129 lines
5.0 KiB
Markdown
129 lines
5.0 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2012-03-27T11:53:58.000Z'
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title: There's no speed limit (2009)
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url: http://sivers.org/kimo
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author: tnorthcutt
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points: 689
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 193
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1332849238
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_tnorthcutt
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- story_3761013
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objectID: '3761013'
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---
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[Articles](/blog):
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# There’s no speed limit. (The lessons that changed my life.)
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2009-12-01
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Whether you’re a student, teacher, or parent, I think you’ll appreciate
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this story of how one teacher can completely and permanently change
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someone’s life in only a few lessons.
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I met Kimo Williams when I was 17, the summer after I graduated high
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school, a few months before I was starting Berklee College of Music.
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I called a local recording studio, with a random question about music
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typesetting.
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When the studio owner heard I was going to Berklee, he said, “I
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graduated from Berklee, and taught there for a few years, too. I’ll bet
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I can teach you two years’ of theory and arranging in only a few
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lessons. I suspect you can graduate in two years if you understand
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**there’s no speed limit**. Come by my studio at 9:00 tomorrow for your
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first lesson, if you’re interested. No charge.”
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Graduate college in two years? Awesome\! I liked his style. That was
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Kimo Williams.
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Excited as hell, I showed up to his studio at 8:40 the next morning,
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though I waited outside until 8:59 before ringing his bell.
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(Recently I heard him tell this same story from his perspective. He
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said, “My doorbell rang at 8:59 one morning and I had no idea why. I run
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across kids all the time who say they want to be a great musician. I
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tell them I can help, and tell them to show up at my studio at 9am if
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they’re serious. Almost nobody ever does. It’s how I weed out the really
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serious ones from the kids who are just talk. But there he was, ready to
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go.”)
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He opened the door. A tall black man in a Hawaiian shirt and big hat, a
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square scar on his nose, a laid-back demeanor, and a huge smile, sizing
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me up, nodding.
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After a one-minute welcome, we were sitting at the piano, analyzing the
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sheet music for a jazz standard. He was quickly explaining the chords
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based on the diatonic scale. How the dissonance of the tri-tone in the
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5-chord with the flat-7 is what makes it want to resolve to the 1.
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Within a minute, I was already being quizzed. “If the 5-chord with the
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flat-7 has that tritone, then so does another flat-7 chord. Which one?”
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“Uh... the flat-2 chord?”
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“Right\! So that’s a substitute chord. Any flat-7 chord can always be
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substituted with the other flat-7 that shares the same tritone. So
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reharmonize all the chords you can in this chart. Go.”
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**The pace was intense, and I loved it. Finally, someone was challenging
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me — keeping me in over my head — encouraging and expecting me to pull
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myself up, quickly. I was learning so fast, it had the adrenaline of
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sports or a video game.** A two-way game of catch, he tossed every fact
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back at me and made me prove I got it.
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In our three-hour lesson that morning, he taught me a full semester of
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Berklee’s harmony courses. In our next four lessons, he taught me the
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next four semesters of harmony and arranging requirements.
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When I got to college and took my entrance exams, I tested out of those
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six semesters of required classes.
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Then, as he suggested, I bought the course materials for other required
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classes and taught myself, doing the homework on my own time, then went
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to the department head and took the final exam, getting full credit for
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the course.
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Doing this in addition to my full course load, I graduated college in
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two and a half years. (I got my bachelor’s degree when I was 20.) I
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squeezed every bit of education out of that place that I could.
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But the permanent effect was this:
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**Kimo’s high expectations set a new pace for me.** He taught me “**the
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standard pace is for chumps**” — that the system is designed so anyone
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can keep up. **If you’re more driven than “just anyone” — you can do so
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much more than anyone expects. And this applies to ALL of life — not
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just school.**
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Before I met him, I was just a kid who wanted to be a musician, doing it
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casually.
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**Ever since our five lessons, high expectations became my norm, and
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still are to this day.** Whether music, business, or personal — whether
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I actually achieve my expectations or not — the point is that **I owe
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every great thing that’s happened in my life to Kimo’s raised
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expectations**. That’s all it took. A random meeting and five music
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lessons to convince me I can do anything more effectively than anyone
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expects.
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(And so can anyone else.)
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I wish the same experience for everyone. I have no innate abilities.
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This article wasn’t meant to be about me as much as **the life-changing
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power of a great teacher and raised expectations**.
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Kimo knows how much he means to me, and we’re friends to this day. Read
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[the Wikipedia page about
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him](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kimo_Williams). Also [see my talk to
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incoming first-year Berklee students](/berklee).
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![Kimo Williams](/images/kimohat.jpg)
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