Lessons from Jamming with the Band

Receiving feedback and acting on it is an important life skill. Read on about the story of one band and how they did it…

So recently we were to perform at a show and at the pre-concert review a week before, we received some fairly ‘harsh’ feedback, which was hard to digest!

Needless to say, the mood in the green room was gloomy. We thought the performance — though not spectacular — had been pretty decent and did not warrant such a ‘tough’ review.

If you remember a time when you were blind-sided by ‘negative’ feedback and you didn’t know where it was coming from…that’s exactly where we were!

So, when the bassist turned to us and said “Guys we can make some changes and get the act together”, the rest of us agreed because we really wanted to put up a great show. We tried a few things, some of which thankfully worked…

Sheila Heen in her book ‘Thanks for the Feedback’ talks about making the shift in mindset from ‘Wrong spotting’ to ‘Difference Spotting’. Instead of looking for what’s wrong about the feedback, she suggests that we seek to understand the reasons for the differing perspectives.

Questions such as “How come we are seeing this differently? What data do you have that I don’t?” are some great examples of Difference-spotting.

So at the review, we really listened to what our mentor said, without getting angry or defensive. We looked at the video many times and got a little more understanding of what was meant by ‘that horrendous bridge’ or ‘the rhythm being off in the outro’.

2. Actively seeking others’ feedback

Individuals who actively seek feedback enjoy faster growth in their careers and warmer relations with people in their lives. Seeking feedback also helps reduce the size of that blind-spot as well as avoiding relationship snafus and year-end appraisal surprises!

And so, seek feedback we did…getting fellow musicians, friends and pretty much anybody to come in, listen to our song and asking them “hey, what do you think?” We were really keen to get different perspectives on each one’s musical experience!

3. Reflecting on ourselves

Sometimes with a lot of feedback coming in from different sources, it’s also important to be grounded in the knowledge of oneself in terms of strengths, weaknesses, values, attitude and behaviours. This is helpful in analyzing which and how much of the feedback needs to be acted on.

So post watching the video, we sat down together to list down the good parts and the not-so-good parts about our song, our strengths as a band and what aspects needed to be improved on. Kind of like a balanced, middle-ground so to speak.

4. Acting on suggestions

OK, so we knew the rap portion in the bridge really didn’t work, so do we chuck that and replace it with a music interlude? Or do we do something cool like an ‘in-between the song’ band intro?

Once we figured out what success looks like and what needed to be done, then came the most important part of acting on it. We re-wrote major portions of the song, hired a jam room additionally and practiced for three days straight. Bands usually start with perfecting the section that is not working, practicing it so many times till it becomes ‘muscle memory’. And that is what we did.

5. Using positive feedback to build on strengths

In doing all this, we also wanted to build on the positive feedback we received.

Most of us focus only on the negative comments either to ‘criticize the criticism’ or to dwell gloomingly on the ‘hopelessness’ of the situation. So positive comments are rarely acted on; whereas in truth they are as important — in fact more so, if you want to take a strengths-based approach to growth and development.

We knew that our band chemistry was special and the fun we had jamming came across in the form of some pretty decent on-stage presence! So we focused on that and wanted to really take the fun factor up a notch. We were performing a popular number with a Cuban theme and we decided to make it a full-fledged performance — with costumes, dialogues in Spanish and some groovy clapping rhythms.

Long story short… that concert was a huge hit, with the crowd on its feet and wildly cheering us on. It was one of the most memorable performances of our lives, and it happened because we were open to feedback, willing to change and build on our strengths.

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