Using what you've got

Creative

Using what you've got

This follows from my chat with Chris Penfold about making good and mending. This one is about using what you've got. We can talk about this from a material point of view, where you're using equipment that you already have, but it's also about your skills, and you have many of these placed within other areas of activity; bringing these on board will benefit you.

I spoke about something that Michael Breen said during an NLP training. The story was that his wife was very good at interior design; she could change colours and items in a room in her head, but it made her a nightmare to take out for dinner because she would do the same thing with the items on the menu. She would make endless comparisons between different dishes in different courses.

So look at all the skills that you have as a musician. You may also be a good people person, being a good communicator. That may be evident within your music, but it might not be. If you're not a very good people person and you're trying to be a teacher, then that would be a problem.

However, if you're not good at that but may be good at organising or something else, you could bring those skills to the front to help with project management.

As he was in the army, Chris was talking about the British Army having to be inventive because they didn't always have the equipment to fix the problem. They have to think it through and work out how they could accomplish the task with the gear that they have.

So, for instance, if you have a guitar, a music stand and a computer, you could set yourself up as a teacher. If you've got a car, you can travel to people. You don't need to go and buy a more expensive guitar or equipment to accomplish that. Now that on the face of it is obvious, you'll be surprised because I have coached people who would become teachers who had the idea that they needed new equipment so they could set this up. It's unnecessary, but you could also look at that from the point of view of what you require to be a performer. You only need what you have.

I interviewed Billy Childish, the artist and punk musician. Billy comes out of this aspect of using primitivism in what he does, particularly musically, so the idea of limitations is good. He has a couple of old amps, one which dates back to the 60s, possibly even earlier than that and a couple of old battered-up guitars, nothing new, and he has managed to produce well over 150 albums. It all comes from the perspective of keeping it simple, even the recording techniques. This idea of garage recording is playing in an ample space with the band and then just going into a studio and putting the vocals over the top.

He has done this for years, and it enabled him to produce a lot of albums with that very raw sound, and it influenced many bands, including the White Stripes.

So another aspect of working with what you've got also involves people; obviously, this presents a sharp focus on how good your networking is.

You probably know The people you need to form a band or the people who know them you already know. I think it's always problematic when you audition people because you don't know their personalities particularly well; the chemistry between various members makes a band, so working with the people you already know will lead to a better lineup.

I would also say this is true of running a team for business. If you're starting something new, you can headhunt the people you know; that's a good way forward.

The excellent book by Tony Buzan is called Genius, and it's all about such genius and Mastermind groups.

This book sites that many geniuses didn't do the stuff on their own they had help from very influential people, and that enabled them to develop not the way that history is taught; we always go for the grand man narrative, and to some extent, there is an element of that you know the great person that focuses attention. Still, they can't do this independently, and there's often more than one great mind that goes into creating and achieving.

You need to be able to work with others and be flexible with that, and again, if these people already know, then you're more likely to do that because I'll be friends of yours

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Big thanks to Josh Ferrara for the music