The Myth is defining ‘success’ by cultural and societal standards:
Success is money.
Success is selling records.
Success is Grammy Awards.
Success is name recognition.
Success can only be defined by obedience.
My years of practice never held any promise of that kind of success. There are no guarantees when measuring success in tangible ways.
Somewhere on my way to “success” I was fortunate enough to set it all aside to stay at home with my wife and raise two beautiful daughters. From this vantage point I have watched many of my peers lose their wives, children, and friends for the very success I dreamed of.
Being successful in those terms, however, must mold itself into me, and not the other way around.
I have come to define success as having my priorities in line first, and then obedience to my calling by being the best musician I can be at any given time on this journey.
My calling on planet earth is wrapped up in music. It involves vintage Selmer Mark VI saxophones, but I am not defined by them. It includes a few guitars, keyboards, brass instruments, writing and recording songs, but they do not make me who I am. Descartes may think and therefore he was - I was created therefore I am.
I am successful.
The Myth
1 a : a usually traditional story of ostensibly historical events that serves to unfold part of the world view of a people or explain a practice, belief, or natural phenomenon
b : parable, allegory
2 a : a popular belief or tradition
b : an unfounded or false notion
myth -noun
The Myth is that you should focus and only do one thing or another. Spreading yourself to thin will make you “A Jack of all trades, but master of none.”
Musicians get labeled, packaged and boxed in order to fit the pre-established guidelines of shelf space or iTunes catalogues. Though most musicians perpetuate the myth by narrowing their focus themselves - and there is nothing wrong with that - there are quite a lot of us who can’t be neatly put in a single box, or neatly conformed to a mold.
As my daughter says before the first track on the Big Head 5 CD, “Daddy likes to rock!” Why is that so hard to hear about a jazz saxophonist?
The Myth is that Christian music has to fit into a well defined and very small box. My first recording, ‘The Gate of Believers’ was turned down by several major jazz labels who, though they thought it was great music, wanted nothing to do with a Christian record. Christian labels all turned it down because they wanted nothing to do with a jazz record.
I am a musician. I am a Christian. Is it impossible to practice both at the same time? Can Christian plumbers only work on the drains of other Christians? Christian doctors aren’t scandalized for operating on non-Christians. Woe to the Christian musician, though, who practices their God given talent in the secular arena.
They give those people a name:
“Sold out.” That’s the Myth.
I prefer to think of myself as
“Souled out.”