I read a lot. Always have. When I was a kid, The Hardy Boys books were one of my ways to relax and enjoy stories. So I read them all!
I also consumed Mad magazine from cover to cover. By fifth grade, though, I was also reading parts of the New York Times, Time magazine, short story collections and, of course, The Playboy Adviser. (Thanks, Dad, for leaving behind your collection after the divorce.)
I haven’t changed much. Currently, I’m working through the 29 Jack Reacher books, a memoir written by Nick Mason, the drummer of Pink Floyd, and I subscribe to The Atlantic magazine.
I love reading!
What sparked my desire to write this morning, though, was not to impress you with my love of reading. Instead, it was a description of an individual in a story in The Atlantic:
“Shannon was 38, childless, single and thriving, and working as an executive at a global public-relations firm, where she handled a major client.”
All too often (for my taste) a person’s description in a magazine is a brief statement about their marital status, number of children and a puffed up picture of their career.
For me, it might be:
Scott is 63 and a husband and father of two children. He and wife, Beth, have thrived as two of the preeminent, award-winning musical teaching artists in New York’s often challenging school systems for over 30 years.
I sound important, right?
My problem with this kind of reductive puffery is that it simultaneously labels us and makes us seem like a community member of Garrison Keeler’s Lake Wobegon “(w)here all the men are good looking, the women are strong, and all the children are above average!”
When I meet people, they may inquire “what do you do?” This happens less here in Sullivan County than it does in Westchester, Manhattan or Long Island. But when they do I typically say that Beth and I are teaching artists. We travel to elementary or middle schools and perform musical assembly programs or conduct songwriting workshops. We also work with teachers.
If they seem interested (10-20% of people) I might tell them that we help to make learning fun with music and humor, that we help kids and teachers who are stressed-out with tools they can use. We also write and record songs with them.
I like it when a description of an individual’s career is made more understandable and relatable instead of high-fallutun’ and embellished.
The reason is simple. I enjoy hearing about what you do, why you do it and what interests you. I want to know the WHY of who you are. Also, I know very little about most careers and I’m curious to know more.
This is why most of the books I read are page-turners. I like writing to be dynamic and engaging. I get bored when an article is written without any panache or excitement about the topic. I cannot tell you how many non-fiction books I’ve purchased and stopped reading after 80 pages. Yawn!
As AI becomes more omnipresent in our lives, we who consume and create music, articles and books will be faced with a lot of quickly created, yawning content. Beth and I have already had the experience where one of our songwriting clients attempted to bypass the brainstorming process by presenting us with ChatGPT’s idea for the lyrics of a song we were to compose as a group. They did not identify it as AI generated to their boss or us, but it was quite obviously something written by a machine.
(In full disclosure, I use musical tools that allow me to create musical arrangements that bypass the need to play every instrument. I enjoy them tremendously! Some may call it a cheat and they wouldn’t be all wrong.So, I’m going to try and withhold judgment.)
I implore all of us to demand of ourselves and creators that we stay connected to our art form and basic skills like writing. Let’s keep it real.
Oh, and just to be clear – I did look at the photos in Playboy, I did inhale and I ain’t lying – it was fun.
