Monday 5 July 2010

The joys of mediocrity 2


Right, so 90 per cent of us are mediocre – live with it. Of course, when encapsulating such a huge proportion of the world’s human population, one needs to take it as read that we are talking shades of grey here.

There are the talented mediocre, the mediocre that have practised that little bit more than their mediocre brothers and sisters and there are the mediocre that have practised a lot, but are so untalented that they stumble backwards into the world of the hopeless, or those that are so talented, but have no truck with any practice whatsoever and stumble from the upper echelons of mediocre back into the lower echelons as the talent atrophies within them.

For talent is a being – and any and every being needs sustenance. Starvation tends to lead towards death – although it never ceases to surprise me how long a body can exist without food. (As a side note, there are other ‘abstracts’ that exist as a being – conscience is one, marriage is another (or any relationship), interest a third. I am sure you can think of others, but these things all require constant nourishment if they are to survive and thrive. You can feed them the wrong sort of food, too, of course and by doing so, corrupt them; turn them into something that is ugly, hateful, destructive or listless.)

There are, of course, those exceedingly rare specimens of human being that have not a gram of talent and have never even heard of the word ‘discipline’, but have a single-minded enthusiasm for some creative act or other and manage to stagger and fall backwards into genius, unaware of how they got there, nor what they will do now that they are there. These fine (and lucky) individuals tend to find themselves in areas of humour – and the joke does tend to wear after a while, but still, it must be kind of cool to find yourself achieving acclaim with no effort whatsoever…

I digress…

The thing is, we are mediocre to greater and lesser degrees. A quick visit to your local open mic night will (possibly) confirm this. If you have not been to your local open mic night (or any open mic night for that matter) then please do – as long as you go with an open mind.

We musos are a proud and egocentric bunch and it is often difficult for us to find a good word for each other, but do give it a try. Pop down your local open mic night – take your instrument – and put yourself forward to do a number or two – then stand back an enjoy the efforts of others.

Pretty much the entire gamut of talent is on display and you will hear the odd number you haven’t heard for eons, which will give you a nice blast of nostalgia.

It is also interesting to watch the types of people that perform and how they view themselves and each other. There is often a sort of gauge you can draw that the more mediocre a performer is, the more front they seem to possess. How often have I seen a clearly talented individual pull off a really tricky piece of finger work while singing an equally complex melody, only to mumble some sort of feeble apology at the end of the piece – thus causing the applause to peter out sooner than it should have done? Very. And how often have I seen someone that can barely strum a chord – let alone three – with little or no idea of a tune in his or her head, but do so with so much front and enthusiasm that the audience feels compelled to blast him off stage with their applause – or at least delay the next onslaught.

The thing is, it is fun – and if you get involved, it becomes even more fun. You become part of ‘the gang’ to a greater or lesser degree. What is more, the more you turn up, the more you become a part of that particular open mic night’s scene…

And do you know what? The more you turn up, the better you get. Some people even start expanding their repertoire. And every now and then, that exceptional individual – so awful they are utterly brilliant – turns up. You don’t want to miss that…

1 comment:

  1. I think I recognise myself in that lot! But I'd put myself in the "mediocre, jealous and only prepared to get any better if it happens easily" category. Bad, bad combination of traits. Instant gratification is the nemesis of exceptional. L xxx

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