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    And The Band Broke Up
    And The Band Broke Up
    And The Band Broke Up
    Ebook156 pages1 hour

    And The Band Broke Up

    By Matt Kramer

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    About this ebook

    Why should you read this book? To overcome the fact that we are not taught a common language for handling conflict. The result is the break-up of bands, abandonment of music projects, and loss of great art. This book will help you, artists and business people alike, spend less time being frustrated and more time being creative, artistic, and in harmony with everyone you work with in your career.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMatt Kramer
    Release dateNov 11, 2010
    ISBN9781452443645
    And The Band Broke Up
    Author

    Matt Kramer

    Matt Kramer is one of the world's most distinguished and insightful writers on wine and writer of the classic book Making Sense of Wine. The multi-published author is also a regular contributor to Wine Spectator.

    Read more from Matt Kramer

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      Book preview

      And The Band Broke Up - Matt Kramer

      What others are saying about

      And The Band Broke Up

      Music is only as good as the relationship of the music makers. This is a terrific guide to creating harmony.

      –Phil Everly

      A down-to-earth and readable primer about how conflicts come about, serve as learning opportunities and can be productively resolved. Focuses on conflicts common to the music business and is also a valuable resource for anyone whose personal and work relationships get off-key at times. Offers helpful suggestions and exercises to enhance important human relationships. Kramer and Yahm provide wisdom, guidance and inspiration for handling interpersonal conflict more effectively.

      –Anne C. Richards, Ed.D.,

      Professor Emerita, Department of Psychology,

      University of West Georgia.

      *****

      AND THE BAND BROKE UP

      How To Manage Conflict In The Music Business

      Matt Kramer

      Stuart Yahm

      Copyright © 2010 by Matt Kramer and Stuart Yahm

      All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the authors, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review; nor may any part of this book be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or other, without permission from the authors.

      Published by Smashwords

      Formatted for Smashwords by Jennifer-Crystal Johnson and Lauree Wilkerson

      Smashwords Edition, License Notes

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

      Illustrations by Charlene Perry-Dohmann (hard copy only)

      Book Design by Lee Perry

      Cover Design by Dennis McGregor

      *****

      In this country we teach a common language for math, biology, history, music and many other subjects. We do not teach a common language for effective communication skills and problem solving skills. The lack of a common language contributes to a number of negative factors impacting the quality of our life such as divorce, the crime rate and alienation in general in our society. In the music arena, lack of a common language contributes to the break-up of bands, the abandonment of music projects, and the loss of great art.

      *****

      Acknowledgements

      Dedicated to those who work in all arenas of the music industry, especially you who exhibit the courage and heroism necessary just to be able to walk up on a stage with brand new music and face rejection time and time again.

      We gratefully thank our friends and family for their time, input, patience, and willingness to share in many wonderful conversations. The authors would also like to thank Camille Yahm and Treya Palmer for their encouragement, their generosity of spirit, and their midnight meals.

      We would like to especially thank Ken Cloke and Joan Goldsmith, Robin Goodrow, Janet Lent and Ethan Lipton, Joan Levinson, Ruth Ralph, Sascha Schneider and Laurie Zemelman –Schneider, Barb North, Bill Hobbs, Mary Spring and Rosemary Lalli of Voluntary Mediation Services, Linda Taylor, Ari Tuckman, Peter White, and Roni and Stan Zwerling.

      *****

      Prologue

      It was late at night and having just finished a very well received performance, Stuart and his band were driving to the next date 4 or 5 hours away. Everyone was in a great mood. As a tape of an obscure African band beat a hypnotic rhythm in the background, the guys in the band began telling war stories about their previous bands. Some stories were hilarious; some were tragic. Credits, rehearsals, wives and girlfriends, relations with their record company, disputes with an agent, getting paid from the promoter, and a host of others including the ones that ended in fist fights. At some point, it became obvious to everyone that all the stories ended with the tag line, And so the band broke up. Everyone thought this was hilarious but in hindsight it is apparent that these stories portrayed a microcosm of the music industry as a whole. Not one of those stories had a positive ending, not one ended with a satisfactory resolution leading to a better understanding and a more productive future. If they had this book back then, how many of those bands might have gone on to more fulfilling careers?

      *****

      Table of Contents

      Part One – The Problems

      An Invitation

      Conflict List

      Preparation – Before You Ask the Questions

      What is Mediation?

      Suggested Exercises

      Part Two – How Do You Handle Conflict?

      Early Sightings of Conflict

      The Questions

      Working with the Questions

      Attractions versus Reservations

      The First Major Tool – Empathy

      The Second Major Tool – Resistance

      How Do You Respond To Stress And Conflict?

      How Do You Handle Money?

      Integrating Family and Career

      Employment Issues

      Religious, Political, Cultural and Social Issues

      Gender Issues

      Travel and Transportation

      Personal Habits and Appearance

      Miscellaneous Questions and Issues

      Part Three – Problem Solving

      Meeting the Challenge

      Communication – Tools and Observations

      The Third Major Tool – Active Listening

      I Messages

      Paranoid Fantasies

      Constructive Self-Criticism

      Non-Judgmental Communication

      Understanding and Handling Anger

      Ken Cloke on Anger

      Ken Cloke on Forgiveness

      Part Four – The Opportunities of Conflict

      Why a Mediator?

      War Stories

      Mediation Saved the Song

      Henrietta’s Story

      Guest List Follies

      Matt and the Stretch Limo

      Henrietta’s Story from New Orleans

      It Could’ve Been Otherwise

      Miriam’s Story – The Gift of Conflict

      Epilogue

      Post-Script Out-Takes

      About the Authors

      *****

      Welcome to the Conversation

      Stuart Yahm and Matt Kramer

      *****

      PART ONE

      The Problems

      *****

      An Invitation:

      Transform Conflict into Opportunity

      Those of you who are or have been married may remember saying, prior to your marriage, something along the lines of, Don’t worry, after we get married, we’ll work things out. Sometimes what happened was that you got married and your lawyers worked it out. In recording sessions, in which you didn’t get the sound or the performance exactly as you envisioned, a producer or engineer said, Don’t worry, we’ll fix it in the mix.

      However, if it didn’t get fixed in the mix there was no option for divorce, you were married to that clam forever.

      Relationships of all kinds are like jazz bands, constantly changing, improvising, and either moving forward or being stuck playing the same old riffs.

      In successful jazz groups musicians are listening deeply to each other – to hear what the other musicians have to say and to contribute their own voice in harmony with the others; the result is that the music reaches its fullest expression. In successful relationships we help each other in the same way.

      The purpose of this book is to allow you, artists and business people alike, to spend less time being stressed and frustrated and more time being creative, artistic, fully expressive, and in harmony with everyone you work with in your music career.

      Unresolved, poorly handled, and all too predictable conflicts affect people in two major areas: personal relationships and business negotiations. While a portion of this book addresses certain aspects of negotiation, most of the book deals with working relationships, our day-to-day interactions and the underlying factors that affect the ways in which we relate to each other, especially when dealing with the inevitable and inescapable issues of conflict.

      The information contained in this book is applicable to anyone working in any area of the music industry. In the interest of clarity, however, most of the focus will be directed toward working musicians. The information and underlying principals apply to anybody and everybody working in the industry. If you work or perform in the music industry or any other artistic medium, we are talking to you.

      In the music business, we usually associate negotiation with the contracts used in record and publishing deals, club and concert dates, manager/ agent relationships, and band partnerships. While these contracts are critically important, there are other negotiations that go on continuously between the people who work together. Some of these negotiations happen openly in our daily interactions and are easily resolved. Sometimes a conflict is resolved silently in the way that we go along to get along by not responding to that conflict.

      Those of you who often accommodate others silently – as when you back away from an issue that could turn into an argument – know exactly what we are writing about here. Those of you who have been the beneficiary of such accommodating behavior from others may never know that it has happened – or may not be aware that it is constantly happening.

      When people agree to take responsibility for their own feelings, collaboration becomes attractive, more effective and less vulnerable to the destructive side of conflict. The tools and skills in this book will help you create more effective and satisfying working relationships by showing you how to gain respect for your needs and feelings while acknowledging the needs and feelings of others. These insights will also help you recognize those times when the conflict requires a neutral facilitator, an unbiased third party such as a mediator, to help bring it to a satisfactory resolution.

      Many artists form relationships before they have fully expressed their needs and their expectations of

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