10 Lessons For Musicians From The Lego Movie

10 Lessons For Musicians From The Lego Movie

This past weekend I saw the Lego Movie. It’s a fun movie – more than just a 90 minute commercial, as FastCompany wrote, (really, I promise). Now, I rarely go to see movies, so it’s even rarer that I actually like one.

Will Ferrell has a great (non-animated) role, and Morgan Freeman shows off his considerable deadpan and off-the-wall comedic skills. Is there anything Morgan Freeman doesn’t narrate these days? If you’ve never heard him narrate his own life, I’ve embedded it below. It’s hilarious. But let’s get back to the movie.

I think in all honesty, the Lego Movie’s target audience is GenY parents and Baby Boomer grandparents more than children. I wouldn’t be surprised if the movie creates a boom in adult Lego construction. If you’ve read anything about Lego recently, though, they have been amazingly astute at marketing their products in the past ten years. They didn’t exactly need the movie to sell their products.

The movie is packed full of sly inside jokes and life lessons. I thought I would pluck just a few and write them down, trying not to spoil the movie for you, in case you haven’t seen it:

  1. Encourage creativity in yourself and others. Be patient. Like Vitruvius was with Emmet.
  2. Sometimes an empty mind can be the most fertile place for ideas to appear. Also, like Vitruvius said.
  3. Stay flexible so you can adapt to change on the ground. Keep moving forward even when you don’t know what’s going on. Like Emmet did.
  4. Sometimes a little anger accomplishes a lot. You don’t have to be happy all the time. Like Unikitty.
  5. Be yourself. Don’t try to be someone else just because you think it’s cool. You’ll10 Lessons For Musicians From The Lego Movie attract the wrong kind of people. Like Wyld Style (AKA Lucy).
  6. Teamwork and collaboration can build things no individual can. Like Emmet showed the team.
  7. Sometimes the most mundane idea can save the day. Like the double-decker couch.
  8. Maybe someone who is standing in your way just needs a little encouragement and love. Like Mr. Business.
  9. Even the most ordinary creator is special. You just have to believe in yourself. Like the cat poster said.
  10. The prophecy is just made up. You make your own destiny. Like Morgan Freeman (AKA Vitruvius) said.

I think this is the shortest blog post I’ve written in quite a while. Perhaps there’s a lesson in there for me, too…

Would love to hear your thoughts, comments, rebuttals – as always, please leave a comment below.

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30 Lessons About Living From A Wise Woman

It’s Sunday, and usually Sunday is my day to spend with my mother. I take her swimming at the pool or lake and then back to my house for lunch in my kitchen, a visit with her grandchildren and a few ball-throws with my dog, Lucy. It’s been a tradition for the past three years, since my mom moved out here to Seattle from her home in New Jersey after living alone for 35 years.

Today, I am writing about my mom instead in being with her in person. Yesterday, she passed away peacefully at our local hospice center, ten days after suffering a massive stroke. Within a few days of her stroke, she had lost the ability to talk, open her eyes much, or move her limbs or her body. She had not eaten or drunk anything since being admitted to the hospital. She was diagnosed a little over a year ago with congestive heart failure, and she had a number of other ailments common to 81-year-olds (arthritis, memory loss). With three hospitalizations in 18 months, we had all seen this coming for a while.

Maria at the LakeMy mom had been very clear over the years with me and my sister that she was horrified by the idea of having to live in a nursing home, unable to walk. Certainly the idea of being unable to eat by herself, move much at all, unable to communicate with others, was the stuff of my mother’s nightmares. She was a woman who swam laps in the gym pool four days before her stroke. She had been a long time supporter of the group Compassion and Choices, and was thrilled when our state passed the Death With Dignity act in 2008, just before she moved out here. So her passing relatively quickly was both a sorrow and a relief.

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Thank You and Happy Holidays To Teachers Everywhere

DowntownCommunitySchool1968Subject: Re: Happy Holidays and Thank YOU!!!
Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2012 08:36:06 -0800

Happy Holidays to you, too. Thank you for doing such a great job with my son. Despite his challenges with attention, I think he is doing really well in your classroom. I am so grateful for your efforts to see who he is,  as I know you do for every one of your students.

I also just wanted to say that I know the Connecticut shooting has been especially difficult for those of us who both have young children and know the sacrifices teaching requires. Many of my friends who are new to teaching were quite shaken by it.

I have experienced first hand, in my student teaching, how much teachers come to care for all the kids in their classroom. It’s not like we plan it – it just happens because we are human, we are empathetic. Teachers are in the profession because of who they are – good people who like children and choose to make a positive difference in the world.

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An Interview With… Me.

Play It Loud Music Podcast Aaron BethuneI am so pleased to post this podcast interview of me by my friend Aaron Bethune of PlayItLoudMusic.com. Yes, Aaron interviewed me (not the other way around) this time.

Aaron is the founder of Play It Loud Music, a boutique management and booking agency run by a tight knit team of industry specialists and musicians. They have an extensive music licensing catalog, and they also offer an “a la carte” menu of services including marketing and branding to artists, labels, producers, studios, and businesses looking for a creative edge.

I met Aaron through Twitter (an example of just how amazing social media can be at bringing people together), and we hit it off right away. Last week, he asked (perhaps a bit innocently) if he could interview me. Frankly, I was flattered, because Aaron interviews some of the most influential people in the music industry, people like author and music licensing guru Sarah Gavigan, branding expert Marty Neumeier, music supervisor and journalist David Weiss and many others on his blog and podcast, Above the Noise. I hope you enjoy it. Aaron and I talk about my past life as a technology marketer, and what I’ve learned about the similarities between the music and software industries. Please feel free to comment on the interview, I’d love to hear what you think.

Above The Noise Music Industry Podcast with Recording Artist & Software Developer Solveig Whittle

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