Awakening the Amateur Within

I had a couple of experiences this weekend which reminded me of the tremendous love and enthusiasm which can often be poured into an event being put on by ‘amateurs’. One event was the Spring concert put on by The Greater Moncton Chorale entitled “The Bumpy Road to Love”. The well put together program of all of the ups and downs of love was punctuated by a few real-life stories told on stage, which truly came from the heart rather than a well-crafted script.

The other event I participated this weekend was a screening of the documentary American Harmony, which followed a few of the top men’s barbershop quartets vying for the top position in some of the recent International Conferences. The grass-roots fuelled, “anyone can sing” philosophy of the Barbershop Society produces some music and musicians who can go toe-to-toe with any number of ‘professional’ musicians who may be well-trained and quite competent, yet may not necessarily match the degree of love and enthusiasm. The best professionals, of course, are the ones who always retain their ‘amateur’ or beginner’s spirit, and infuse it into all of their work.

Here is a prime example of the beautiful and subtle artistry that can be produced by so-called amateurs — this is the Barbershop quartet “Crossroads”, with one of their performances that won them the first place medal in the 2009 men’s international competition:

One of the key lessons to take from this is an example of what it looks like when you lock into any of the threads of your desire function, through resonance. It may or may not be something which you do as your career, but that is irrelevant in terms of the function of what you are activating within yourself through participating such things in your life.

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