Adam Silverman : Nashville Session and Touring Drummer

So we’ve all heard about this thing called the compliment sandwich. For a drummer it typically sounds something like this… “man that fill sounds awesome, do you think you can try something else there?” followed by the “man, that’s awesome” comment. haha. That’s what I like to the call the compliment sandwich. Oddly enough, it’s a rather effective tool that producers and band leaders make good use of. I do the same thing with my website development company. Man, I love that design, but can we add a header here? That’s perfect. Great job.

For those of you that don’t know about this idea, it’s basically a structured comment where you lead with a positive, follow with something that needs to be improved, and end with something positive. I know, it’s so standard right, but it works doesn’t it? If I tell you that you’re a beautiful person, say you have oddly shaped feet, and then end with how much I like your haircut, the hope is that you’ll only remember the positive things and forget that I insulted your feet. But it also leaves you wondering if you can do something about those horrible feet you have without hurting your feelings :)

In practice last week I realized that I was using this technique on myself, and it was actually working, even though I knew I was doing it. Basically I would start practice with warmups, pushing new tempos. Then I would go into some hand foot combinations that I already knew how to do. But from there I started pushing into areas that I’m weak, like left hand lead stuff, sight reading, Latin and Jazz grooves that are extremely difficult. Just when my confidence was in the gutter (aka, I was improving on playing), I switched gears and played some songs that I already knew how to play. Rinse. Wash. Repeat.

This is a SUPER effective way to practice drums. I mean SUPER effective, and I bet it would be effective in anything you’re trying to learn or that you’re working on at your job, in life in general, this idea can be applied. The idea here is the mask your growth phase in between things you’re already good at doing. It really honestly works so well. I have major growth as a musician each practice, but at the end I don’t feel horrible about myself, cause I ended doing something I was good at.

I know, it’s cheesy. Try it though. See how it works for you. Try it at the gym, at your office, with your family. Trust me, if you want to see results you have to go through the middle part of this sandwich, but that’s the good stuff!! Surround that with positive energy and watch yourself sky rocket!!

Once again I’ve got another topic thanks to a lot of email questions I’ve been receiving lately. So the latest question is… “now that we realize how important networking is in Nashville, how do you do it?” That is such an excellent question, and one day when I have an answer I’ll finish this post.

The truth about networking and the music business is that there is no formula, there is no way to know what one person is looking for as opposed to another, it’s a game of educated guessing. But hey, you have to start somewhere, so let me give you guys a few building blocks from my experiences and you can take them and apply them to your own situations.

1) Network with the Right People

Make sure that you’re networking with the right types of people for the gigs that you’re looking for. If you want to play Country music, don’t network in the CCM market all the time. That’s okay too, but make sure you’re hitting your target most of the time aiming for folks that know about the markets that you’re trying to get into. Also – I’ve found that though I love spending time with other drummers, they are not typically the best source for gigs. I know for me, I don’t want to give away any of the money that pays my mortgage, and neither do the big time musicians in Nashville. So you have to be careful with this one, hanging out and talking music is awesome, but trying to get them to help you find a gig is usually not going to happen. Sometimes I do look for fill-ins for gigs, but it’s extremely rare that it happens, so you’re better off networking with guys who play something you don’t play if you’re looking to get a gig out of it.

2) Be Persistent – Don’t be Annoying

Persistence and Annoyance are a very fine line, one that I know I skate a lot of times. I skate the line a lot with producers in Nashville. I want them to remember my name, know who I am, etc, but I never want to be annoying to them. I realize that they want to work with guys that they enjoy being around, so being annoying is a quick way to get out of their address book, but then again, if I’m too quiet nobody knows that I’m in town looking to play sessions. I’ve found that you do have to reach out to people that you may or may not know sometimes, but you have to do it in a very humble way. Tell them who you are, tell them what you’re doing, tell them who you’ve worked with without name dropping, and just try to approach it in a way that says I’m here if you need me.

3) Natural is always better

This is very much related to the point made above. The best relationships that I have with producers, players, engineers have all come from natural meetings. Like – I was doing a session – they were on the same session. Or we played a bar or church gig together in town and we got along really well. It’s not the typical cold call, email, or Facebook message that tends to get me the contacts, it’s usually taking the gig that pays very little for 2 hours that I wanted to turn down that I chose to take, that manage to get me the best contacts. So keep your eyes and ears open, take everything that you get asked to do. Never turn down a gig because if you’re smart you can use even the worst gigs to make some of the best contacts that you have. And guess what, when they get a call, they’ll be thinking of you.

4) Action after Response

Once you do make a valuable contact, a big next step is to respond. So say I’ve been trying for months to meet up with this producer named Brent. Brent finally emails me saying that he can grab coffee with me on Monday at 10am at starbucks. This is not where you say, oh can you do 10:30, or I hate Starbucks, let’s go to wherever else. This is the time to just say yes. Rearrange your day if you have to but don’t give him any reason to change his mind about hanging out with you, because again, this could be huge and you’ve worked so hard to get them to contact you. Count your blessings and make it happen as best as you can.

5) Attitude Wins

The final point is the biggest. Have a great attitude in emails, phone calls, facebook, twitter. Be careful not to be negative in general because that’s a sure fire way to lose contacts. Negativity is a disease in this industry, and the diseases is widespread -  be part of the solution for this anytime you can. This will make a positive impression on your new friend and make them want to work with you instead of just hanging out. Trust me, from experience, I’ve turned down work before because I couldn’t stand the attitudes of the other guys on the gig, and I’m new to all of this, so just imagine if you were around thousands of folks for 30 years, you’d be the same way! So keep it up, keep it positive, happy. Make a great and lasting impression.