Attributes of the World’s Best Musicians

I have spent most of my life surrounded by some of the world’s best classical musicians and have performed with many of them at leading halls like Carnegie and Lincoln Center in New York. Over the years I noticed how people react to some of them and not as much to others despite the fact that all the musicians were at the top of their art and careers.

Much to my surprise and unlike what one would think, I noticed that the ones that made profound lasting impact on the audience were quite pensive, introvert and not necessarily into performing with the sole goal of pleasing the audience. They were sort of in their own world and the audience somehow managed to find its way into that world only to experience sheer bliss. Knowing many of these musicians and their lives intimately, I noticed common traits among these outliers. The defining attribute they all possessed was the relentless gratification of the spirit of their music with every aspect of their being. Eventually there came a moment when the spirit let them into its circle of trust. I learnt that it is at the entrance to this circle of trust where these musicians experienced the aerodynamic drag and a sonic boom like energy boost. I call it their Mach-1 moment analogous to an object reaching the speed of sound (c = 768 mph). In this case the shock waves are inside their head or at least that's what they feel anyway. From this point onwards they just sit back, put their seat belt on and let the music’s spirit take over. I have seen this happen many times on stage when their music goes supersonic and they become a passenger. The gratification of this spirit and its embrace of these amazing musicians is the whole point of their music and the core differentiating factor from other performers. The world’s greatest musicians have never been hung up about getting technical on dogma but really about having an honest conversation with their spirit. It is completely introspective. It is really when they find themselves the most vulnerable to it that it lets them in. And as an audience, to make your way into that circle of trust where you find your artist jamming in bliss is an experience that is nothing short of celestial.

Anurag Harsh [other articles] is a founding exec of Ziff Davis (NASDAQ: JCOM), the world's largest tech & gaming digital corp. He graduated (MBA/MS) from Wharton & MIT, has performed two sold out solo concerts at Carnegie Hall and co-authored the McGraw-Hill bestseller “M-Commerce Security”. Follow him on LinkedIn or Twitter @anuragharsh