Dean Barker - Part 1: advocating for a double life Brave Musician

In this episode, which is part 1 of a 2-part series, Monica sits down with technology executive and musician, Dean Barker. Dean has two careers, one where he runs a group of designers for a fortune 100 company and the other as a gigging musician. In part 1, he talks about his experiences as a full time musician as a young adult, his mix of influences growing up, and his musical upbringing. We talk about his two sons and their musical interests and share some stories about them. Monica and Dean dig into some harmonic conversation about “wrong” notes and playing what you hear, along with the importance of deep listening alone and with others. We start in on the conversation about a double life where Dean shares how he makes it work, the importance of vision and see possibilities, the luxury for him of being able to take gigs without worrying about the bread, the projects he has been able to self-fund, and how he has funded others to bring new music into the world. They explore how Dean takes classes online to keep learning, and the importance of staying curious and wanting to experiment with the new tools out there. They conclude this portion with the reality that you can’t do it all and how he uses his time to practice as much as possible with the time he has available. As an unintended bonus, these two episodes are full of great book recommendations.
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See the show notes at BraveMusician.com/podcast.