Fortunes of Hard Work: Why You Should Never Give Up

hi everybody I'm Rick piatto and today's episode I want to start by thanking all the people that send me incredibly great emails and messages on facebook on YouTube on Instagram and to my email every day this has been really an incredible experience over the past six months of making these videos just want to thank everybody for being there and indulging me in these in these videos I was talking to a good friend of mine tonight and he reminded me of a story that he told me he tells his students about me actually and and it's the story that I left out of my bio when I did my video on it because I didn't really want to get into it at that time and but but I think it's important to tell the story because of because I know that there's a lot of young musicians like there's all different age musicians that that watch this channel and you know are so gracious to to you know take their time out in their data to watch some of these videos and it was this was a really important part of my musical what shaped me as a musician this one experience that transpired over the course of almost a year or so I was a senior in high school and I was a really bad student all the way from junior high on I tell people to savor they they are always amazed by this but I was a d-minus student I mean really yeah I was a really bad test Baker I failed a lot of classes or I would just barely pass them and d-minuses like we we always did number grades 65 I say it graduated was a 66 average from high school I took one year of math I took I took sciences but I played the orchestra that was my thing and I played sports and I always I ran track and and I played basketball and in baseball earlier but when I was in high school I was really good in track of it that I was very fast runner and I can jump and I was that was kind of what I did and that and playing in a rock band but I got hooked on playing jazz when I was about 16 or so and start dating jazz guitar lessons like I said in my earlier video but one of the things I didn't talk about is going to college for music and this is a story that my siblings don't even know I've got six siblings and they they have never heard this story um but I didn't know what I wanted to do for college I know I want to go to school for music but I didn't and I wanted to go to school for guitar but I didn't know how to do that so I started looking up asking some friends that were going I never go into school for music and and I picked two colleges to audition for one was Fredonia State University in upstate New York a moment at Fichte College which is also an upstate New York I'm from Rochester so these were very close colleges and I got the audition requirements this is 19 this is 1980 the beginning of 1980 so I both of them had very similar requirements I wanted to be in the jazz program both of them had jazz programs really before any other colleges around it I mean Berkeley had a jazz program but in upstate New York those were the two places you could go to get a degree in jazz jazz guitar so anyways I looked up the audition requirements for both places and you had they were very similar you had to play three pieces from three different style periods that would mean like a Renaissance piece a Baroque piece and a Romantic era piece for example or 20th century era piece and you had to play the Segovia scales well I read the audition requirements and brought them into my guitar teacher now my guitar teacher Glenn at the time he didn't really play classical guitar and he thought he could prepare me for these auditions so I grew some the hell's on my hand on my right hand to play clubs guitar and I started learning these pieces in the three box pieces out of a meld a book well these were just simplified versions of these pieces which I didn't realize and my teacher didn't realize this has played a Bach Prelude and some Bach fugue but they were very simplified and incorrect so anyway if I go into my first audition at verdun I go with some friends we ride together there that were also doing auditions and the guitar professor wasn't there there was a violin professor that was sitting there with a big reel-to-reel tape machine so he says okay what are you going to play I said I'm gonna play this Bach Prelude in D minor so I play the piece he's just sitting there writing some notes c16 violin professor doesn't know they're recording it for the guitar teacher that's not there so Plymouth pieces he doesn't say much he said well now it says you're so supposed to go via scales and I say well what are those and he says I don't know he said I think they're just three active major minor scales so it says oh I can play a three octave major minor scale so I said how about G major so I play G Major scale three octaves anyway so I leave there and the guy doesn't say much and I don't think much of it I thought that went pretty well and then a week later I go to audition in Ithaca College and when I get there my dad drives me there and I'm wearing a suit with a tie and I go in and I meet the guitar professor and I you have to take some other test nerves that like an orientation style thing where they get you know the Dean talks to students potential students there I go that and my dad listens with me and then he goes down and my dad waits outside the room the professor's office and I go into play and I start playing they said what do you auditioning for Anna said I want to be in the jazz guitar department okay well let me hear your classical pieces so I start playing the stock piece and you says to me what is that what is that arrangement I said it's MLB arrangement that's completely wrong that's not other piece goes that's the wrong arrangement what else do you have and he was really agitated so that time I was incredibly nervous so I said well I've got this other piece by Scarlatti and he says well that's the same style period well play it so I play it and he said where did you get that arrangement and I said well I learned it off a Julian bream album and he said you learned a classical guitar piece off of opera record I said yeah he goes well that's not from the right style period that's not from a different style period do you know anything from a different style period other than those in the Baroque and I said I have another back piece he says well I don't want to hear that I said well I really want to get into the jazz program he says and by this time I'm just drenched in sweat I'm so nervous this guy was was huge really didn't want to be there and was couldn't believe that he had to be sitting there for this kid that isn't doing the audition requirements you know correctly so he says well what can you play can you play standard and nothing would come to mind I couldn't think of anything a plank if it was so nervous so I said well how about a blue urge he says how about a blues I said sure and he says what key and I say eh well nobody plays jazz in a they don't play jazz blues in a and I couldn't think of a Melody's plate just my mind was blank so he goes over the piano to accompany me he didn't even company man and guitar he starts clunking out in a blues and I'm trying to improvise over it and it's just terrible and he stops and he kind of laughs he says okay thank you so I walk out of the office and my dad's there amazes how'd it go I said um okay I guess I'm not really sure so a couple weeks go by and the mailman comes to the house and I see these envelopes I go to get the mail I mean I'm 18 I'm a senior in high school this is March of 1918 and I got both letters so I open them I don't run in and tell my mom no my parents weren't home I opened both letters and they're both rejection letters if it goes like no couldn't you didn't pass the audition and your grades aren't good enough to get in Fredonia using best the audition but there's a letter from the track coach in there and there's a track coach they were the division three the number one Division three track school in the country at the time and the track coach said had a note in there if you want to run track you can get in you can't be a music major you have to make a different major but we can give you a scholarship for track so I said yes I would do it I got in touch with the track coach I said yes I'll come there and then I lied to everyone and I told them that I got into school for music and this lie went on for years it's gone on for so long that I mean I've told friends of mine but I my none of my siblings know I forgotten about it it was so long ago this is we're talking 30 37 years ago now so fast forward I practice all summer on my jazz guitar and then I'm determined to get into school for music even though I go to Fredonia as a history major so I started ester E major in the first day I get to school I go to the guitar professor Joanne Castellano her name was and I asked her I said I want to get in the music program and she says well I don't have time to teach you okay so I have no way to learn classical guitar then I check ethica colleges requirements when they're doing their next auditions and I decide I'm going to go Rhian at Ithaca in October this is August now so there was a freshman guitar student at Fredonia and his name was Phil Sappho big guy probably six foot five or so and he was a phenomenal classical guitarist his teacher was a teacher was a guitarist named Benjamin Verdes of fantastic classical guitarist who was not what no one is time grill so I told Phil about this and he said I'll teach you classical guitar this is another freshman so he taught me to build of us a to Danny minor and he taught me he taught me about five pieces he showed me how to hold my hand correctly everything when I was doing wrong he shouldn't be this is oviya scales and I practiced hours a day while I was doing my my freshman history major studies I decided I'm being a history major and I started running with a track name and I ran with the track team for about three weeks and I quit and the coach was like what he why you quitting at the one when I want to transfer to different schools go to school for music so anyways so I said I go to re-audition at Ithaca and my parents was saying why reassuring you got in before don't they as well it's a new year so I lied about that the new year so um so I have to readjust you know every one of my friends at the time thought that I got into school for music and I was going to school for music none of them knew that they didn't know that I wasn't so anyway so I go back to Ithaca and I go to Steve they get to our teacher I go to his office again he doesn't remember me now I've been there in February or March new year before and it's now October the year before Tino's the same year six months later he doesn't even remember me and I say I'm reading oh I see urea ition in the psalm you didn't get in okay great well okay so what are you going to play so I played a bill lobos piece of it son fantastic I played a box few sounds great and I played some other piece Wow Wow sounds great how about Segovia scale that play those and I said I really want to get in the jazz department now the last time I said this to him was before I play the a blues I said that before I left us and I have a lot of natural ability and I can do this if you give me a chance I had said that to speed before I left it the first time so he said I'm what are you going to play what jazz can you please I'm gonna play all things you are so I start playing and I'm play so I said no you don't need to accompany me I'll just play solo guitar so I start playing the Joe Pass version up chalo so Steve didn't realize it was Joe passed he just thought I sounded a lot like Joe Pass he didn't didn't realize I was actually note-for-note playing the virtuoso solo guitar version of all things you're that I figure out by ear so he tells me you're in so I go back to Fredonia and I tell people I'm going to school for in the spring in Ithaca so I transfer in January and I get there and there's a bunch of other classical guitarists there jazz guitar players that are in the program that I knew I was as good or way better than but they you know some of them had parents who had connections some of them had for whatever reasons they got into the school the first time without you know they passed the audition when they couldn't really play this stuff they just couldn't they were I was a much better guitar player than they were but I couldn't follow the rules to what was the audition requirements were so the first week at school I decide I'm going to go talk to the bass teacher because I was first share in the orchestra in my high school orchestra on bass and I came to realize that audition on bass I would have gotten into both schools because I was a very good bass player and I went and played for the bass teacher Henry knew Bert and he said great you're in I want you to be a music at bass major you can be a double major on the guitar but B you should be a classical bass music we music ed major this is great if I'm going to do so I studied jazz guitar with Steve Brown and then I studied classical baseless and renew Bert but the classical bass was my major so I set out as a bass major freshman year and I'm taking jazz guitar we split Steve so I start practicing and I'm practicing all the time and the first summer comes around and I'm practicing 10 hours a day and then I come back and I'm just much much better I mean dramatically improving all the time and in my junior year I was good enough that Steve who didn't let me into school asked me to play a duo gig with him it was in Elmira New York which was about 45 minutes romiska so we get in the car we drive this thing and people are saying the other students are saying I can't believe Steve's playing in gate that you're playing with Steve he'd never played with another student before this is unbelievable so I get on this game we're playing I do o stuff and we take the first break sitting at the bar and I say to Steve I want to tell you a story so I proceeded to tell Steve this story which he can't even believe that he didn't let me into the school not only did he not let me into the school but I was so depressed about not getting in that I almost quit playing because I was so humiliated at the idea that my ego could not handle the fact that I couldn't get into college in either place I mean it was really unbearable but it would not deter me and he couldn't believe that that was that that was true so fast-forward I finish I play many gigs of Steve after that and I go on to New England Conservatory and it's been two two years there and then I get an offer to come back and teach it as a college this is in the fall of 1987 so in 1980 I failed the audition to get into the college and in 1987 a year before I started writing my Beato book there I was not only good enough to get into college I was good enough to be a professor there and I got a desk in the same office as Steve teaching in the same office that I got rejected from college in and that was my office so that story was a huge huge learning experience in my life and the humiliation that I felt at the time I turned into I would so resolute that I was going to not let anything keep me from being it's great of a musician as I could be and I was going to try as hard as I could to to learn everything that I could so that's my story about that that I've never really told many people I probably there's probably five people or so in the world didn't know that story that know me but that was a monumental thing that happened in my life musically and just personally and like I said I've got six other siblings and I've never told them the story I mean at this point I just forget about it it was until my friend Tom reminded me earlier tonight about it and I said I'm going to tell that story because that's a that's that was a really important story to me and for any of you out there that are thinking about giving up ever anything can happen if you work hard enough that's all for now I'm Rick Beato thanks for watching and thanks for being here

Channel: Rick Beato

Views: 213,832

Keywords: Rick Beato, Everything Music, Hard work pays off, Storyteller, Inspirational Stories

Id: 10sMQ4w6yy0

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 27 2017