Experience Matters, But Not As Much As...

Time Magazine did a great article about how much experience matters in choosing the next leader for the U.S. Bottom line, how much should experience matter?

When it comes to musicians, what's more important than experience? In my book, it's their AVAILBILITY, HEART/ATTITUDE, and ABILITY. Sure experience has an impact on each of these - but it's up to the individual musician with what they do with these experiences. What's MOST important about experience is not a question of what experiences you've had but rather what you've learned from them.


In other words, after an experience:

• Will you make yourself more or less available? In what ways?
• How will your heart attitude and character change as a result of your experiences?
• Will you raise the bar on your ability because of your experience? Or will you bank that the experience by itself will improve your ability simply because of an enrichment?

I gotta remember that for myself too. My laundry list of musical experiences shouldn't matter more than what I've LEARNED from them.

God, tame my tongue when it comes to my musical resume. It doesn't matter to You. It only matters to those around me - and I struggle with it mattering to me. But help me have Your heart. What matters to You is how I learn from past experiences (successes, mistakes, famous groups/people, etc.). God, give me more experiences (yikes) - but give me Your Spirit's guidance in learning from them what I need to.