A Chance

I used to play a lot of music when I was a teenager. It ranged from tuba, sousaphone, piano, bass guitar, guitar, and singing. I mean, I really enjoyed it. Loved it! Back then there were no worries. Just passing classes and the typical drama. I’ve been thinking a lot about different things that have been happening the last year or so since I stepped down, but I want to go even further back. I want to go as far back as when I started my first band.

The band was called Into the Primitive. Now, it wasn’t a very fancy name or anything crazy, but it was just three guys who loved music. The drummer and I played in the marching band,(he was in the drum line) The bassist happened to be his friend, but he didn’t play much unless we were all jamming together. The foundation of this band was just to hang out and try to create music. We didn’t play any gigs unless it was a small birthday party. It was actually pretty nice just to hang out and jam. Then, play some Elder Scrolls on the Xbox, or Halo. Plus, we’d have our daily ritual of dipping Chips Ahoy cookies into a jar full of Nutella. I discovered that combination playing in that band.

We had high hopes for our band. I mean, my mom spent almost $800 for us on a demo that sounded like glass scrapping against the inside of a plastic bucket. I have no clue why we went to this supposed audio engineer, but he acted professional on the internet. Ah! The days of myspace. Everyone use to advertise themselves there and pretend they were some high end business that could turn us into stars. Some people use their trickery to their advantage.

Anyways, the reason I titled this post A Chance is because all of us have goals in life. Whether it’s to be the next rock star, the next all star baseball player, the next professional football player, or the next big author. I wanted to start with saying that sometimes we all have to give each other guidance and a chance to learn our craft that we want to be great at.

I remember in many bands that I performed with, it seemed like every two to three months we were dumping members like we were in some short term relationship. In the band Into the Primitive we ended up kicking the bassist out because he was not performing as well as we wanted him to. We pretty much gave him three months to get it together, but he never rose up to our expectations. It was one of the hardest things to do as a kid. How can someone tell someone they aren’t good at their instrument, when you’re the one that can hardly read the music for a guitar. You only play by ear?

I didn’t think about it so much when I was younger because I was arrogant and cocky. I didn’t care about anyone else except for myself. I was a brat and I was spoiled. I can openly admit this because I know I was. My parents pretty much did anything that I wanted them to do, and eventually it crawled up and bit me in the butt.

Anyways, we found a new bassist that we thought would be a great asset to our band. He knew how to play bass. He was pretty well known at school and I kind of had a crush on his sister at the time. Our band seemed to be getting better, and we were happy with the new change we had done, but graduation came around, and I decided to take it upon myself and have my band play at my graduation party. The only problem was, my drummer’s brother’s birthday was that same day. IN my mind, I only cared about myself. I didn’t care about my drummer’s own personal events.

We ended up getting into an argument because he wanted to be with his brother and family. I told him he should have said something, but I already know why he didn’t say anything. I was a hard person to please. I didn’t take no for an answer, and I was selfish. As bad as I want to say something good about me during that time of my life, I can’t. In my mind was fame, glory, and wealth. Nothing else.

Well, we ended up dropping the drummer who was probably one of the closest friends I had ever had then. He went on to perform in a pretty successful metal and. I ended up performing in two different bands. The next band I performed with was Radiolarien. (We got our name by flipping through a dictionary) Anyways, we were a very pop and alternative band, but things fell apart just as quick as they had started. I ditched the bassist and drummer. I think for me I got tired of getting talked down to so I moved on. I went on to pull in a guitarist that I knew from thee high school Orchestra. We’re still best friends today. I was even the best man in his wedding.

We wrote and performed a lot of our own material. Our band went through a lot of different performers, but we always stuck together. We performed multiple gigs around Georgia and the Atlanta area. Things were going pretty well, but we could not keep a set band. We constantly kept kicking people our until we finally just decided to stop performing completely so we could start careers. We were called The Calling Card.

I realize now that I probably should have given many of the musicians we played with a chance to proven themselves. I was always so quick to jump the gun and kick them out. It was because I had a goal and I didn’t want anyone holding me back. The only problem is, you have to build each other up before you can be successful. I should have given a lot more chances to all those musicians in the past, but I was self absorbed into my own goals. I didn’t care about how anyone else felt. It was almost like  sickness or a plague. Now, that I think about it that was truly one of the downfalls of my band. I was not patient enough to let my members learn the music.

Give everyone a chance to learn and grow. Don’t think that they are going to be able to learn as quick as you. Patience is a virtue, and if you want to do great things, you have to start with the fundamentals. You have to bond with the people around you and help each other. You can’t just continuously move on to the next one that looks like gold in your eyes. You can be rich, but wealth comes from happiness and the ones that love you. Hold on to the people that follow you because they will teach you so much more than what society is trying to push into our brains. Even if you think you know it all, you can always learn something new from each other.