A Video Version
When
I was a young boy I would pretend to be Jim Thorp, one of the early great
football heroes. Latter I emulated
Johnny Unitas with the Baltimore Colts. I would run and zig and zag in our back yard
on Franklin Ave in Lewisburg, Tennessee and score touchdown time after
time. I was a sports hero – in my mind.
As
a young drummer I listened to Gene Krupa and Joe Morello of the Dave Brubeck
Quartet and emulated their drumming style.
They were the best of the best in those days and I listened and
practiced their style of drumming. I
pretended to be them. At times I suppose
I was a wild and crazy drummer.
In
college, I loved the way my professor, Jim Van Hook directed choirs. He had the coolest style, the warmest of
banter, and I wanted to be like him. And
for a while, so I became.
You
see, we pretend to be others while we are developing our own style.
Copy
– copy – copy till you make it your own.
I had to learn my voice as a drummer, as a writer and as anything else
I’ve pursued by learning and copying from others.
I
love this quote by Austin Kleon – from his book Steal Like an Artist.
“Start copying. Nobody is born with a style or a voice. We don’t come out of the womb knowing who we
are. In the beginning, we learn by
pretending to be our heroes. We learn by
copying.”
We
learned to write by memorizing the alphabet first, and forming the
letters. We copied what was on the blackboard
in our elementary school.
And
then came spelling, sentences, diagraming of sentences, then longer
passages. And then we wrote term
papers. We borrowed ideas, and quotes
from various sources. We borrowed.
And
we learned.
Interesting
fact:
~In
his early days Johnny Carson tried to emulate Jack Benny. He ended up being Johnny Carson.
~David
Letterman copied Johnny Carson. He ended
up being David Letterman.
~Conan
O’Brien tried to become David Letterman.
He ended up being Conan O’Brien.
We
start out copying, mimicking, patterning ourselves or our style after someone
else and along the way we make adjustments, tweak our style, and sooner than
soon, we make it our own.
We
become an original
by learning from others first. That
sounds like such a contradiction in terms, but it is so.
And
it is all stealing at its finest.
Let
the “Let’s pretend” dance continue.
Words of Hope
Encouragement Inspiration
One Word at a Time
