When you put most your energy into developing your natural talents, extraordinary growth is possible.
There is no way I could become the next Michael Jordan. For one thing, I am only 6 feet. Right there my genetics have made it extremely hard for me to make it into the NBA. That coupled with the fact that I am a white boy who can’t jump and the fact that so many others have much more raw basketball talent than I really slims my chances of being an All Star down to almost zero.
Your efforts are much more effectively spent leveraging your own talents. You don’t have to learn country guitar if you are a heavy metal shredder. You do not need to master acoustic folk songwriting if you are a funk machine. Of course it doesn’t hurt to be exposed to new things and styles. After all, you may discover a hidden talent or passion within yourself. But if you know you aren’t something, then don’t waster your time trying to be whatever that is!
There is a great formula in the opening chapters of Tom Rath’sStrengths Finder 2.0:
Talent X Investment = Strength
Talent: A Natural way of thinking, feeling, or behaving
Investment: The time spent practicing, developing your skills, and building your knowledge base.
Strength: The ability to consistently provide near-perfect performance.
Building your talents into strengths requires practive and hard work. If you are born with the ability to build large biceps, but you do not exercise these muscles regularly, they will not develop. Much like mastering the guitar. You may have an uncanny talent for music and guitar, but if you don’t practice and strive to improve, you will never maximize your guitar potential.
So what are your talents? What are you passionate about? Are you sure you aren’t trying to be something that you are not?
Man I cannot get enough of Oz Noy. What a badass mofo this guy is. Seriously. His command of not only the guitar, but of the effect pedals that his rig includes is just truly genius. When I think of a guitar player who has definitely found his own unique voice, Oz is one of the first ones that comes to mind.
Many traditional guitarists and tone purists will say, “All you need is a guitar and an amp,” which is true in some cases, but I feel that that could be quite limiting.
If you were an artist, would you rather have only red and blue paint? Or would you rather have a wide assortment of shades and colors?
Well it definitely depends on what your style is and what you are trying to put out into the world, but I am loving how Oz treats each effect as another sonic shade to paint his musical canvas. Check it out:
If you haven’t attended a National Guitar Workshop yet, we would highly recommend it! With five locations nationally, there is no excuse not to attend one of the guitar-intensive workshops that will help take your playing to the next level!
*Austin, TX
*Purchase, NY
*McLean, VA
*Chicago, IL
*Los Angeles, CA
The National Guitar Workshop is dedicated to bringing the most comprehensive music education program to guitarists, bassists, keyboardists, drummers and vocalists across the country. Students of all ages immerse themselves in week-long programs tailored to their personal musical interests. They truly offer a supportive learning environment and a world-class curriculum.
David Smolover, wanting to create an educational and collaborative atmosphere for students and teachers alike, founded the National Guitar Summer Workshop in 1983. Within this environment, participants would live, learn, and practice with each other. In the words of one student that year,
“It’s like a dream come true to think, eat and sleep guitar for a whole week.”
During the day, they would take courses in a variety of musical styles, and they would attend master guitar workshops at night. This first summer, many noted musicians including Al DiMeola, Rory Block, George Gritzpah, Arlen Roth, Eric Schoenberg, Dennis Koster and Larry Coryell taught the master classes. The first faculty consisted of folk, rock, jazz, classical, bluegrass and bass guitar experts, many of whom were New York City studio musicians and college professors. The first summer took place at the South Kent School, located in South Kent, Connecticut, and consisted of four one-week sessions.
“It was a nice feeling to be involved with a new and innovative program. There was nothing like the NGW at the time and it was exciting to help to get the program off the ground and established.” –Lou Manzi, founding and current faculty member.
The NGW experience is like a year’s worth of material compiled into one week. Like most workshops, the benefits of NGW don’t completely take form until the participants have gone home. “It would be impossible for someone to learn and use everything they hear at the Workshop in a week or two,” said owner David Smolover. “They should be able to just absorb everything, and then take it back with them and begin to work it all out.”
As part of the NGW experience, students have the opportunity to perform in front of a live audience, jam with other musicians, and study with world-famous artists in an accessible and relaxed manner. The NGW provides a positive, supportive and non-competitive learning environment through hands-on teaching and teamwork.
“Simplicity is the final achievement. After one has played a vast quantity of notes and more notes, it is simplicity that emerges as the crowning reward of art.”
-Frederic Chopin
Is the old saying “Quantity does not equal Quality“ really true? Or is it just a myth that those who have achieved success would rather have you believe so that their unique genius is looked upon as the reason for their achievements?
Keep reading to find out why the old saying flat out sucks balls…..
June 16th, 2009 · Posted by Mishaphil · 2 Comments
How To Transition From Your Day Job Into A Successful Music Career
by Tom Hess
Do you want to be a professional musician, but don’t know where and how to start? Do you really want a successful career in music, but your fear of failure is holding you back? Are you unsure about what to do if your plan doesn’t work?
Most aspiring musicians receive a lot of advice from friends and family about the best approach to take with building their music career. Among the many things suggested, is the idea of having a backup plan. Many people give advice about “the need to have something to fall back on in case the music career doesn’t work out” or “a Plan B”. Typically, musicians are encouraged to go to school and get a degree in something they can easily find a job in, and do music on the side, in their “free time”.
If/when you reach the point where your music career begins to develop, you are probably advised to work less in your day job and focus more on the music until you can leave the day job and make the music career work for you. This advice sounds good in theory, but in reality fails to work as intended in almost every case. Why? Usually the job that most musicians get to support themselves until their music career kicks off, has nothing to do with music in general, or their music career specifically. As a result, most end up in a very frustrating situation that makes it virtually impossible to achieve any kind of lasting success as a professional musician.
Keep reading to see the 4 reasons the backup plan is usually doomed to fail….
