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Where is Charles Bertroud?

#41
What's being described is a simple difference between agency and external forces. I believe people have considerable agency in affecting the outcome of their intended goals. I believe this agency drastically outweighs any impact of some unmeasurable external force that can't be quantified by any measure or metric.

tbz said:
It doesn’t though. In the music industry the most/best prepared folks do not always get recognized.
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Preparation is half of the expression. Creating an opportunity to utilize that preparation is the other component. How many brilliant players do you have in your area that never create an opportunity for that talent to be seen by the intended audience? Every city I've lived in has had a wealth of these types of players. Are they not lucky, or are they simply not doing anything effective to further their goal?

tbz said:
It also doesn’t apply in the corporate world.
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The corporate world and the music industry function identically in this regard. Be prepared, create opportunities, realize goals.

tbz said:
I’m honestly not clear where your sentiment factually applies in reality, in a quantifiable consistent manner.
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Quantifiable is the key word here. Luck is not quantifiable. Being prepared and creating opportunities are quantifiable.

tbz said:
Even in fair contests with level playing fields, like athletic competiton, it doesn’t apply consistently. Hence it being a hollow platitude.
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Athletic competition is not always a level playing field, but even assuming a truly level playing field the difference between victory and defeat is far more determined by player/team agency than an unmeasurable external force.
 
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#42
silky smoove said:
What's being described is a simple difference between agency and external forces. I believe people have considerable agency in affecting the outcome of their intended goals. I believe this agency drastically outweighs any impact of some unmeasurable external force that can't be quantified by any measure or metric.

Preparation is half of the expression. Creating an opportunity to utilize that preparation is the other component. How many brilliant players do you have in your area that never create an opportunity for that talent to be seen by the intended audience? Every city I've lived in has had a wealth of these types of players. Are they not lucky, or are they simply not doing anything effective to further their goal?

The corporate world and the music industry function identically in this regard. Be prepared, create opportunities, realize goals.

Quantifiable is the key word here. Luck is not quantifiable. Being prepared and creating opportunities are quantifiable.

Athletic competition is not always a level playing field, but even assuming a truly level playing field the difference between victory and defeat is far more determined by player/team agency than an unmeasurable external force.
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Yes. Preparation is half of it. Which is my point. It’s half. Not all. That is the part that is vexing to some of us.
 
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#44
silky smoove said:
I’m a firm believer that luck is simply what occurs at the crossroads of preparation and opportunity. Much of what is perceived as luck is people being well-prepared and creating an opportunity for their preparation to be viewed by an audience that results in a positive outcome. It may appear to be luck by those outside of the circumstances, but for those involved it likely feels like anything but.
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I used to think that too, until I spent a year preparing my race car for the coming season, went out on opening night and qualified 4th fastest and then was promptly plowed into by another racer who simply didn't want me to be faster than him. Completely destroyed my car, had to literally cut the rear frame off of it and rebuild it. Luck, and subsequently bad luck, is a real thing. I'll let you guess at which version I excel at. ;)

Regarding Charles, he is an amazing player, I like his videos and I enjoy watching him. Nothing else to say about him. Can't stand Davey tho, his shtick just gets annoying for me, so I simply don't watch. But I also have no reason to bash Davey, because the dude is making WAY more money than I am by doing something he loves, so clearly we know which one of us got that part right. Life is funny, you don't have to like everything, but there's seldom a reason to trash what you don't like either. Somewhere, somebody likes it, so it isn't "wrong".
 
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#46
TerribleTim68 said:
I used to think that too, until I spent a year preparing my race car for the coming season, went out on opening night and qualified 4th fastest and then was promptly plowed into by another racer who simply didn't want me to be faster than him. Completely destroyed my car, had to literally cut the rear frame off of it and rebuild it. Luck, and subsequently bad luck, is a real thing. I'll let you guess at which version I excel at. ;)

Regarding Charles, he is an amazing player, I like his videos and I enjoy watching him. Nothing else to say about him. Can't stand Davey tho, his shtick just gets annoying for me, so I simply don't watch. But I also have no reason to bash Davey, because the dude is making WAY more money than I am by doing something he loves, so clearly we know which one of us got that part right. Life is funny, you don't have to like everything, but there's seldom a reason to trash what you don't like either. Somewhere, somebody likes it, so it isn't "wrong".
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No, no, see you should have just been prepared for that. You messed up by not having a gun in your car. Clearly.

/s
 
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#50
silky smoove said:
Right, and opportunity is the other. It's not mystical like luck. It's quantifiable and entirely within the control of the person. It's not easy and frequently doesn't have clear indicators, but again, it's quantifiable.
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Opportunity is often an outcome of luck. But I do agree that part of preparation is “work to build opportunities for yourself.”

Btw. How do you account for acts like the Monkees in your philosophy. You know, that band that consisted of two actors that could not play music, and two actors who kinda could. That then had a very successful life long career.

Imo they got lucky with one acting gig. That turned into a life time career, in an industry that half of them never prepared for.
 
#51
tbz said:
Opportunity is often a factor of luck.
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Opportunity is always created. It's never truly spontaneous. Right place and right time are both a factor of personal actions and decisions that lead a person to that point. They don't simply manifest.

tbz said:
Btw. How do you account for acts like the Monkees in your philosophy. You know. That band that consisted of two actors that could not play music, and two actors who kinda could. That then had a very successful life long career.
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Perfect example. They had a goal, they were prepared to execute that goal and they created an opportunity to make it successful. The bit about which ones could and could not play music doesn't necessarily factor in. As a group they were able to convey their art sufficiently to be successful. That scenario wouldn't likely pan out for someone like Charles as a lot of his success has revolved around his ability to play highly technical pieces, but for the Monkees....? It obviously worked quite well.
 
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#53
In a near random universe there are still certain combinations
Picked out from all other possible ones
Which, when given some time and the just-right circumstances
Not too far from the earth or too close to the sun
They will dance and they’ll spin in the embrace of the trade winds
Playing havoc with the hearts and the upturned faces down below
Until the laws of curved spacetime, susponed without warning
Kick back in with a vengeance for the last act of the show.
 
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#54
5StringBlues said:
In a near random universe there are still certain combinations
Picked out from all other possible ones
Which, when given some time and the just-right circumstances
Not too far from the earth or too close to the sun
They will dance and they’ll spin in the embrace of the trade winds
Playing havoc with the hearts and the upturned faces down below
Until the laws of curved spacetime, susponed without warning
Kick back in with a vengeance for the last act of the show.
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Surf and/or Die.
 
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#58
RichterScale said:
I think I got a contact high from reading this thread
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I think it's a very, very interesting discussion.

I was actually talking to someone on TB in private messages about this exact guy, Charles, and this specific video just a few days ago.

How much of it was preparation? Well, that we can answer. 20000 hours. By manys' standards, he has already made it - toured the world while playing the music and making money.

But he wanted more - he wanted to be famous and have a following.

20000 hours and he did not have that.

Now, if social media didnt exist he wouldnt have made it to this point. On the other hand, if he advertised himself on fiver 5k hours in and David saw him, what then?

Technically, he could have "saved" 15k hours of his life and having "made it" in his own eyes.

Because at the end of the day you can be the best player, you can tour the world and that means nothing with his specific goal in mind. Nobody came back after seeing him once, nobody cared. It just so happened that his online career got boosted from davie.

And in case anyone wonders, yes he did make videos before davie but he wasn't known by many.

I find the psychological and otherwise more "esoteric" discussions surounding bass and music in general very, very interesting. I think there is a lot of merit to these conversations.
 
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#59
tbz said:
No. They weren’t even remotely prepared.
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Sufficiently prepared to execute on the concept. There's no need to speculate on that fact. It's historical. There's evidence.

tbz said:
The corporate executives that chose them were prepared to execute that goal. Then momentum and luck carried them forward.
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So nothing that they had done previously got them in front of those corporate executives, and nothing that they did from that point on allowed them to continue? It was entirely some intangible external force that couldn't be measured? Again, to those outside of the circumstances it probably looks like that, but to those involved it was likely anything but.
 

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