When I compose these blogs or short essays, sometimes I have great difficulty in coming up with the perfect title. Sometimes I end up changing the title several times before I finalize on one and even then, I end up not liking what I have used.

I start with a working title and as I move through my piece, I seem to change the title to fit the content of the blog. For example, the title I used in writing the first few paragraphs is Connecting. Lets see what I call it by the end of this piece.

Some say titles are not important and I would tend to agree with that statement, however, there are times that a title is no different than a first impression. Ah, maybe I need to change this blog title to First Impressions? For now, I will stick to Connecting. Lets see where this goes.

First date impression?

I am a firm believer in first impressions. Very rarely have I been misguided by a first impression. You can witness first impressions of a person, a book, song, or even a movie. They are significant to me, sometimes to a fault. This is not an exact science and it is more of a personal preference or observation. Even on Facebook, reading certain postings, you tend to get an impression which may not be favorable of that individual.  Too me, a first impression is substantial and very difficult for me to give a second chance. I have to agree with Oscar Wilde when he said “My first impressions of people are invariably right”.

When I was working on my documentary, Guardians of Music, I used a working title of Detroit Hye Times. I used it on everything pertaining to the documentary.  I talked about how I came to to the new name of Guardians of Music, but what I didn’t elaborate on was the pain it took in finding the perfect title for this documentary. I am very happy with the name as it perfectly describes the nature of my documentary.

A frequently referenced quote by William Shakespeare was “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”.  I referenced this quote in a past essay, but it is worth mentioning again. The quotes meaning suggests that a name doesn’t matter as much as what an object or person really is about. Sure, that makes sense. Another overused quote “never judge a book by its cover” comes to mind.

Musically speaking, the name seems to matter much less as the hope is that the listener is hearing the music because it recognizes the artist or its material. However, how often have we purchased music thinking it was going to feature a certain style of music and then we get something totally different? I can give you many examples of that, but I wont “out” any musicians in this blog. Lets simply say that sometimes it makes sense to have the proper name or title when portraying what you wish the viewer or listener to become engaged.

I just changed the title to Lasting Impressions. See, I told you it would happen.

The best part? I intended to start this essay about an entirely different topic.