A brilliant friend recently clued me in to one of her creative puzzle-mind games she uses to solve problems. Each day she reads a bit from three books (non-fiction) and then tries to find the correlation between them and locate the thread that reasons why she read those particular words that day. I know. She puts my problem solving skills to shame daily. 
So I’m trying it, but with only two books to ease myself in. I am reading Manage Your Day-To-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, & Sharpen Your Creative Mind by 99U, and How Music Works by John Powell. These are technically not related, but not apples and oranges either. (Baby steps.)
What I see from my passages today is a vision of action and not to fear self-promotion (initially.) As musicians we enjoy avoiding conflict, unless our skills are being questioned – then we are a mama bear viciously protecting our egos. I can say from experience that it is both helpful and infuriating when playing next to someone that has perfect pitch in an orchestra; yes they are correct on all pitches, but if the starting pitch the oboe player (or out-of-tune piano) gives you is not 440, then you are in for a rough ride.
Most musicians find themselves in the category of not putting themselves out there enough. Seth Godin explains that we are truly professional creatives when we choose to create even when you don’t feel like it. And the reason we tend to attain short-term goals but fall flat on the long term ones ones is fear – fear of criticism and fear of being labeled that you actually know what you are doing.
…it puts you into the world as someone who knows what you are doing, which means tomorrow you also have to know what you are doing, and you have just signed up for a lifetime of knowing what you are are doing. (Seth Godin)
So the thread I’m choosing to see today is to not fear being labeled – as a person with partial-perfect pitch (thank you ANTS song!) or to be labeled as knowing what I’m doing, when I know I will eventually have moments everyday where that will not be true.
To close I leave you with Powell’s imaginary argument between two pre-1939 perfect pitch singers:
coffeecellist 