Blog Challenge - Week 2

So this week's chapter in the book "Music Success in 9 weeks" is about creating the perfect pitch. In my case, I think it would be a good idea to establish a pitch for both my quartet, and also my own playing.

Funny thing happened this morning. As you may or may not know, I'm currently on tour with my quartet, traveling across Canada. I was doing an interview this morning with a journalist in Kamloops in advance of our gig there this upcoming Saturday. The interview was going great, and towards the end, she asked me to describe my band and our music. This would have been a perfect time to unleash my "pitch." Unfortunately, as I've been on tour I've had a difficult time working on my pitch. SO, when she asked me for my description I was pretty stumped. I fell back on the..."well...we play modern jazz, mostly originals...it's a quartet." Finally I said "we are along the tradition of the Miles Davis quintet of the 60's." Suddenly, she knew exactly what I was talking about.

Now, I'm not really sure my quartet is exactly like the Miles quintet from the 60's...but it gave her (the journalist) an comparison, and she felt she had a much clearer idea of what we're about. Now, I just need to work on my pitch to make it fit the quartet a little more. Maybe something about how we swing like Miles' quintet playing original jazz compositions in the style of Dave Douglas and Kurt Rosenwinkel's bands.

Anyways, I've learned firsthand already that a pitch is a very useful tool. I'll let you know when I come up with something....I gots some work to do!