Attention Grabbers

Today, we have a need to be constantly entertained. So that we can be convinced to watch the media's television show or buy a producer's product, we must be caught up in the show or commercial within the first minute or we can easily lose interest. In all forms of entertainment, there are attention grabbers.

When I say all forms of entertainment, I mean all forms. On television there is a catchy phrase or cool images to grab the attention of someone. To drive the message home in a commercial, something is usually repeated while a phone number is shown on the screen.

In books, you can be left in cliffhangers left and right so that you will want to pick up the book again as soon as possible and continue reading it.

At the end of almost every anime episode I have watched, there is some type of cliffhanger at the end. These cliffhangers are even present in some of the movies so that you hope they make a new movie or think of an ending of your own. In the beginning, they could show you an important scene that you would not understand unless you continue to watch it.

In band, there are crescendos and decrescendos, ritardandos and accelerandos, fortissimos and pianissimos. There are points in the music where you expect something big and grand to happen. When that something does happen and you listen to the intensity of the music that leave the musicians and are passed on to you, you can feel that same intensity. You are pulled into the music and remain with that glorious feeling inside of you. Those are some of the many attention grabbers of the band. We, as musicians, transfer our feelings towards our music into an audience. (Extreme band geek. I know. I know. Just work with me here.)

So, all forms of entertainment must contain some type of attention grabber in order to capture the attention of our audience. Whether it is in music, in a book, or on television, all entertainment must capture our attention somehow.