I was obliged to be industrious. Whoever is equally industrious will succeed equally well. – Johann Sebastian Bach
Transcription, modern style. It is still one of the best ways to learn; by imitation of the masters of your genre. Repeatedly.
What does that mean?
This quote says it all. If you wish to be successful, you need to be industrious. Being industrious means to be busy, like a beaver. There is also the implication that the work you do be useful, and little or no implication that the work must be difficult.
In the quote, Bach says that he was industrious by obligation, implying it might not have been his choice (but it’s hard to argue with results, right?). He also says that anyone who worked as hard and as consistently as he did could expect the same success.
What he left out (at least in my opinion) was his immense raw talent. I’ve known some people who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I doubt that there is any amount of industriousness would help them succeed as a performer or writer of music.
Why is being industrious important?
At thefreedictionary.com, industrious is defined as being “persistent in work or study; diligent” and in an obsolete definition “Skillful.” Given the era from of the quote, I think including the obsolete definition is appropriate. So being industrious is honing your skill through being both diligent and persistent in work and study.
Being industrious is the root of both skill and discipline, meaning you do what it takes, and you do it over and over again until it becomes part of you. Both in study, and in action, you gain skill and experience until you have achieved the pinnacle of your ability.
Where can I apply this in my life?
I see no other route to success, other than the occasional stroke of luck. Tiger Woods became a golf great by starting early in his life and being industrious. He worked on his skill and discipline, in study and in action, until he was able to reach his full potential on the links. Without having been industrious, he might eventually become a scratch golfer, but nothing spectacular.
Bach spent many years of his youth copying and transcribing the works of famous composers. For those who read music, often, just looking at a score starts the music playing in your head. And, as it is said, repetition is the mother of skill. Hearing it and writing it, together, makes the lesson all the more memorable. Each repetition sharpening his skill, building his discipline, helping him reach the pinnacle of his ability.
While I have a little skill in music, even if I devoted the rest of my life to chasing the ghost of Bach, I’d never get very far. Most of us just don’t have that kind of talent. For those of you who do, I congratulate you, and wonder why you are wasting your time reading my words? Get back to your talent and get busy! 8)
For the rest of us, while we may not go down in history as one of the greatest composers of our era, we can still hone our skills. Even if we will never be the best at something does not mean we should give up. I would recommend finding something enjoyable, then learning and practicing, in an effort to maximize both your skills and the pleasure you draw from the doing.
Grab some paper and write down a couple things you like to do, for which you have at least a little skill. Include things you may not have done in a while, perhaps dating as far back to your childhood. When you have a list of reasonable length, add to each entry why you enjoy doing it, and why you want to get better at it.
Now that you have a list of things to try, and reasons you want to do so, it comes down to selecting the first one to try. As always, feel free to come back and either add to this list, or select a different entry, depending on your desires or available time. It’s your life, you gotta be you, right?
What are you going to do to to get better at the thing you have selected? Is it just practice? Do you need someone to practice with (or against)? Would a mentor help, if so where can you find one? Is there a club in your area where you can find people to trade tips and pointers with? Are there books in the library that can help? Are there blogs, chat rooms, or forums online which could help you?
It’s your life, enjoy it. Find something you like and get better at it. If you enjoy photography, take photos. If you enjoy painting, paint. If you find joy in the act of hiking or running, shut the computer off and get out of the house. Get busy doing what you enjoy.
Be industrious with what you enjoy, and you will get better at it. Live a full life, have fun, and keep getting better at what you love to do. That sounds like success to me, how about you?
From: Twitter, @RNpedia
confirmed at : http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/j/johannesse404536.html
Photo by chrismear
Happy Birthday to JS Bach, born 21 March, 1685.
You wrote: “What he left out (at least in my opinion) was his immense raw talent. I’ve known some people who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. I doubt that there is any amount of industriousness would help them succeed as a performer or writer of music.”
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but here you are wrong. Merely because the phenomenon of inability to carry a tune has been ignored for they whole of human history does in no way mean that learning to carry a tune for a person who “can’t carry a tune in a bucket” is impossible.
My wife, Marianne Ploger, marianneploger.com, discovered that people who are afflicted with tone deafness or the inability to carry a tune are actually so sensitive in their hearing that they hear overtones as easily as you or i hear a basic pitch. Once such people learn this about themselves, their attitude changes radically and they in a few lessons time learn to sing perfectly as well as others “who can carry a tune.” What the affliction is exactly is this. When these people hear a pitch, they hear the overtones as loudly as they hear the fundamental pitch. If I played a chord for you on the piano and asked you to sing that pitch…your natural reaction would be, “which one”. That is what these people suffer from, no one has told them which one of the pitches that they are hearing is the one they are supposed to be singing.
If you were given an address in a large city and told to meet someone name Boo Boo there and the address was the empire state building and you were not given the floor or the suite where you were supposed to meet Boo Boo, you too would feel like you couldn’t find a needle in a haystack. That is what it is like to not be able to carry a tune for those afflicted by this phenomenon. Overwhelmed by the complexity of sorting out which pitch to focus on, they get labeled by those who are less sensitive to sound as being musical louts.
I suggest you could do those folks a great favor by publishing the fact that there is actually someone in the world who can help them sort this out so they too can enjoy singing music as you do.
You also have clearly not thought enough about the issue of talent. My view is that those who dump the results of hard work (industriousness) on merely being talented, only admit their mediocrity. It is a means of feeling good about being mediocre because, after all, he is prodigously talented and I am not so I can continue to be mediocre and enjoy fact of how little I have to work to be that way. Frankly, when people say that to me about my work I feel insulted and tell them so, because it sweeps away in one easily spoken “compliment” all the years of hard work and thinking that goes into doing something that is extremely difficult and complex and making the doing of it look simple.
As for You gotta be you, right? WRONG. Being you is the quintessence of being mediocre because there is absolutely nothing about anyone that is high quality enough to warrant being considered first rate for merely by being alive. That was a battle that Beethoven was fighting his whole life. And it is still stupid to think this way. Does everyone have the right to be mediocre…yes absolutely. Do they have they right to deceive themselves? Yes absolutely. Is it right to delude people by letting think that who they are is good enough to call it worthwhile for others to bother with? Not in my view. If people want to delude themselves, no one need stop them. For others to support such an idiotic notion is wrong.
If your business is thinking, get back to the grind stone and do more hard work because you certainly put your foot in it on this occasion.
I have a passing familiarity with the difficulty of identifying the fundamental, as I had that issue as a child (often singing up a third), but managed to get over that on my own (no idea how, it just happened less and less often). Do you or your wife believe every single person who has trouble with carrying a tune has this specific problem, and can be helped? Unless you are, I am not wrong on that point, and you are simply bringing up a specific counter example. Please advise.
As you mention, I will gladly let people know that your wife asserts that she can help those who cannot carry a tune. However, I cannot provide any guarantee as to her ability to help any specific individual, nor that any reader of this comment will contact her.
As for the rest of your comment, we appear to disagree on a few points. I find it very open minded of you to assert that your view is the only proper way of thinking and that the rest of us are clearly failing at our attempts to think. You are welcome to your beliefs, and even your absolutes. But I do not feel bound to them. That is your issue. I’m afraid that we will have to agree to disagree.
Thanks for stopping by, and I wish you and your wife all the best, especially if you can help others better enjoy the magic that music brings to the heart and to the soul.