There is nothing as beautiful as understanding your person as a musician.
As a musician, there are mental and moral attributes that set you apart from the crowd. You are NOT just like anyone else.
When I talk about mental attributes, I’m talking about the skills in you have and then the moral attributes are your principles, ethics, and the standards that govern your behavior.
The mental attributes can either add or take away COMPETENCE to or from your person while the moral attributes can either add or take away CHARACTER to or from your person and at the end of the day you create a REPUTATION for yourself using these two things: competence and character.
Mental Attributes – Competence
Dear musician or singer, I would love to ask you a few questions:
- What are you doing do develop your person as a musician? How much of music do you know in theory and practice?
- How are aspects of your artistic and technical development like ear-training, sight-reading, vocal techniques, instrumental virtuosity, etc., doing?
- Are you still the old you of last year (if not least 2, 5, 10, or 12 years) or are you consciously and painstakingly improving and becoming a better version of yourself?
So many apps and software have updated severally this year and you keep using them because they keep getting better.
- Does your Facebook app know something that you don’t? Like it understands the importance of constant improvement that you don’t?
- How has your aural awareness and ability to recognize notes, scales, intervals, chords, and chord progressions improved? Or are you joking with these mental attributes that can set you part and give you a reputation that leads to relevance?
You are where you are NOT only because of the mental attributes you HAVE but because of the ones you DON’T HAVE. You might have been weighed a couple of times and been found wanting. Your skills might have been passed through the crucibles of standard practice and it neither came out as good nor gold.
It is your skill that defines your person as a musician and nobody will rate you above what you can do and this is the truth that nobody would tell you.
Moral Attributes – Character
Can I ask you these direct questions?
- As a musician, have you set principles and ethics that govern your behavior, or you behave anyhow?
- Do you have standards, or anything goes, anytime?
- Are you willing to stick by your good standards even if you are the only one in this world, or can you easily compromise?
There are important virtues and values you have to imbibe as a growing musician to form the character that you would love to associate with your PERSON.
To be a cheat, liar, thief, and someone of little or no integrity is very easy to attain and that’s if you are able to pick up the wrong attributes and get associated with it in your dealings with people over a period of time.
To be a humble, dedicated, reliable, trustworthy, and responsible musician (among other top virtues) is also easy to attain and that’s if you can ONLY go for the moral attributes associated with humility, dedication, trust, and responsibility.
Note this:
It doesn’t take more effort to have good moral attributes than what it takes to have bad moral attributes if you can have the right ideology, control your emotions, and make the right decisions.
Now, let me even ask you more direct questions:
- Do you get paid for an event and you disappoint when a higher-paying event comes?
- Are you proud and arrogant?
- Are you low or bankrupt in financial integrity and when you are paid in a team you cheat everyone?
The moral attributes you’re imbibing today will give you that REPUTATION as a musician — good or bad.
Final Words
A sum total of your mental and moral attributes is what describes your person and NOT what you have written on your bio-data. Think about these:
- What comes to mind when your name is mentioned?
- What are some of the keywords that people use while describing you?
Now, that’s your person as a musician and you can upgrade your person today using the right moral and mental attributes.
There are musicians you are looking up to that have desirable mental attributes but you don’t have to imbibe their moral attributes; while there are musicians rich in very rare moral attributes but are deficient when it comes to mental attributes.
But if you’re lucky to find a musician who is balanced in the two, value him/her with everything you have.
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Chuku Onyemachi
Head of Education at HearandPlay Music Group
Onyemachi "Onye" Chuku is a Nigerian musicologist, pianist, and author. Inspired by his role model (Jermaine Griggs) who has become his mentor, what he started off as teaching musicians in his Aba-Nigeria neighborhood in April 2005 eventually morphed into an international career that has helped hundreds of thousands of musicians all around the world.
Onye lives in Dubai and is currently the Head of Education at HearandPlay Music Group and the music consultant of the Gospel Music Training Center, all in California, USA.
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