Saturday, March 25, 2006

Philip Glass on the beach
with his glockenspiel


I'm a music lover who knows nothing more than to follow what's interesting and challenging.

I'm also a lover of the freedoms of enterprise creation. Here also my best recommendation is that you follow what's interesting and challenging to you.

The work of composer Philip Glass is a source of great fun and wonder for me. I came to love Mr. Glass on hearing portions of his opera Einstein On the Beach.

I certainly don't understand it, but I certainly love it. I want to be drawn into the challenge of that music.

Philip Glass didn't start out this good. Mr. Glass started out the old fashioned way. Practice. Getting it wrong. Getting it right, again and again and, hopefully, again.

The March 20, 2006 New Yorker has a short piece describing Philip Glass working with students in NYC. He told them, in advocating for better music education in the schools, that he started out playing bass trumpet and glockenspiel in his high-school marching band during football games.

When you're contemplating your own enterprise, or when you're deep into its early life, remember this wonderful composer, among the hippest alive, marching, practicing, starting over and over, back there in high-school.

Your enterprise life should always follow what's interesting and challenging. The execution may be dull and boring (that's good!) but the drive behind it all should continually light you up.

No harm in liking what you don't understand. Go explore it. The harm comes from not following what interests and challenges you.

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