Emily Is Live‪!‬ Emily Dolan Davies

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Imagine hearing a song just once and then playing it to absolute perfection! Mastering this skill will easily put you in the top 1% of all professional musicians. What’s the quickest way you learn songs?

We’ve all been there, either on an audition, before a rehearsal or even a gig - a new song is thrown our way, we’ve never heard it before, and we don’t know if it’s even possible to learn it in the time frame! Learning quickly can easily be the difference between getting a gig and not, and no-one wants to be the weakest link in the band saying ‘no I can’t do that’.

Over the last 15 years or so, I’ve used one technique to take hold of more opportunities than anything else, and it’s so simple. It’s not easy at first, but with practice, will be second nature, and you can impress people with something that may seem like a magical skill!

Join me on Emily Is Live as I share how I learnt to play whole sets of songs to huge audiences on multiple occasions, with multiple artists after hearing each song just once.

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Why focus on what you’re bad at when you can be a supercharged version of what comes easiest? Imagine being the most incredible version of yourself, having more fun and with great ease, whilst noticing others gazing at you with admiration wondering ‘how did they get so incredible?!’

Are you the one looking constantly left and right, being amazed at what others are doing, then looking at yourself and feeling insecure, unworthy and useless? You can work on all the things you’re bad at, and get them a little better to maybe match up to those you see around you thriving, or you can focus on your natural strengths and supercharge those for the win!

I was someone who always used to look left and right to what others were doing. When I was younger, there wasn’t really any social media, but there were plenty of other drummers I knew and hung out with that would leave me longing to play like they did as I was always in awe of them.

When I hit my late teens and early twenties, social media was in full swing and I was scrolling, looking at what everyone else was doing, the gospel chops, the polyrhythms, the linear fills at a million miles an hour, the swinging jazz players, the incredible musicians' others were playing with, I wasn’t doing any of it, which by default (in my head) meant I wasn’t good enough. Why would anyone ever want to play with me?!

The change came for me when I was faced with nothing. A big old empty diary, knowing no one would call for a while, and I thought ‘well this could be a fresh start for me’. Rather than sitting and looking at what everyone else was doing, and wanting to do that, I thought ‘what do I want to be doing? What do I love? What comes naturally to me? What is fun? What is easy?’ I realised all those players I was looking towards, although amazing, did not bring me joy as other things did - actually they mainly brought anxiety! 

The thing that brought me pure joy and that came fairly naturally was simply: playing songs.

I doubled down on this idea, and honed in on the kinds of songs I loved most, work started flowing, and more begot more.

An interesting shift happened for me in that I realised although there is a great benefit to strengthening your weaknesses, the resulting action is still focusing on the worst parts of your playing, and for me, that’s a sure path down the ‘bad mental health route’. However focusing on strengths brings confidence and not only that, you start becoming the best version of yourself in every way.

Download my 'What Are Your Strengths?' PDF at https://www.EmilyIsLive.com/10 

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How can you supercharge your social media presence?

There’s no getting around it, social media is now a huge part of our lives, and not only that, how the world perceives us. The last thing we want is to look lame, incompetent, or even worse, just have no one see us at all! I am someone who has been in the pits of despair with social media, feeling like a failure, not having any followers, any eyeballs, and every time I would open an app, the lack of likes or comments just solidified to me that I was useless, and not good enough for anyone.

As time went on, and I delved more into social media, I realized that actually, it wasn’t me inherently that was the problem, it was my understanding of what the platforms were FOR!

Once I understood that, things took off in a big way, and since then I see social media as one of the most important parts of my success in the music industry.

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Have you ever looked at shots from a gig and realised you’re not in any of them, in the dark in the background or if they got you, you seem to have a cymbal as a head?!

In the first 10 years of playing the drums, I had 1 shot that I didn’t hate and could use for promo shots, but it wasn’t great, and it was the only 1! In the 10 years that followed I worked out I could take my OWN shots and not only that, get the most dynamic amazing pictures that I was proud of and depicted me how I wanted!

Showcasing yourself through great photos can be the difference between getting gigs, followers and fans vs just blending into the background - literally.

Join me as I share with you how to take shots you are proud of, these can be live or set up in a studio. All you need is your phone!

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What’s the best way to level up the quality of your work?

Sure we want to do the best we can at everything we do, but what if we can’t reach the quality we’re striving for, to the point of giving up on a project, or maybe not starting at all? Up until the age of around 21, I was obsessed with being perfect. I wanted to be the perfect drummer, with the perfect gig, and to the extreme of wanting to be perfect going into a coffee shop, knowing where everything was and not looking like a fool!

It was exhausting and ultimately led to complete debilitation, inaction, and effectively depression. At the time I was completely obsessed with reading successful musicians’ biographies and trying to find patterns to discover the secret to being a professional drummer. The only running theme I could see was that they were all out playing, a lot, a LOT a lot.

So my focus shifted from ‘being perfect’ to just doing it a lot! Playing gigs, doing rehearsals, tours, recording sessions, stage shows, drum clinics, just anything and everything because at that point I realised quantity = quality.

Since that discovery (and putting it into action), the trajectory of my life has changed and now if I decide I want to learn something or be better at it, I just do it a LOT. And I still often surprise myself with how quickly things start progressing.

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How can you get more done in less time and with more ease?

 

Daily mundane tasks can be complete time and energy drainers. Instead, imagine taking those tasks that eat up hours, days and weeks of your life, and transforming them into 5-second moves giving you more time to do more of what you LOVE!

 

Apologies for the visual aspects you may miss from this episode - if you want to watch then head to YOUTUBE.

 

Also, to hear how the new studio sounds, you can download the new drum stems here.

If you'd like me to play on your music, then head here!