Passion

What Makes A Successful Garage Band

Garth Beyer

(If you don’t want to read, click the last hyperlink in this post.)

There’s no lack of talent when it comes to vocals or who can play a guitar or win over an audience with a ridiculously fast paced bass solo. It’s no longer about who can play an instrument and how well, but how many instruments they can play, how they can incorporate the multiple instruments into a show, and how they can show the audience their passion.

Times have changed but very few garage bands are falling behind. They’re excited to try new instruments, mish mash sounds, and – generally speaking – have fun. Something that is hard to say for those entering the professional world of freelance.

Last night I had the honor to see a handful of bands play at a Launchpad event. Launchpad is a statewide, alternative music competition for Wisconsin high school students who are in bands formed outside of the traditional music classroom ensembles. (view some of the bands here.) These high schoolers were incredible performers, showmakers, and artists.

But the truly exceptional ones brought out different instruments: extra drums, key board, violin. Now it’s now more common to have an extra instrument in a band, but the way these students incorporated them into their songs, well, that was real talent. (One band actually switched their trumpeter with the vocalist, vocalist with the drummer, drummer with the keyboard, and keyboard with the trumpeter. Impressive!)

The status quo is being kicked and bruised by those living the garage band or what I like to call, garage project workstyle/artstyle/lifestyle. There are no longer boundaries. You can no longer bring your one “instrument” and perform. You have to bring everything (all of your “instruments”) and perform some instrumental alchemy.

The worlds changing. Best to be a leader of it.

 

Stay Positive & Rubber Bands Are Still Accepted

Garth E. Beyer

 

Not Settling But Keeping Where You Are At

Garth Beyer

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I’m a strong advocate for never settling, for accepting what you get whether you think you deserve it or not, and always striving for more.

However, there have been moments a dear friend reminds me not to settle with something. What is hard to convince him is that I’m not settling, I’m merely making the most of what I have at the moment.

I think to my Uncle who I continuously learn from. He once told me that although he is married and madly in love, he knows that there may be someone better out there for him. For one with a “do not settle” mindset, it’s hard to understand why he would stay with my aunt, but I get it, he is making the most of what he has now.*

When you make the most of what you have, it’s not settling.

Often times, making the most of what you have now is what leads to greater things in the future.

 

Stay Positive & Love Like There Are No Other Options And Your Options Will Multiply

Garth E. Beyer

*There are also points in life where you will have the chance to reach for something better, but you won’t take it. There is a type of satisfaction when settling that involves a sense of comfortability and there is a sense of satisfaction when settling that involves pure happiness. My uncle has the latter.

What Makes Us Better

Garth Beyer

I came across this article in the New York Times, “Does Great Literature Make Us Better?”

It encompasses the effect reading great literature has on our morality. The assumption is that the more literature we read, the more moral we become, that is, until we arrive at a level of moral expertise.

At the end of the article, I had an immediate thought far apart from the initial argument Gregory Currie makes. In fact, I think it’s an argument that he meant to make, but, alas, he had a word count.

What triggered my thought – which I am just about to share – was Currie’s first line in his last paragraph. After showing that many of the studies on this subject lack evidence, he acknowledges, “But it’s hard to avoid the thought that there is something in the anti-elitist’s worry.” His final note is that those who dedicate their time to reading such strong works of literature must greatly benefit from it; that it is not solely a form of aesthetic stimulus. Doing so puts them in a group of the elite, singling out those who do not exchange their time for cramming their brain with words.

I believe that Currie has taken only one small piece of the Moral Pie of Learning. Take anything that one has dedicated long tenuous hours to, that he has ruminated on, or that she has prioritized acting on over other actions which may result in a quicker benefit, and you will discover that one has become “better,” more morally enlightened.

If one were to floss their teeth for as many hours as someone were to reads great pieces of literature, I guarantee they will have arrived at conclusions about morality, the way of life, and have obtained a plethora of applicable analogies with dental floss being part of them – different, but as many as the person who read great literature.

Currie brings forth the question of whether we are naturally moral people and as a result, read more great literature, or if the great literature we read makes us moral people.

The simple fact is that the more of whatever we do, the more moral we become.

So what if you don’t read as much as someone else? Just be sure that what you are doing as much of, is something that you love. Moral elites are not made from reading great literature, they are made from doing what they love and doing it often.

 

Stay Positive & No Need To Worry

Garth E. Beyer

A Dangerous Reminder

Garth Beyer

We’re all crazy.

I can say that because we love destroying things – rather, when we do destroy things, we have fun with it – a lot of fun.

Finally getting rid of your old desktop computer? Smashing it in the driveway sounds like a great idea. Stereo-system broke? Time to tear it to pieces and see how it works. Need room to build something? I’ll get the sledgehammer.

A few months ago my dad and I had to get rid of some wasp nests. Naturally we tried wasp spray, but it was ineffective. Then we bleached the nests. Still alive. So we poured gasoline and set it on fire.

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A couple of months ago my dad and I took apart my original droid. (After five years, it finally broke.) This is the outcome.

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It’s easy to break something, to dissect it, to experiment with what has already been created. It’s much more dangerous to build something from scratch, to experiment with your own creativity.

What puzzles me is how we can have so much fun destroying things, yet not be as insanely excited to create something.

There’s a few different ways to overcome this. All dangerous.

1. Build to destroy it.

2. Build to let someone else have fun destroying it.

3. Build knowing that you will already be building something new, thus, not caring whether it gets destroyed or not.

Bonus: If you want a real challenge. Build something new from the remnants of what you destroy.

 

Stay Positive & Whatever You Do, Just Have Fun With It

Garth E. Beyer

It’s Not For Everyone

Garth Beyer

My writing doesn’t resonate perfectly with everyone who views it. I have dozens of very close friends that never read what I post. I have family that – and I can say this because they won’t read it – doesn’t care that I write or what I write.

I’ve overcome this, but I do know how it can sometimes hurt. A lot. When those you think care so much about you, don’t get involved with your passion.

One of the myriad admonitions I’ve learned about writing is that there are people you wish would read it that don’t and there are people you wish wouldn’t read it and do.

Remind yourself of the long tail. It helps.

 

Stay Positive & HT To Those Who Don’t Force Themselves To Read It

Garth E. Beyer

What Is 9 To 5

Garth Beyer

I can tell you straight up that it’s not the hours you work at a job. I don’t remember the last person who told me they literally worked 9 to 5. No. 9 to 5 is a jobstyle, not necessarily a job.

9 to 5 entails monotony, redundancy, and banality. It’s rarely valuable, in earnings or in personal benefits. 9 to 5 signifies structure. There is no room for creativity. Clock in. Clock out.

The beautiful jobstyles are the 5 to 9 ones. The ones that you’re a part of throughout the day. They are more lifestyles than anything else. There’s no clocking in or out, there’s only waking up and going to sleep.

5 to 9 entails connecting, giving, producing, sharing, creating, being passionate, showing sincerity, and being you. Payment is partially in dollar amounts, but more often it’s in happiness, in that feeling when you do a good deed without the person knowing it was you.

This generation is changing the hours, the jobstyles, and what work really means.

 

Stay Positive & More Power To You

Garth E. Beyer

The Question I Ask Every Student

Garth Beyer

There are two types of majority students. There are the ones that have no clue what they want to do and ones that do, but don’t do it. Whether the reasons are family based, fear based, or fund based, I use one question to truly get students to think about what they authentically want to do or what they could be doing with their passion.

If school was taken from you, what would you do?

 

Stay Positive & Ask It. You Will Be Amazed

Garth E. Beyer