I know this doesn’t feel like a good time to start a war, but we have to do this.

If we don’t do it now, when are we going to do it?

This is the time. There’s no “better” time. We’re not going to wait and find a better time.

We are slaves to the Classical Music Culture.

The time to break free is NOW.

We need to begin amassing our forces.

Don’t worry, we’re not going to confront them directly. The CMC feeds off of insubordination. Direct confrontation won’t work and it’ll only make them stronger.

We must use indirect means to fight back.

Yes, the CMC exerts its power through shaming, belittling, and rejecting. But, their greatest weapon is more insidious than any of that. Somehow, they’ve gotten us to blame ourselves for everything we do wrong: every mistake, every failed audition, every miscounted measure.

They’ve hypnotized us into doing the dirty work for them.

And that’s what we need to fight against.

We need to do it NOW.

This is about self-mastery. We need to change the way we do things.

Once we do that, then we’ll have the power. Then, we’ll be able to do direct confrontation.

But right now, we need to say NO.

We must stop doing what’s bad for us, and self-blame is bad for us. It’s keeping us stuck and making us worse at music. It’s nothing more than a distraction.

They’ve convinced us it’s “moral certitude”, or “conscientiousness”, but it’s NOT. It’s a distraction.

We must focus on what’s good.

Mistakes are good.

And that’s exactly why the CMC taught us self-blame: when we blame ourselves, we can’t make mistakes. Because we’re so distracted trying to avoid mistakes. Even to the point where we’ll quit and do something else.

They have us exactly where they want us: in a state of fear.

We must break out of the distraction.

We must make the time to make mistakes.

Once we do that, they can’t stop us.

They’ll lose their power because we’ll learn from our mistakes. We’ll get good at music. We’ll amass power and we’ll overthrow the CMC.

We’re gonna rock that boat.

Make no mistake.

—Michael

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit nomichaelhere.substack.com