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Thread: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

  1. #1
    Front Porch & Sweet Tea NursingDaBlues's Avatar
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    Default "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    I’m not sure where I was first exposed to this; it may have been here on the Café. The original context is storytelling and the creative process. But it applies quite well to folks starting out on their musical journey.

    There are enough new Café members and new-to-mandolin folks that I thought it worthwhile to pass it along.


    What Nobody Tells Beginners—Ira Glass on Storytelling

    “Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”
    ~Ira Glass, host and producer of the NPR’s This American Life

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  3. #2

    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    It's the old, how do you write a good song? Write 100 bad songs first.
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    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    How do you make a perfect omelette? Break a helluva lot of eggs!
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

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    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    i can't recall where i read this, but someone did an experiment with pottery -- if i remember it correctly, it goes like this: one group of students was told they had an entire semester to come up with a single, perfect pot. The other group of students was told they had to turn in a pot a day each day of class. At the end of the semester, the students were asked to throw a pot as a final exam .. and the kids who spent the time on a perfect pot had problems, while the ones who had turned in a pot a day aced the exam. there's nothing like repetition to give you a base from which to expand.
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    Quote Originally Posted by Br1ck View Post
    It's the old, how do you write a good song? Write 100 bad songs first.
    I certainly have the '100 bad songs' part down to a science . . . .

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    Registered User Al Trujillo's Avatar
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    Back when I was 20, after 7 years of religiously studying the art, I received my Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do. One day our Master Instructor told us that all we needed to learn we had been shown in our first two years...from then on it was repetitive training and sharpening of technique that separated those who achieved vs. those who did not. Playing my mandolin (or for that matter just about anything that requires discipline) is similar in that one day I'll turn the corner and realize that all the work has brought me to that single point. Not there yet, but its coming.

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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    All causes shall give way. I am in blood
    Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
    Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

    (Shakespeare, Macbeth)
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Registered User Mando Mort's Avatar
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    And, if you do it because you love it, it won't seem like work...
    "All of us contain Music & Truth, but most of us can't get it out." - Mark Twain

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  15. #9

    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    And......

    "Keep your eyes on the prize..."


    Its important to hold onto that good taste.
    Not to let the routine, easier paths, convenient and familiar, or the pressures of other expectations cloud or compromise one's aspirations.

  16. #10

    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    Love Ira Glass.

    Playing music is sorta like telling the story.

    Taste,timing,tone.

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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners":
    Get a fret job and have them adjust the action as low as possible.

  18. #12
    Registered User Timbofood's Avatar
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mando Mort View Post
    And, if you do it because you love it, it won't seem like work...
    I have been lucky to have had THREE jobs that I loved! Selling acoustic instruments with talented co workers (some of which post here), selling art material and picture framing (every day was different and I could play music most nights), selling fine jewelry and beautiful watches!
    They were all fun and only a few days of each felt much like work!
    Timothy F. Lewis
    "If brains was lard, that boy couldn't grease a very big skillet" J.D. Clampett

  19. #13
    Registered User Mandobart's Avatar
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    Default Re: "What Nobody Tells Beginners"

    Quote Originally Posted by Mando Mort View Post
    And, if you do it because you love it, it won't seem like work...
    No, in my experience, if it doesn't seem like work its because you're not working, or at least not near as hard as you could.

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