Wallitner Weekly 15
Hello everyone!
A lot of productive things happened this past week.
I have mapped out all of the lessons I want to teach and I have created several worksheets/quizzes that people can take as Wallitner Music Members. Im not sure what the best way to record these lessons is, but I will figure out a method soon… hopefully.
My fiancee picked out and bought her wedding dress this week too! So progress has been made on that front as well. It has been a very exciting week overall.
I have a lot planned for next week too!
Next week I hope to have a more streamlined way to record these lessons. I think it will be several hours of content split up into a bunch of 3-5 minute videos. Who knew that teaching the entirety of modern music theory would be so much work haha.
I will also be working on “I Have Hope” (Working title for that song of hope). The contracted deadline is December 10th, but the suggested deadline is thanksgiving. This way the director has time to learn it before the first rehearsal. So Id like to have the piece done by November fourth (Which happens to be my birthday).
The Burden of a Good Idea.
I knew I would talk about this at some point, but I was never sure how to phrase it. I don’t want to come off as arrogant or anything, but this story requires a bit of that.
People tell me whenever I set out to do some massive project, whether that be writing a theory curriculum, building a website, launching a virtual ensemble business, or writing a book. These people say “Wow that’s a lot of work.” or they say “Chris I thought you were trying to avoid having a full time job.” To which I think “Thats the burden of a good idea”.
What I mean by this is that sometimes the weight of not doing something you know will work is greater than the work you put in. I think of Tolkien writing the Lord of the Rings series or George RR Martin writing Game of Thrones. These series took a LOT of work to write. A lot of time was spent creating a world with five and seven kingdoms in it. Not to mention the different fantasy languages and religions and all the other things that go into creating something like that. But I would argue that they weren’t thinking so much about how much work it would be to do the thing. I would think that there was quite a bit of thought into “What happens if I don’t”. It’s like that quote “You can either experience the pain of discipline or the pain of regret.”
Maybe I’m projecting a little bit with that thought process. But I haven’t written something as great as LoTR or GoT and “The burden of a sub-par idea” doesn’t have the same ring to it.
One of my downfalls as a person who gets a lot of ideas is I end up spinning a lot of plates. I started saying “The more plates I spin the more food I catch.” But of course then you end up spreading yourself quite thin and don’t do as well at any one thing as you could be doing. The flip side to this is if one of your plates breaks, then you have other ones to catch food with. My professors at CWU told me that the best way to be a freelancer is to learn to do everything. That way you’re not competing for ONE spot in the band, your competing for ANY spot in the band. And if you don’t make it in the band you can run sound and record for them. There are a lot more jobs for a person who can kinda do a lot of things than a person who can totally do one thing.
The issue I had when I got this advice was I didn’t really know how to do anything. So instead of focusing on what I knew, I focused on what I could learn. Most of the things I can do now, I learned because I had to.
I didn’t know how to build a website until I built mine. I learned because I couldn’t hire a web designer. I didn’t know how to make a virtual ensemble video until I needed to do my senior recital during covid. I fell into a lot of the gigs that I have now because I had an idea and instead of saying “I have no idea how to do that, so I’m not going to try.” I thought “Eh, I could probably learn how to do that.” Google is a powerful tool in these situations.
This thought process led me to the point I am at now. If I have an idea that I think is good, I don’t question it. I just go for it. This past week that has taken shape in the form of a large scale series of fantasy novels. I’ve never written a book before, let alone ten. But I think this is a good idea. Plus if nobody likes it or reads it, my life would be no worse than it was before I wrote it.
All this to say, if you have an idea that you think is good then do it! Whether you know how to or not. The worst that could happen is you learn. And if your idea works, then you’ll have another plate to catch food with!
