Dave Holland – HuffPost 10.11.13

Mike Ragogna: What advice do you have for new artists?

Dave Holland: Follow your dream and realize that you’ve got to work really hard to develop your music and to maximize the potential in the gifts that you’ve been given as a musician. That’s only the starting point. You have to really be searching, be curious, be investigating the music and finding out the things that resonate with you. What makes your music strong is when it really comes from a genuine place where you’re passionately engaged in the ideas that you’re trying to develop. The other advice that I give is to get out there and play with as many people as you can. Certainly, as a young player, you have to get as much experience working with all kinds of different players, different kinds of music, different levels of playing. Learn to work with not only the players that perhaps are easiest to play with, but also find ways to make situations work that aren’t always so easy. Get out there and work with other musicians. It’s very important to be attached and be a part of a community of musicians, not just for what you’ll learn from that, but also the performance opportunities that come out of that. Finally, I would say that you’ve really got to take responsibility, not just for the music, these days, but also for pursuing outlets for what you do and creating a fan base, using social networks and all the things that are available to independent musicians now, which were not available when I was a young player that give us a great opportunity to deal directly with the people that might have interest in what we do. We have to take full advantage of that and be prepared to do some work other than just working on the music, to develop your understanding of how the business works, how the publishing business works, and that way, you can really maximize the potential that you have as an artist.