Strive to be different. If you’re going to be good at something, make sure you’re the best. Your friends may be well-meaning and tell you how great you are. But  the most honest responses come from strangers. That’s why it’s important that you play live. The audience will let you know which songs are working, and which aren’t. You also wish people in the music industry were more upfront. In the early days before Motor Ace, and yet another record company turned us down, it would have been more helpful if they actually told us why they hadn’t been interested. - Patrick Robertson, Motor Ace

Literally stay on the floor when you’re writing a song. Resist adding on the instruments until the song is ready. Go through the lyrics and make sure there’s not one line you’d cringe at. Write the words on a piece of paper. That way you can see if they’re going to be embarrassing. Take the song on the road. Something you think is the dog’s bollocks could end up pear-shaped on the road. The biggest test for any song is to survive in front of a crowd. - Diesel

Matt Destruction of The Hives: Don’t hesitate. If you believe in it, just go and do it. No one can tell you what’s going to happen. Let it happen.”

For guitarists; If you're working in a humid environment, you don't have any 'Finger Ease' and you find your hands are sticking to the strings and neck, give some talcum powder a go.

If you've been on the road for a while and you have reached the end of your tether, you can't go on anymore, you're a nervous wreck who can't keep food or drink down because you've over done it and you don't think you can get through tonight's gig; go the doctor and get a Vitamin B shot. You'll get a new lease on life (for about 24 hours). Trust me it works.

- Brett Kingman guitarist James Reyne

I yield to something Leonard Cohen said ... be specific. Why say ‘tree’ when you could say ’sycamore’ - Bic Runga

Cristian Machado of Ill Nino:  Above all, you need the songs. Everything else , your passion, your experimentation, your will, works around that. The songs have to mean something to you, or else they won’t mean any thing to anyone else.

If you have a drink rider available before your show, take it with you on stage when you perform. NEVER leave it in the band room, .... cause it will be gone when you need it the most.

Always drink the other bands rider!

Always be nice, because the same people you meet on the way up are there on the way down!

Blame the drummer for everything.....ie: slows down, speeds up, always late, never pulls chicks, and smells up the van!

Always lie to band members about sound check time .....if it's 5pm tell them 4pm and they will show up at 5:30pm. This way you only lose a 1/2 hour.

When you make a mistake on stage always give a disgusting look to another band member like it was them that blew the note ... it works  ... the audience never knows.

When touring to cities that you have never been to before, always take something from your motel / hotel room that has the address on it......it can be very hard to remember where you are staying after a long night of public relations.

Kevin Garant (Dan & Kev & the Deadset Friendlies)

For the drummers ...

Ensure that your toms are as flat as possible to save the heads. When you strike a tom at an angle you risk the possibility of poking the heads as opposed to a direct stroke. It all sounds so sexual...yet it works. Also maybe lower the metronone during the times you have rests to save your ears from fatigue of certain frequencies.

- David Hilliard- David Byrne Band

Rockmelons say "always bring a packed lunch and a thermos"

brettherberock of WARPED says: "learn to live on no sleep"

Always wipe down your guitar after a gig. Your strings will last longer and it won't smell half as bad"- Liam Finn - Betchadupa            

Cam Baines, Bodyjar: Get out and tour. It will bond your band into a close entity, shape the songs and create an audience for you that will stay with you regardless of what’s happening for you in the charts.

Lee Kernaghan:

Shoot for the moon. Because even if you fail, you’ll still land among the stars. But the most important thing is to write your own songs or else you’ll never develop your own voice.

1.Be passionate about the quality of your music.

2 From my days on the road with Zappa : always get close to the Road Manager. He is the one who can extract that girl from the audience you are playing to. The one that will be the love of your life. Well at least for tonight  !

- Allan Zavod, Musician (Frank Zappa, Jean Luc Ponty), arranger, composer and columnist

1. If your manager is earning more than you are, either get a new manager, or re-negotiate RIGHT NOW!

 2. Learn how to work out the impedance of speakers, & ALWAYS match the impedance of an amp to its speaker box.

 3. Learn to leave spaces - without silence there is no music.

 4. If you can't hear the snare, you're too loud. (is anyone ever going to believe that i said that?) on the other hand, you may need to sack your drummer!

 5. Don't believe everything the recording engineer says. if he can't explain things clearly, maybe he should go back to making the coffee.

-Bob Spencer, guitarist (Angels, Skyhooks)

Violin Sound with a Distortion Box

One of the prettiest sounds you'll ever hear a distortion box make is that of a violin. To begin with, take all the treble off your amp, put your reverb on full, add all the distortion or fuzz the box will give, and run your guitar through a volume pedal. The vibrato arm will add the rich vibrato strings players use, and the volume pedal will both hide the attack of the pick and add to the sustain of the note. From  Country Styles: Guitar, by Mike Ihde © 2001 Berklee Press   www.berkleepress.com

Go with the flow. Take everything as it comes. I put too much pressure on myself. Don’t pressurise yourself - Joel Stein, Waikiki

Keep your ears open, and listen to the radio all the time. Be prepared to learn from the right people. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that you can’t achieve something. But at the same time, don’t be so pig-headed that you cut yourself off from learning - Jason Singh, Taxiride.

Don’t copy other people but compare yourself to the best. Who’s the benchmark, who’s the biggest? Are we as good as they are? Can we be as big without losing what we’re about? Then work towards it. It took us seven years (to get a hit) and we think it’s still the beginning for us. Never think it’s impossible. Have a goal and the vision. Build up to it. Be the best band in your town, then your state, then the East Coast, then the country. Keep expanding your horizons and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do it. You can.  - D.W. Norton, Superheist

If there is any lesson I've learned over thirty-five scores, it's not to ignore the earliest impulses and not to lose anything. Because what early on seems like the most broad, poorly played, ill-conceived notion sometimes becomes what I'll look back on as one of my best ideas. You know, the raw material.

- from Danny Elfman interview, Complete Guide to Film Scoring, by Richard Davis © 2001 Berklee Press (www.berkleepress.com)

DJ A-Trak looks for certain words to sample:

"When I record stuff, especially if I scratch over a song and I try to put together sentences, I'm always looking for the most insignificant words.  Like 'the' and 'a' and 'with'. Just little link words. If you want to make a sentence out of different samples, it's easy to find actual words, but then to link the words together, it's hard to find."

from Turntable Technique: The Art of the DJ, by Stephen Webber © 2001 Berklee Press (www.berkleepress.com)

It is said that if you want to know what you were doing in the past, look at your body now; if you want to know what will happen to you in the future, look at what your mind is doing now - Dalai Lama

List complied by Greg Phillips. Thanks to Christie Eliezer,  Jo Corbett (FMR) and all the participants