inconvenient to get to. But as I mentioned before, being exceptional, is not convenient. You know, Michael Jordan, I just finished the Michael Jordan series on Netflix, which is the last dance. And none of his life looks very convenient to me. You know, he started playing basketball in the 80s or whatever. And his his life was never convenient, yet he was the best in the world. And I think, you know, there's a correlation there. How much inconvenience and pain are you willing to tolerate, to get to the top, and that the people who can tolerate more pain and more, more work, who can who can outwork the others, I think will reap the rewards that others can only dream of. Now, I wanted to actually chat, I have two things that I want to make podcast episodes about on this long drive. So we're going to start with the first one, and then I'll do another episode, which will come out a little bit later. The first one, I want to talk about the importance of clear communication. So I get a lot of emails all the time from musicians, for people who want to hire me from everybody. And can mean that the clarity of their communication just varies on so many levels. Some people are extremely clear with what they want, and their communication is very precise. And then a lot of other people are less clear. They're more vague about what they actually want. And as a result, it is frustrating, and inconvenient that to use that word again, for me to try to figure out what they want, I eventually feel like sometimes I have to be a mind reader to guess what they want. And that makes life very tough on the receiving end of these communications. You know, for example, if I were saying it was like, a couple getting married, and I wanted to hire a violinist, if that violinist reply to me, with very vague communication, didn't exactly respond to my questions, but kind of went a roundabout way of doing it. Maybe they thought they were being artistic about their communication. Me as the person who has the money who can give to them to fund their music career, that would be a very frustrating experience. I'd be like, What is this person actually trying to say? Can they pay for my event or not? How much do they charge? And if I can't figure that out, based on their email, or the the phone call that I had with them, I would most likely not want to hire them and not even based on their musical ability, but based on their ability to communicate with me. Because if they're bad communicators as well, how am I going to be reassured that I'm going to get what I actually want? And that's it's pretty tough being on the receiving end of poor communication. In fact, I just thought of an example that I wanted to share. Oh, yeah. So back when I was in grad school, I got I had the privilege to audition for the US Air Force Band. I've talked about this a couple of times. And so I was in the final round of the audition process for the Air Force band to become one of the conductors for the Air Force. And so as part of the final round, they actually flew me out to Washington DC. I got to go on the I forget which Air Force Base It was now I got to spend a couple of years I'm getting old. So I've got to go in the Air Force Base. It was one of the joint bases with I think in the Navy as well, and army as well. And then it was not Fort Myers by the way. It was the the other one that's in town. So I got to go to the band, building the woods, they have their own building for the Air Force band, I got to conduct the actual Air Force band, the top level best to the best musicians in the Air Force, which it was such an honor a thrill, a privilege. And I get up there on the podium as their potential conductor and I have to conduct them in some some pieces. And then I got to rehearse and work with them a little bit. And so I've worked with them a tiny bit. And this band is incredible. They didn't need much from me to make it sound amazing. Although they they did not swing when we had to play fascinating rhythm. So I had to ask them to swing it. But we were where we were rehearsing this piece, I think it was else's procession of the cathedral by vogner, beautiful piece, if you haven't listened to it, check it out, Spotify, YouTube, and I had to rehearse them a little bit. And I started to, you know, verbally ask them to make some changes. And the way I was doing it with was with imprecise communication, I think I was using analogies to try to get them to sound more like a feather or whatever, something florally and, and that kind of vein, and the Air Force band conducted the current one, I think he was the colonel. And key, he stopped me. And he said, This is the Air Force band. This is the highest level band in the Air Force. They don't need metaphors and analogies. They need simple, clear communication, they need the following. Should they play faster? or slower? Should they play louder? Or softer? Tell them exactly what they need. And they will give it exactly that back to you. And that was a huge learning moment for me because like, I thought I was being artistic and effective with my my analogy. And coming from the top level of the Air Force musical program telling me like, dude, be clear in your communication. It's like, Oh, you're right. And from that moment forward, I strove to be more clear in my communication in what I asked of people. And you know, I've also had to learn that lesson the hard way, with my wife sometimes, where you know, she'll ask me a question. And I will maybe go give a roundabout answer that doesn't actually answer the question. And she'll call me out on it saying you didn't answer my question. Like, you're right. I didn't, I'm sorry. And then I'll go and give her a clear, direct, faster, slower, louder, softer, clear answer, like the Air Force Colonel asked me to give his band, which what a powerful lesson. So my suggestion to you is, are you clear in your communication? Are you as clear as you possibly can be, I'm not saying you have to be dry and robotic, because nobody really wants that. But your purpose has to be clear for your communication, your desired outcome for your communication has to be clear. And as a result, you will get better feedback from other people as a result of your superior communication skills. This is everything is all interconnected. So you know, my clear communication for you is please be more clear with your communication. Not that you've ever emailed me directly. But I'm sure you guys, since you're my listeners, you're probably already really good at this. But this all is interconnected. I've done podcast episodes where I talk about chatGPT you know, that AI platform that helps you write your amazing website text or you write responses to emails, and some people have complained to me that they don't get good output from chatGPT like chatGPT just gives them vague generic type output that they're not happy with. And then I asked them, well, where are you clear in your communication with ChatGPT? Did you tell it exactly what you wanted. And they'll share the prompts that they gave it. And I can see that they're not very clear. And as a result, they get exactly what they what they put in, which is unclear output. Unclear input makes unclear output. So it's all interconnected. So I would suggest to you be conscious of the clarity of your communication. Don't beat around any bushes, especially in situations where like you're asking people to pay you if you're not clear about your parameters surrounding a paid gig, while your payment won't be clear. If you don't have a contract that clearly dictates the time venue pay and the terms of your your performance, well then you're not guaranteed to get the terms that you required. So that is my lesson for this episode. I looks like I don't have time to work. chord this next episode on the way to the venue tour, so I will have to record it later. But I hope that this was helpful. I hope this was clear in my communication and what my suggestions are for you. And yeah, I think you will get a better result in your life, the clearer you are with your communication. So thanks for taking a peek into this world of clear communication. By the way, I am hosting a masterclass on how to book the high-end gigs I'm announcing this masterclass, I will be doing it next week and I'll probably do an every single week. So if you're interested in checking out this masterclass, it's about an hour long it'll teach you exactly how to get an unlimited stream of high paying high quality event leads, so that you can book them and keep more of the money that you earn. Check it out. It is at FulltimeMusicAcademy.com/gig-vault-masterclass. There are dashes between gig vault masterclass. So FulltimeMusicAcademy.com/gig-vault-masterclass And yeah, I'll show you the way so check that out. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of The Gigging Musician Podcast. Remember, "Your music will not market itself!". Take care everybody, bye.