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Good evening, readers!  Happy New Year to you all!  In keeping with this holiday that is so much about reflection and renewal, speculation and self-improvement, I thought it made sense to make a list of resolutions that every young musician should consider adopting.  It should be said that these wouldn’t be half bad habits for more seasoned musicians or even professionals because it’s never a bad time to pick up better habits, but I’ll try to tailor this to the student musicians.  Having taught for more years than we will ever admit (wouldn’t want you all to start guessing our ages), we have drawn no small number of conclusions about student habits, whether related to practice or performance.  So here are our “imposed” resolutions for all of you trying to climb the proverbial mountain toward musical mastery (is there even such a thing as true mastery when it comes to music?  We will save that topic for a future entry!).  Discipline must be attained in “baby steps,” so you can take your first one by simply reading on:

*Practice no matter what.  Understand that quality is infinitely more important than quantity when it comes to a practice routine.  Students often feel that if they only have ten minutes available on a certain day, there isn’t a point in bothering.  Not true at all.  What is of vital importance is the repetition of daily practice and the quality of practice with no distractions and with the intent to improve a specific technique.

*Over-prepare!  Good enough is rarely good enough.  Whether its an audition, a performance, or a proficiency exam, it is important to go beyond the status quo in terms of preparation.  Don’t do what will get you by – do what will make you unflappable.  Remember that nerves often kick in at the moment of truth and a mediocre level of preparation will be exposed in those moments.  We often tell our students that once they feel they finally have it in their grasp, that is not when practice ends, but rather when it begins!  Amateurs do it until they get it right, but professionals do it until they can’t possibly get it wrong.

*Have a plan.  The difference between a dream and a goal is that the latter comes with a plan of action.  Music can be a lot of fun, and sometimes that makes youngsters think it’s all a good time and that they will somehow tumble aimlessly into greatness, which is rarely the case.  Know what you want to accomplish, what steps you are going to take to accomplish it, and create a realistic timeline for where you are going and how you are going to get there.  It is a wise idea to have a teacher you work with regularly (but only if they’re the right teacher) because they offer not only expert instruction and training, but also and equally important, accountability.

*If you’re on time…you’re late.  So don’t be!  Get to every rehearsal, every class, every gig, every everything 10 minutes early.  In an industry where tardiness is sadly the norm, you can gain a competitive advantage over your competition simply by showing up early and being ready to go.  The other guy or girl isn’t gonna, so that is a pretty simple way to get noticed.

*Never be a borrower.  Take your materials with you.  Don’t forget them or lose them.  In fact, bring extras if you have them!  You know you need two instrument cables and one microphone cable for a school show?  Take four instrument cables and two microphone cables!  Actually while you’re at it, take your own microphone…JUST IN CASE.  Stuff happens.  Things break and stop working and a hundred other things go wrong, and we’ve lived them all!  So throw as much as you can fit into a bag and take it with you.  Bring a pencil too – always.  Don’t depend on others, but instead be the one others depend on.

*Work on what you’re bad at, not what you’re good at.  It’s human nature for us all to want to repeat the tasks that make us feel good about ourselves.  Our egos have insatiable appetites, and they want the instant gratification that accompanies success.  Failure is no fun, but it is a necessary step toward accomplishment.  Once you understand, you can begin to force yourself to do over and over that which you find difficult, even though your natural inclination might be to repeat what you already know how to do well.  It is that single fact, I believe, that keeps most of the population from becoming truly great at something.  Millions of people will say how much they wish they could play an instrument or sing proficiently, yet few can.  It is because when they had to work at doing something that starved rather than fed their egos, they packed their bags for greener pastures.  But not you!  You can choose to favor the mind over the matter, the spirit over the ego, the insight over the excuses.

I bet we could come up with a couple or fifty more resolutions to force on you, but this list should serve as a sufficient beginning for any aspiring young artist.  Bookmark this article, and refer to it as often as needed – it will serve you well.  And we wish you well…

Whether people are conforming to the conformers or unwittingly conforming to the “non-conformists,” they are still conforming.  When it comes to taste in music, it should only be about what speaks to an individual in an honest way and makes that person want to feel something, or maybe learn something – or at least hit something, break something, hold something, or love something.  Tastes in music can not only vary by artist, but can also vary song to song – I may treasure a certain recording artist or band, yet be lukewarm on certain songs they create.  My respect for the artist will not waiver, however, even if I don’t choose to listen to a song more than once or twice.  Songs are subjective, of course, and are inexorably wrapped around our life experiences, memories, and emotions.  But one thing that should never be factored in is peer pressure or someone else’s opinion about what you like or don’t like or what is or isn’t perceived as “cool.”  The coolest thing you can do in this world is be YOU and be proud of what you like or don’t like.  Now that doesn’t mean one can’t remain open-minded and have a willing spirit when it comes to exposure to new musical ideas or genres!  But at the end of the day, every song is sending its signal, as if over a specific frequency or antenna, and a person is either receiving on that frequency or they aren’t!  Sometimes it seems that every person I know is high on some song, and despite my best efforts, I cannot taste what they are tasting.  In contrast, I may also be peddling some song that I’ve recently discovered, and nobody is buying.  And that is perfectly OK!  So I loved Neil Diamond from the time I could walk and I was only kid in grade school who knew every cut he ever recorded, while all the other kids probably knew “America” if they were lucky.  I never felt the desire to please others with my musical interests.  Some people only like what is popular, which is limiting, especially when what is popular at the moment, is often without a lot of merit.  But equally limiting (and pretentious if you ask me) is only liking what isn’t popular!  Rock some indie stuff if you want – that’s great!  Found a band that nobody else knows about?  That’s fine too.  But what really matters is how a song affects you and you alone.  I despise genres!  In my fantasy world, which I live in too often perhaps, you walk into a record store and the albums are all categorized A-Z  and that’s that.  Put Mozart right there beside Moby.  Find Coltrane and Coldplay right there together.  Who cares about categories?  I don’t like labels on people, and I don’t need labels on what music I like.

The more difficult question is does one person’s superior knowledge of music entitle him or her to “pull rank” over a person who lacks musical knowledge or experience or training?  Since I have a music degree and own my own music school, am I higher on the food chain when it comes to evaluating the worth of a song?  “You only think you like that song because you don’t know any better,” says the master.  The reality is I may dismiss or devalue a song based on what I know – the beat sounds exactly like this other song, the changes are not very inventive, the vocal has too much auto-tune, not enough auto-tune, boy I wish they had used a different reverb on that snare, why if I had mixed that song, I would have scooped a half decimal off that 2K frequency, blah blah – and everything I’m saying may be true and accurate, and that may well ruin the experience for me.  But it may have absolutely no affect whatsoever on the person listening beside me.  And after I go to great lengths to explain to that person why the song is not nearly as strong as he thinks it is, he says something like, “Yeah I guess, but my dad used to play it all the time in the car, and my dad’s not around anymore, but this song reminds me of him.”  That’s sort of a mic drop moment, right?  What does the musical expert say to change his buddy’s feelings?  And why would he want to anyway?  The truth is that while I may be deeply annoyed by what I consider to be a lot of subpar content being unleashed on an ignorant, unsuspecting army of followers, I am neither the judge nor jury.  It is not my job to play Moses and free the Israelites from the Pharaoh, if you follow the overreaching analogy.  Because the simple truth is that art is not created to play to the mind, but rather the heart.  No measure of detailed analytics on a piece of music can ever stand up against a genuine emotional response, whatever that emotion or response may be.

So I ask only this from anyone reading this blog (and by the way, let’s get more people reading this blog, shall we?  Please share and join the conversation): just rock your own taste in music!  Don’t like just what the radio stations tell you to like, but don’t dismiss everything just because it’s on the radio.  Those tactics are extreme and leave no room in the middle for YOU.  There is a vast grey area where we can individually tune into our channel and receive that which we are independently tuned into.  Keep your antenna up and your curiosity alive, but don’t pretend you do or don’t like something because of someone else’s judgment of it.  I love Van Halen with all my heart.  But I also love Air Supply – there I said it.  And I don’t care for the Rolling Stones, who are considered the second greatest band by most critics, right behind the Beatles!  I don’t hate the Rolling Stones, nor would I show them or their music disrespect.  Any band that makes that much music and does it for as long as they’ve done it has my complete and total respect and admiration.  But I don’t listen to them, and I don’t feel anything from their music.  What’s wrong with me?  I don’t know, and I don’t care.  It isn’t my flaw, and it certainly isn’t theirs!  They have put out their signal over the mystical airwaves, and I am just not tuned to receive it.  And then comes the village idiot with “So you don’t like classic rock?”  Seriously?  How did we just take this leap?  Remember every band lives beyond their genre.  And every song lives beyond it’s album.  In fact, every little measure lives outside of the song which contains it!!  I think Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” is a mediocre song, but I’ll be the first to say what a beautiful pre-chorus it has (“Do you wanna play with magic…”).

Let’s start a revolution where we all just like what we like and say what we like.  Don’t be shy – step out there on that ledge and recklessly boast your preferences in front of God and country.  The songs we love are sacred.  Listen without boundaries, without judgement, and especially without worrying about what your friend might think.  Make sure the soundtrack for your life is authentic and customized just for you.  The rest is a waste of time, a grand illusion.  Hey, speaking of “Grand Illusion,” I love the band Styx too.  Yep critics are cynical about them, and I even have a few musical colleagues who give me a hard time about that.  For the life of me, I can’t figure out what they’re missing, and they it seems can’t figure out what I am getting.  Music has power that is not of this planet, and we as spiritual beings are subject to its orphic ways.  Turn off your thinking cap and just absorb.  Free yourself of stereotypes and ridiculous proclamations like, “Oh I don’t like country music.”  New rule:  there is no country music.  No rock & roll, no jazz, no classical, and no pop.  There are now just songs we like, to varying degrees perhaps, and songs we don’t.  Closing our minds to entire genre or an entire artist is to deny the opportunity to put that one special song – that one you’ve been missing and didn’t even know it – onto your life’s soundtrack.  Clear the mechanism of all the outside noise, the comments from the peanut gallery.  Nobody knows you.  Know yourself.  Nobody feeds you.  Feed yourself.  Grow in the strength of your quiet convictions.  Be brave – it’ll only hurt for a second…

Hi everyone – welcome to the brand new Honey Bee blog page!  We will be posting a variety of articles here, including editorials, news & updates, our own top 10 lists, tributes, recommendations, tricks & tips for musicians (without giving away all our juicy trade secrets for free), and so much more.  So bookmark our blog page and visit often to see the latest posts!

To kick it off, let’s honor this season of giving with a list of our top 10 Christmas recordings of all time.  And yes we know this is a debatable topic, and that is the whole point!  People will agree and people will disagree, and obviously it is a subjective list!  Everyone has his or her own connection to certain songs/versions for many different reasons defined by personal life experiences and individual aesthetic.  It should also be said that we are, for the purposes of this particular list, leaving out any choral or orchestral works, as it is difficult to compare these separate genres side by side.  So this, for what it may be worth, is our take on the best Christmas recordings EVER:

10.  Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow! (Harry Connick Jr.)

Who said big band is dead?  If it is, HCJ did not get the memo because it is alive and thriving on his 1993 album “When My Heart Finds Christmas” (has it really been nearly a quarter century!?).  There are plenty of blazing cuts on this record, but we’re going with “Let It Snow,” because from the first note to the last, this track simmers and swings.  Artists today like to talk about “making it rain” – Harry Connick Jr. makes it snow.

9.   Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree (Brenda Lee)

Is an explanation even required?  This is a true staple of the holiday music collection.  A little bit rock & roll, a little bit country, some blues, some rockabilly bounce, and a vocal that never gets tired – it just keeps belting out that infectious tune for oh…going on sixty years now!

8.   Do They Know It’s Christmas? (Band Aid)

There was no Duran Duran Christmas album, nor one by U2.  But in 1984, we would get the next best thing, an original Christmas song by a bunch of popular artists at the time, calling themselves “Band Aid” and creating an anthem for famine relief.  What no one could have foreseen is that the song has now become one of the most played and most revered holiday songs this time of year.  While vocals by the likes of Simon Le Bon, Phil Collins, Boy George, and George Michael are certainly nothing to casually dismiss, it is Bono who steals the show on this track with his impassioned delivery on the line that everybody sings at the top of their lungs after waiting patiently for it to come.  As John Cena’s character Roger admitted in the new movie Daddy’s Home 2, “I’ll listen to that song in August – I don’t care.”

7.   I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus (Jackson 5)

If you’re a performing group trying to create a recipe for success, a lead singer who is going to go on to become the single greatest showman in the history of contemporary music is a damn good place to start…even he happens to be only 12 at the time.  The writing was on the wall for Michael Jackson, who was already a confident front man (boy) for his older siblings, each of whom would have been recognized as profoundly talented were they not destined to be continually overshadowed by their  prodigious kid brother.  There may not be a better or more complete Christmas album that this by Jackson 5, which includes rousing renditions of Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph, and Up On the House Top.  Still our #7 pick is the winner hands down.  It closes out the album with nostalgic charm and wonderful humor.  The part that really tips the scale is when the four Jackson brothers sing in perfect harmony and in complete seriousness, “Tickle, tickle, Santa Claus.”

6.   Last Christmas (Wham!)

Cheesy, melodramatic, oversung, overproduced, blah blah…perhaps.  Probably.  OK yes.  But lying in my bed on Christmas Eve with the radio on, knowing the surprises that awaited me the next morning just on the other side of the wall…feeling the magnificent glow of Christmas spirit inside, but with it a layer of bittersweet, coming-of-age sensibility, then even deeper the knowledge that there were near and dear ones no longer under our roof.  Complicated, and yet somehow it was all right there – there in that cheesy, melodramatic Wham song.  And like all great songs, when I hear it today, I am back there again.  Back in that bed on that Christmas Eve, back with those feelings.

5.   Silent Night (Boys II Men)

I triple-dog-dare you (there’s another Christmas reference for you all) to sit in a dark room with only the lights from your Christmas tree and a couple of candles and play this record.  Don’t move a muscle or utter a word.  Just be spellbound.  Let its magic overwhelm you, it’s mystery transfix you.  Don’t try to solve it like a puzzle or analyze it like a map – just live in its unassuming power.  If you can do all of the above, you might find by the end that you’ve been levitating like Luke Skywalker, hovering peacefully above his rock in his quiet place.  If none of that happens, rush to the nearest emergency room and tell them you have no pulse.  Recap: dark room, Christmas lights and candles, quiet reflection…may the force be with you.

4.   I’ll Be Home For Christmas (Elvis Presley)

When Judy Garland told us, “There’s no place like home,” we believed her.  Because we all know the truth when we hear it, and we all want to go home at journey’s end.  College students want to be home for the holidays.  Soldiers dream of coming home from war and being home with their families during the season.  Divorced dads often long to be back with the ones they love, peeking in on the children they regrettably left behind, as visions of sugarplums dance in their heads.  No matter how dark or wet or cold or dreary the world gets or how much disappointment, loss, or heartbreak we have endured along the way, this 1950s classic offers us the only thing we want or need – a way home.  Sadly, the sting of reality hits on the final line of the refrain when we discover that it’s all a fantasy.  He isn’t coming home.  She isn’t either.  And neither are we.  But what an intoxicating dream it is, while it lasts.  It’s not so bad though – being at home lasts around eighteen years for most of us, but dreaming of home?  Oh, that’s forever.

3.   The Christmas Song (Nat King Cole)

Although written in 1945, it is this 1961 recording that is the definitive culmination of the work.  Aptly titled, it is truly THE Christmas Song.  No melody or harmony instantly summons the ghosts of Christmases past like this one.  Its luxurious string arrangement coupled with a vocal that seems to literally drip with honey make it a real gem, a national treasure.  We don’t need to “see if reindeer really know how to fly.”  We know they do!  The art of restraint is evident and on display here – never too much, and never too soon.  No, they don’t make them like this anymore…not sure they ever did.

2.   White Christmas (Bing Crosby)

Did any crooner ever croon like Bing?  Let’s not quibble over that now – perhaps that could be a subject for a future blog!  For now, let’s keep an eye on the weather…because if there is precipitation in the forecast…and maybe just maybe the temp drops below 32 degrees, then could it…but wait, the ground has to be even colder and for longer, but if we pray really hard, maybe we’ll wake up and look out the window, and…and… Maybe it’s growing up in Georgia that makes that fine white powder so exotic, but we’d have gladly traded a working limb or a family member for a half-inch of snow.  That glorious blanket covers our world with hope and restores our faith in magic, in God.  Now you sprinkle that kind of pixie dust on Christmas Day, the most wonderful day of the year, and you have an explosion of fulfillment, a level of joy that’s almost decadent.  Sure, up north you have a better than average chance of getting snow on the 25th of December.  But down in the dirty south, it’s gold.  For us, it’s more than a song – it’s a promise – a wish that we keep waiting to come true.  And when it finally does, we lose ourselves in its absolute glory until it melts away (usually by noon the same day).  Then once again we hope, we pray, we wait.

1.   Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas (Carpenters)

Our top spot is reserved for perhaps one of the more underrated duos of the last century.  Richard’s palpable genius as musician and arranger combined with Karen’s other-worldly tone and vocal style create the breathtaking sonic experience that is The Carpenters.  I’m always surprised by their somewhat less than legendary status, given their spectacular body of work.  This dog may not have sharp teeth, but it can still bite.  And this record definitely leaves a mark.  In spite of the sentimentality of the lyric, there is a melancholy, haunting undertone to this track that belies it.  Nothing dark or brooding, just an unfulfilled longing, a hole that cannot be filled with tinsel, garland, or mistletoe.  I picture walking into a party from the cold outside, when someone takes my snow-speckled winter coat from me and hands me a glass of egg nog with a splash of Captain Morgan’s Spiced Rum.  I start to work the room, talking to all the nameless, faceless red sweaters that interrupt my path toward the empty chair in the corner of the room.  And in that loud, cheery room full of people, I remain – for better and for worse – utterly alone.  That’s not really my story, but I’ve felt that way at times.  I get the funny feeling when I listen to this intoxicating record that maybe Karen felt that way a lot of the time.  And now, from the other side, she is still telling us all about it.

Honorable Mentions:

Please Come Home For Christmas (Eagles)

The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don’t Be Late) (The Chipmunks)

Grownup Christmas List (Amy Grant)

Blue Christmas (Elvis Presley)

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas (Johnny Mathis)

Where Are You, Christmas? (Faith Hill)