Professionalism
A quote from a book about church music and those who create it, but I think it applies to any area of art/work/trade. Thought I’d share…
“…the difference between an amateur and a professional is that a professional never stops learning. If by a professional [song writer] we mean one who takes their craft seriously and who wants to push it as far as it can go, then we should learn all we can, whenever we can.
Otherwise all we’ll ever be is amateurs, dabbling at the edges, and never seeing how far we can swim.
The most fundamental thing in improving your technique is to listen to and learn from others you admire. Talk to other [song writers] about their craft. Share ideas and inspiration. Examine their work and try to understand how they do it.”
Nick Page, And now let’s enter into a time of nonsense. Pg. 68
I agree with where he’s going, but (you knew that was coming)… after reading it I thought, no, the difference is the amount of time spent: an amateur will dabble while a professional will spend hours practicing, because that’s what they do.
But then I realized that’s not entirely true either: technically, the difference between an amateur and a professional is that the professional gets paid. And that is why there are a lot of amateurs in church music. They are professional salespeople, web designers, engineers, etc. So it might be unfair to expect them to be professional musicians as well. Fortunately Stonebrook is very blessed to have many professional- or nearly professional-caliber musicians.
Hmmm, sounds like a lot of stuff I do in my life, be it spanish, guitar, or memorizing scriptures. I’m not saying I believe in professional scripture memorizers or anything (we should ALL be that). I guess the thing I’m wondering is, can I effectively pursue several things in my life right now and still be excellent in all of them? I do want to be good at spanish, I do want to be learning more guitar, and I do want to study the Word more in depth. Maybe I’m not industrious enough; maybe I have the wrong priorities…who knows? (God) I also know that the Devil is very interested in keeping me distracted and frustrated. What to do? If this made sense, give me some advice, I’d appreciate it. Thanks for posting Matt.