Is there a relationship between music and self respect? Brady Novotny thinks so. He joins SPC host David Delmar to share how he found the inspiration to pick back up the guitar after years of putting it aside and how that created a new level of self respect. He also shares how the question of what his legacy was going to be was staring him in the face and how his mom becoming ill was the nudge he needed to start taking more risk with his music career. He shares some valuable information as a psychologist and now on-the-rise musician about how to overcome fear and put yourself out there in the world through Youtube and other means. Tune in to hear how his lessons can improve your life and enhance your self respect.

Hello, this is David your host of SuperPower Creatives, and you’re listening to our episode, Psychology of Music and Self Respect.

I believe everyone is a creator and it’s this inherent birthright that’s the source of our superpowers. Stepping into this personal authority is scary though. This show celebrates creatives that stay true to who they really are making a living using their creative superpowers. The stories they share will excite and inspire listeners to do the same. Making positive change in the world.

I’m most grateful to welcome our guest for today’s show. His level of talents, knowledge, and commitment to the bettering of himself and music, at large, through amazing perseverance is something I truly admire and am inspired by and respect. I really feel his story today is meant to be heard by a specific type of listener. Perhaps a listener who gave up on their dreams of one day doing music. If that’s you, then today is the day that it all turns around and our guest you can thank directly. Brady Novotny started playing the guitar at the age of ten. Determined to be a world class guitarist, he left his first guitar lesson with his instructor telling him to give it up now, that’s just wrong, man, that’s just wrong.

Thus, he was introduced to criticism and disappointment early in his endeavor. Nevertheless, Brady heard a guitar player that would motivate him to push all that aside and reenergizes his passion to continue. And that guitar player was nothing more than Mr. Randy Rhoads. Brady soon fell in love with classical and melodic guitar playing. He would, with full on commitment, practice learning everything from classical pieces, melodic, and virtuosic solos from 80’s guitar heroes to jazz fusion. That’s cool stuff. He loved the guitar and studied the guitar at Berklee College of Music for just a little bit of time, but, interestingly enough, at the age of 19, he was asked to teach summer guitar workshops at Duquesne University. And, well, as life happens, you know, he got sort of burned out with that and went back to school and received his Master’s in Psychology.

Yup, folks, you heard that right, a Master’s in Psychology. That is impressive. But the passion is back stronger than ever, plus, as he would like to say, it never hurts to have some money and it doesn’t for sure but he set out to do an instrumental project, not soon after, that would have his listeners singing the haunting melodies while holding their tension by uniquely placed guitar virtuosity and dynamic rhythms creating a fusion of rock, flamenco, and jazz.

His love for a variety of musical styles led him to study under many teachers in his life but he also has a strong affection for the nylon string guitar sounds so this led him to study flamenco guitar. He immediately fell in love with the passion, the virtuosity, and the rhythm of this style. The shred of the 80’s was one of his main influences and guilty pleasures while jazz was a big influence on Brady’s cordial choices and sound color. He has a wide range of experience in the music business from the Pittsburgh rock scene to national tours as well as Pittsburgh session guitars, worship leaders and guitars at several mega churches. He has also taught guitar at clinics and universities. His 2019 release with MTS management group, MTS Records, as passions collide, featuring the lead single, Redemption’s Cry, the song, featuring a haunting and beautiful vocal and Brady’s wife, Jennifer, is currently charting on the air play today national radio charts. Brady, it’s such amazing stuff. Thank you so much for being here today.

No, that was a wonderful intro. Thank you.

You’re very welcome. We want our guests to know that they are celebrated and we are overjoyed to have them on.

Well, thank you.

You’re very welcome. And I just also want to thank you for the perseverance to say yes to your love and your craft. You know, after a short little hiatus. I mean I know many of the listeners are going to just benefit from hearing about that and it’s a core thing I certainly talk about so thank you for being that representative of such an important thing.

Absolutely.

You bet. Well, today we’re talking about our show, Psychology of Music and Self Respect. More specifically, how Brady finds the psychology of creativity affects how he approaches music, having a Master’s in Psychology. That’s suck a rare thing so I’m just, kind of, honed in on that cause I’ve always loved psychology and, you know, I wanted to major in psychology too so when I read that I was like oh my gosh, that’s amazing. But also, we want to find out how your level of experience performing and teaching allows your own creativity to continue to grow and how that affects your life and the life of your fans and your audience members. So, how we always open up the show. So Brady, it’s the same question for everyone. What is your creative superpower?

I think it’s very important to befriend that little kid in you and speak with it and just remember that passion that you had because life can come by and really just destroy that altogether.

Well, I have to really look deep inside myself and I go back to that childhood dream of when there was no critics so to speak. But when you’re practicing in your room and, well at least back then, the posters on your wall and you had the ability to dream and no one was telling you no and you had no idea what it meant to how to provide for a family or anything like that, you just wanted to achieve this goal, something burning deep inside of you and so I think it’s very important to befriend that little kid in you and speak with it and just remember that passion that you had because life can come by and really just destroy that altogether. So I always try to get in touch with and remember why I wanted to do this. I just love to play the guitar and that was a big part of it.

Personally, at the age of ten, to be able to have that love for an instrument, any instrument, but guitar particularly, I mean that it in itself is really a unique thing and, you know, the thing, unfortunately, that’s not so unique is that adult voice or that influential person or persons that come in and take the innocence of that imagination for a dream and in one fell swoop with no more than a few words, can just bring it crashing down. I’m often perplexed, based on just what I experienced and so many in hearing what you share, how that has just been such a prevalent thing in our society that caused so many people to leave dreams and leave passions and even talents behind. It’s really something to hear about.

I completely agree. I see that almost every day in my line of work as a therapist as well.

Let me ask you this, Brady. I don’t want to say common denominator, but what’s the one common factor besides the obvious, you know, somebody told them something and they believed it was true. What’s something else that’s a common factor that you see that trips people up or even is the thing that helps them to get past that nagging thing that has gotten so wrote into their main frame?

Yeah. I mean they’ve lost their sense of purpose. Anytime you lose your sense of purpose in life you get complacent and you end up making no choices or very bad choices to escape the normalcy of life of paying bills and taking out the garbage and just going to work every day and coming home and nothing’s changing. And when we realize we don’t have these paths that we need to follow and always looking from the grave backwards, it’s like what legacy do: I want to leave, what do I want to be remembered by. That doesn’t have to be a rockstar or anything it could be: a loving wife or husband. It could be the best father. It could be the best mother. It could be to start your own coffee shop that’s good for the community. I mean, there could be so many different things but when you don’t have a purpose. Depression is present and you fall into addictions and all kinds of stuff happens.

Anytime you lose your sense of purpose in life you get complacent and you end up making no choices or very bad choices to escape the normalcy of life of paying bills and taking out the garbage and just going to work every day and coming home and nothing’s changing.

Yeah, it’s a spiraling web of destruction that can happen.

Yeah.

And when that purpose part is missing, it’s the whole thing I would say. Well, let’s take a quick break and when we get back, I really want to just touch more on this because this is such an important topic and really something I think is worth exploring a little bit more, for sure. But before we do jump into a break, let’s tell people where they can go find out more about you.

Sure. For the music stuff, I have some blogs and all kinds of stuff on my website which is www.bradynovotny.com. I have a lot of videos and music and articles I have written and stuff like that so there’s tons of stuff on there and all my social media links and all that stuff are right on that website so it’s a one stop shop.

Wow, that’s terrific stuff. I know I personally can’t wait to go there so we’re talking with Brady Novotny today about our episode, Psychology of Music and Self Respect, we’re going to take a quick break and when we come back we’re going to continue with Brady and learn from a master teacher and performer and how you can tap back into your music and start writing your song again today.

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Music Credit: Words and Music written and performed by David Delmar. Engineered and produced by John Keenan.