MAYA means Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. A term coined by the legendary father of industrial design, Raymond Loewy. Major changes in any industry, even music, do not happen unless there is “something familiar yet surprising” in the mix. Consider Eddie Van Halen who just passed away. He is credited with being one of the most influential guitarists of the modern era, if not of all time. His music was familiar yet surprising. How can we implement that into our own music?
My band, The Regeneration Jazz Band, loves to play challenging bebop selections with lots of good opportunities to solo. However, we have struggled with the need to play more familiar swing tunes as that is what our audiences tend to favor. The more challenging stuff gets great reactions but too much and the audience becomes detached. It becomes “music for musicians” and we will get requests for more familiar selections.
Back in the day when I was in a heavy metal band, we had a few originals that were really quite good and crowds seemed to like them. They would sing along or yell out the chorus when prompted. However, the clubs wanted cover bands. Why? Because people want to hear the familiar. Consequently, they would fill a club and buy alcohol. Wedding bands make a living playing the familiar old songs. Take a look into the history of just about any successful band and you will see they started with covers:
Van Halen – You Really Got Me, first album
Beatles – almost all covers before their first album.
Chicago – covers until they left town to record their first album.
We love the originals but they all had to survive on the familiar until something happened to break them out. Still, covers were employed on many of their first albums to bridge the gap.
MAYA in the Style
So, you have forged a new style. Progressive music has been struggling for years and has yet to make a significant dent into the American market. Why is that? With a very few exceptions like Yes, progressive music remains mostly a fringe style with small audiences in the U.S. My understanding is that it gets more attention in Europe.
The American music scene tends to be dominated by blues-based music. When you delve into the roots of the blues, it is firmly rooted in the states. When the British invasion got rolling with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck (all spent time in blues bands in the U.K.), they all state their main influences being American Blues artists. Even the Beatles couldn’t help but cover blues-based music from the U.S.
How do you get popular in American guitar music? Play something bluesy in addition to your new thing.
Breaking Free
What about all of those groundbreakers that have changed course of guitar history? Boston is one example that seemed to blast out of nowhere with their debut album of completely original music. They still used something familiar even though it really did go in a different direction than the prevailing music market of the time. There are blues licks all over their music – the familiar.
In a previous post about how to Break Old Habits, I mention the pentatonic scale and how to break out of that. It can become a worn out pattern that you go to simply out of habit. Add something, anything! A note or a beat or dramatically change the tone. A common move I make is to set a song in a different style to change it up. Ideas begin to flow as the style suggests alternative ways to hear the same old phrases.
The key is to anchor your new stuff in something familiar. People latch on to that and become more accepting of the unfamiliar thing you are introducing. Even if you are experimenting with a new take on an old stand-by, couch it in the familiar – set between two common songs, for example. Quoting a familiar melody in the middle of your solo, a typical jazz technique, reacquaints listeners and draws them back in to your original or your more obscure cover song (i.e. deep album cut).
Learn a trick from ol’ Raymond Loewy and MAYA in industrial design to make your music resonate with your audience!
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MAYA: How To Go To the Edge Without Going Over
MAYA means Most Advanced Yet Acceptable. A term coined by the legendary father of industrial design, Raymond Loewy. Major changes in any industry, even music, do not happen unless there is “something familiar yet surprising” in the mix. Consider Eddie Van Halen who just passed away. He is credited with being one of the most influential guitarists of the modern era, if not of all time. His music was familiar yet surprising. How can we implement that into our own music?
The Balance of MAYA
My band, The Regeneration Jazz Band, loves to play challenging bebop selections with lots of good opportunities to solo. However, we have struggled with the need to play more familiar swing tunes as that is what our audiences tend to favor. The more challenging stuff gets great reactions but too much and the audience becomes detached. It becomes “music for musicians” and we will get requests for more familiar selections.
Back in the day when I was in a heavy metal band, we had a few originals that were really quite good and crowds seemed to like them. They would sing along or yell out the chorus when prompted. However, the clubs wanted cover bands. Why? Because people want to hear the familiar. Consequently, they would fill a club and buy alcohol. Wedding bands make a living playing the familiar old songs. Take a look into the history of just about any successful band and you will see they started with covers:
We love the originals but they all had to survive on the familiar until something happened to break them out. Still, covers were employed on many of their first albums to bridge the gap.
MAYA in the Style
So, you have forged a new style. Progressive music has been struggling for years and has yet to make a significant dent into the American market. Why is that? With a very few exceptions like Yes, progressive music remains mostly a fringe style with small audiences in the U.S. My understanding is that it gets more attention in Europe.
The American music scene tends to be dominated by blues-based music. When you delve into the roots of the blues, it is firmly rooted in the states. When the British invasion got rolling with Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck (all spent time in blues bands in the U.K.), they all state their main influences being American Blues artists. Even the Beatles couldn’t help but cover blues-based music from the U.S.
How do you get popular in American guitar music? Play something bluesy in addition to your new thing.
Breaking Free
What about all of those groundbreakers that have changed course of guitar history? Boston is one example that seemed to blast out of nowhere with their debut album of completely original music. They still used something familiar even though it really did go in a different direction than the prevailing music market of the time. There are blues licks all over their music – the familiar.
In a previous post about how to Break Old Habits, I mention the pentatonic scale and how to break out of that. It can become a worn out pattern that you go to simply out of habit. Add something, anything! A note or a beat or dramatically change the tone. A common move I make is to set a song in a different style to change it up. Ideas begin to flow as the style suggests alternative ways to hear the same old phrases.
The key is to anchor your new stuff in something familiar. People latch on to that and become more accepting of the unfamiliar thing you are introducing. Even if you are experimenting with a new take on an old stand-by, couch it in the familiar – set between two common songs, for example. Quoting a familiar melody in the middle of your solo, a typical jazz technique, reacquaints listeners and draws them back in to your original or your more obscure cover song (i.e. deep album cut).
Learn a trick from ol’ Raymond Loewy and MAYA in industrial design to make your music resonate with your audience!
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