Ever hiked with a world-class violinist? Picture yourself climbing the challenging Reeves Brook Trail, accompanied by none other than the vibrant Daisy Jopling, a classical and rock violinist and a human symphony of inspiration. As we ascend, Daisy’s stories of her artistic lineage, her passionate journey into the world of music, and her admirable ventures in mentorship resonate with the beauty of the environment around us. She brings to light the value of personal success, the power of struggle, and the pitfalls of control.
Now imagine, you're not just walking with Daisy, you're stepping into her world. This world is a melange of music, spirituality, and a dash of past life beliefs. As the hike progresses, we're taken on an intimate journey through her decision to face fear head-on when offered a record deal, and her emphasis on the transformative power of single-minded focus. We also touch upon some of the most human experiences in performing, like forgetting while playing Bach, and performing under duress. Daisy's world is one of balance and perseverance, of light and darkness, and ultimately, of personal growth.
As we near the end of our hike, we find ourselves discussing concerts in exotic locations, like pyramids, and Daisy's intriguing talent for singing. In a moment of pure inspiration, Daisy opens up about her most challenging experiences and her continued support for arts healing programs in Egypt. It’s not just a hike, it’s a spiritual and enlightening journey with Daisy Jopling. Get ready to be inspired, challenged, and above all, to enjoy the music of life with every step of the way. Lace up your hiking boots (or your sparkly gold and silver chucks like Daisy); it's time to take this hike together.
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Ever hiked with a world-class violinist? Picture yourself climbing the challenging Reeves Brook Trail, accompanied by none other than the vibrant Daisy Jopling, a classical and rock violinist and a human symphony of inspiration. As we ascend, Daisy’s stories of her artistic lineage, her passionate journey into the world of music, and her admirable ventures in mentorship resonate with the beauty of the environment around us. She brings to light the value of personal success, the power of struggle, and the pitfalls of control.
Now imagine, you're not just walking with Daisy, you're stepping into her world. This world is a melange of music, spirituality, and a dash of past life beliefs. As the hike progresses, we're taken on an intimate journey through her decision to face fear head-on when offered a record deal, and her emphasis on the transformative power of single-minded focus. We also touch upon some of the most human experiences in performing, like forgetting while playing Bach, and performing under duress. Daisy's world is one of balance and perseverance, of light and darkness, and ultimately, of personal growth.
As we near the end of our hike, we find ourselves discussing concerts in exotic locations, like pyramids, and Daisy's intriguing talent for singing. In a moment of pure inspiration, Daisy opens up about her most challenging experiences and her continued support for arts healing programs in Egypt. It’s not just a hike, it’s a spiritual and enlightening journey with Daisy Jopling. Get ready to be inspired, challenged, and above all, to enjoy the music of life with every step of the way. Lace up your hiking boots (or your sparkly gold and silver chucks like Daisy); it's time to take this hike together.
Contribute to the granola bar fund :)
Follow The Journey on Instagram
Tiktok?
Submit Feedback
Apply to be a guest
Become a Sponsor
All right. So this is the Reeves Brook Trail in Harrowman, and it is somewhat challenging.
Speaker 2:Harrowman.
Speaker 1:New York Harrowman, new York Harrowman State Park, and it is somewhat challenging.
Speaker 2:Exciting.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And I want everybody to know. I've got sparkly sneakers which are silver on one side and gold on the other.
Speaker 1:You definitely do so.
Speaker 2:Perfect hiking sneakers.
Speaker 1:Daisy Jopling, are you okay with being recorded on a podcast?
Speaker 2:Oh, I'm so not only okay, I'm thrilled to be here, really honored, honestly.
Speaker 1:Well, there goes that liability. This is. I Took a Hike. I'm your host, Darren Mass, founder of business therapy group and park time wilderness philosopher. Here we step out of the boardrooms and home offices and into the great outdoors where the hustle of entrepreneurship meets the rustle of nature. In this episode, we take a spirited journey with Daisy Jopling, a classical and rock violinist and founder of the Daisy Jopling Music Mentorship Foundation. Daisy is a wildly successful musician and a free soul with a huge heart for educating and inspiring through music. Venture along this uplifting and challenging trail as we face new heights, all while dawning sparkly gold and silver chucks. Daisy is one tough and motivated free spirit with lots of positivity. This hike was spiritual, energetic and filled with creativity. When I took a hike with Daisy Jopling, All right. So I want to hear why you were so spiritual and what brought you there. So let's start as far back as you want to go. Who are you and why are you here with me, Other than a high recommendation?
Speaker 2:From such a dear friend of us both, one of the most beautiful inside and out men on the planet.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Jay Silliman. Anyway, thank you, jay. I'm going to just actually because, of course, I've lived a lot of years and a lot of amazing experiences and I'm just going to go with what I feel inspired to share with you. Sure, I have a wonderful family very close to my family. They're all in England, apart from my sister who lives in Norway, and my family are a mixture very artistic though it's going to say a mixture of professional lawyers, teachers and artists, but, like tons of artists, my sister and my brother I just have two siblings are both professional musicians.
Speaker 1:So all three of us have become really successful professional musicians.
Speaker 2:My sister plays the viola, so for anybody out there that's like a little bit bigger version of a violin, sounds a little bit deeper. And then my brother plays the cello, so we're actually what they call a string trio. Wow, yeah, you're a little the violin viola and cello play beautifully together, so we've had a string trio all our life. We don't. You know, I live here, my brother still lives in London and my sister in Norway, so we don't play a lot together, but we have a lot in the past.
Speaker 1:You can play over Zoom, although we'll clip the sound. Yeah, do your parents have a musical background?
Speaker 2:Yes, both of them, my father. They both played music as a child. They didn't become professional musicians, which, interestingly, could you know? Obviously they had this perfect mixture of loving music and encouraging us, but maybe not, I don't know. Sometimes a few parents are both professional musicians. The last thing you want to do is music, because they play. Whoa, that's a free, you're okay. Yes, I'm fine.
Speaker 1:All right, be careful with the foot. I can't these sparkly shoes. Let the record show. Here You've got sparkly shoes, all right, sparkly shoes don't have the best grip, but I will watch out for you. Now you fell gracefully.
Speaker 2:Kind of.
Speaker 1:Oh, this is. This is part of life. Sometimes you stumble and you pick yourself up and you move forward. That's right, that's right, let's move forward, all right. So I agree with you Sometimes you don't want to be like your parents. Yeah, all right and even cool rock musicians. Their kids don't really want to be part of what they do.
Speaker 2:Yes, Sometimes we're like it depends. It can go either way. But and you know, if your parents, either they're working really hard and struggling and you don't want that, or they're really famous and then it's difficult to maybe walk in their steps, I don't know. But still, my parents obviously had this perfect recipe for three successful and happy professional musicians children. So, yeah, so my parents my dad's mom was a professional singer and my dad's grandmother was a professional artist back in, I guess, late 1800s, when in fact, in England she was the first ever female painter to have a painting, for example, in the National Portrait Gallery in London. Oh, wow, okay. So she was very much like she wasn't a suffragette but kind of part of women's empowerment. You know, just to give honor to all the women who've come before us, how are all the women of today who are, and all the men of today who are feeling? All of us are feminine, beautiful, compassionate, love side.
Speaker 1:Anyway, so the talent just rained down from your parents From my parents, from your grandparents, your great grandparents, my aunt.
Speaker 2:For example, my dad's sister also was a professional violinist and apparently when I was three years old I actually don't remember, but my mom said I was continuously saying to her I want to play the violin like Aunt Louise. Louise is still alive. She's like my lifelong mentor. Oh, wow, yeah, she's my godmother. We are so close and so this was she, was my big inspiration.
Speaker 1:Hey listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at ike-toka-hikecom, or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor, discover books along the trail, or to simply drop us a line.
Speaker 2:I had a fantastic teacher just where we lived, amazing teacher Olive Cox, who was wonderful with children. You know, it's so important when you start.
Speaker 1:I'm British of a name, Olive Cox.
Speaker 2:I never thought of that. I never thought that there's an Olive and a Cox, which is a type of apple you know English apple.
Speaker 1:I never thought of that yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, you need an.
Speaker 1:American, to point that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. We do need things on the outside to point out stuff about us.
Speaker 1:Well, same, although I think I fear that the outside, looking to the Americans, would not have a great opinion lately.
Speaker 2:It all depends on who the person is and if they watch certain news outlets or don't, or actually no people here, or come here, or yes.
Speaker 1:The manipulation of society. Yeah, Fantastic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, before I came here which was very interesting to me I'd been to places like Africa, west Africa, ghana and met people who really I thought had a very distorted view of the United States. I was thinking the whole of them. You know US looks like Miami kind of thing.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to tell it does not, it does not.
Speaker 2:They're like no, you're just telling us that because you think you know Because you went to Miami. Yeah, so basically I'll also say I'm thinking I've got a more of an understanding of what the US is like. But when I arrived in the US 17 years ago I was interested and really quite surprised to see that I still had this. You know, us markets itself as a very I don't know how to generalize here, it's so difficult to generalize but like this land of opportunity, this land of great wealth, and I was surprised when I came to see so much poverty and problems actually. So even I, just coming from England, Well, poverty and problems are everywhere, everywhere.
Speaker 1:There isn't a single place on this planet that doesn't have extreme wealth followed by extreme poverty.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, that's human nature, that's society, that's the animal kingdom, definitely where we're at, you know, and this kind of more extreme society we're living right now, yes, well, maybe it has to be like that, you're right.
Speaker 1:Well, extremes always get more extremes, right yeah? It's in a way natural selection right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The animals that have grown the biggest fangs in the most power seem to win. And, in their same exact species, those that didn't seem to have died out Right. We see it as much as we like to separate ourselves from the animal kingdom, we are just animals, that's right. So, and you do see it weeding itself out, naturally.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:With all walks. Yes, In these days it's your wealth poverty line.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:As your natural selection Right. It used to be the fittest or the most athletic.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And then it pivoted to the nerdiest right in the most the biggest brain for business, yes, and now it's pivoting. Like it or not, it's a separation between wealth and poverty.
Speaker 2:Do you. I feel that so much in our thoughts and in our love for ourselves. So the more we actually are loyal to ourselves which maybe you naturally are, but I feel I'm working on that the more I do things in a loving way for myself. I'm not talking about a selfish, like I'm doing it for myself and therefore not for somebody else. I'm talking about the. You know self-care is a word, of course people use a lot, but I'm talking about I'm making the right decision for my, my real happiness, that kind of living life.
Speaker 1:Well, that's kind of why I'm doing this. Yes, I have always had a fascination in other people's stories.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Because for a while I thought mine was so bland until I realized that maybe it isn't Sure, but I want to hear what put other people where they are. So you are a very successful performer, composer and violinist right. I want to know why. What got you there and what mistakes did you make along that trail?
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And that essentially put you in the position you're in, because very rarely will you hear someone who's just born into success. I would say I'm not talking about. Their parents are wealthy, or mommy and daddy or yeah are super famous, or they were born into success. No, success is not the family you were born into. Success is personal. Yes, right, it's individual. Yes, sure, you could be given a silver spoon and a golden cup.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But that doesn't mean you're happy, that doesn't mean you're balanced.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean you're going to be. You know that, could you know? I do right now, and everything is for me just a perspective, what we're going through, how we see life, in that, from that moment, there's no ultimate truth. That's how I see life. So my perspective. I've had a lot to do with the Middle East recently, a lot of business over there and making friends over there and therefore talking about their culture and our culture and, for example, in Qatar. This is a very wealthy country where each Qatari is given not only free healthcare, but they can even have operations in different countries and it's all paid for. They're given a free plot of land, they're given a $350,000 to build a house. Oh, wow. I think it's like a loan. That's kind of like the EIDL, like you have to pay it off, very little interest over the long, I don't know, and they're given a job, so like that's guaranteed for every Qatari.
Speaker 1:So they're born and that's just so, you know. As an American, I would have never known that. So every Qatari is born into an established life right. Human basic need. Shelter Absolutely Right, then. Food, water, fire, whichever order you want, yep, right. But if you are given shelter, you are given comfort, you have less worry. Yes, so that's a brilliant way for the government to Maybe, maybe you know what's been interesting in this.
Speaker 2:I've got very close friendship now with a Qatari there. He's the best, one of best cinematographers in Qatar, so he's an artist and anyway it's been very interesting having these long talks with him. Because he said Daisy, because the thing is that they kind of also are repressive.
Speaker 1:So it's not. Well, that was the pause in my brilliant way too, I was going to say brilliant way to control its people.
Speaker 2:Beautifully said. You actually let me into that.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said.
Speaker 2:So thank you.
Speaker 1:But yes, you want to control your people, give them basic needs and put them in debt emotionally, morally and physically by controlling their home, the most basic need for a human being, so interesting.
Speaker 2:So my friend's called Yastar. He was like Daisy this is toxic.
Speaker 1:Toxic. Yes, I can see that it sounds great.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I think it's so good for me or us to hear that we need struggle.
Speaker 1:Those that have found success and truly feel the balance of success have had the struggle and that is my pursuit here is to find out what went horribly wrong in your life, to make it so you had the fuel to drive, the resilience, fortitude to push past all of that and rise to the top and, in your case, be a performer.
Speaker 2:Yes. So a couple of things, and I find this very interesting. I do I, you know, want to answer your question, but like there's a big movement, which I'm also part of, I feel, which is saying we used to say, when I was growing up anyway, I had a not my religious background, but I was growing up by my parents who had a religious background themselves, they were trying to move away from it, but like Catholic they, you know, my mom was brought up in a convent, went to school in a convent, catholic convent so, so she was wanting to move away from it. So I wouldn't say I really ever.
Speaker 1:They're just upbringing, but I'm going to say your mom fell that the celibacy act. Just taking a guess here.
Speaker 2:She wasn't trying to become a nun, but the school she went to was run by a con. You know was part of a convent run by nuns, so she Did she get the ruler on the knuckles? She yeah, I mean in a nutshell, she was stunning. All these guys were after her and the nuns, like, were really annoyed that she had all these beautiful suitors and like as they should be.
Speaker 1:That's not very nun like.
Speaker 2:You're far too pretty to be intelligent. You could never go to university, oh wow. I told her that, like I mean, it's crazy stuff Anyway. So so she went through that. So, but still I feel like some of these no pain, no gain, you know, some of these things that I now I feel like we're moving away from me in a good way, like follow our bliss. I do totally kind of love that and live by that blissful inspiration. I also see that my pain, I've needed to experience darkness and I still do Like my darkness is kind of as important as my light. They both fuel me and propel me.
Speaker 1:Well, it's yin and yang about you out. So what are? What is some of this?
Speaker 2:Some of this darkness. I love to be creative and growing up in my particular I'm not saying this is what happened, but in my particular household and not you know, I love my parents like this is no judgment. This is all just what I needed. My family very strongly believed that, musically, western classical music was of such a high I don't know if they would use the word vibrato I might now, you know such a high level of intellectual and emotional content that this was very good for a child's development. Okay, but rock music and every, every other kind of music we listen to a bit of jazz was not, so I was not all around, of course. I didn't listen to any other music.
Speaker 1:Of course. So let's look at all of the famous rock and roll musicians, 100% of them that were also told that rock will rot their brain. Famously. Corn their struggle. Yep, if you like, corn. Their struggle was they were only allowed to listen to classical and boy, look at what happened. They made corn, that's amazing.
Speaker 2:Yes, I need to connect with them.
Speaker 1:You can connect with them. I want to take a hike with them.
Speaker 2:Okay, because that would be cool. Who knows what's going to happen. Yeah, life is full of fun.
Speaker 1:And here we are going up some extreme staircase here.
Speaker 2:Nice, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I can even get this to represent it.
Speaker 2:Look at those beautiful roots though, oh my God.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is a vertical, so you ready. Yeah, it's probably about 3, 400 feet straight elevation. Great, all right, so back to rock plight.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So for me, I wanted to, for example, write my own music. And you know my parents, my nothing, or my surrounding in my musical classical music world that I was in since three. Nobody's trying to like do anything bad for me, but I really wanted to write my own music and they were telling me very clearly your music will never be as great as like Bach, beethoven. You know these, these geniuses, and boy what a lie, that was. So kind of don't try. And so I felt this incredible repression and I say, as I say, they never meant it, but that that has been something I'm still working on. I feel like my whole life I've been working on that, you know Well so I could understand that it's what your parents tell you not to do. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Fuels the child to do exactly the opposite.
Speaker 2:Hopefully. You know, of course, some people right.
Speaker 1:Your parents told you not to sneak out. You can't go to that party. Guess what you did? Yeah, right, but that's how you you grew and you experimented the most.
Speaker 2:That I'm happy to hear because I feel it's really important for us to acknowledge that. We maybe all know people who still say well, let's say, daisy, you're so lucky you had these parents who you know loved you. My parents, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they're still in this kind of mindset of Vicodin, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, listen, love. Love is complex. It's so beautiful.
Speaker 2:Look at this what do you say it's a little?
Speaker 1:bit. Oh, that's a lanternfly. That's not beautiful, oh really, yeah, we have to squish them.
Speaker 2:Oh, why what?
Speaker 1:The lanternflies. They destroy fruit bearing trees. Grapevines yeah, they're an invasive species with no predator Really, but they are beautiful, yes.
Speaker 2:There you go. Beauty coupled with.
Speaker 1:So I want to pay special note, give a little more preview of Daisy, despite being told not to follow rock. It's not an art form, right, it is not classic, it is not beautiful. You put out a fantastic compilation, thank you. With Baba Riley yeah. With Behind Blue Eyes and many other classic rock legendary songs yeah, and you did it your way, yes. With violin instrumental yeah, masterfully, beautifully, thank you. Thank you, as if you were born for rock.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when I first started playing that music, I was like I feel at home. It was amazing. It was one of those moments where I felt more at home than ever. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 1:Well, there you go, interesting. It's a lesson for us parents Let your kids experience life. Or maybe, if you do want them to go into rock, tell them not to rock.
Speaker 2:Exactly, they'll probably, they'll probably catch you. You know, yeah, when you try to.
Speaker 1:Well, did they?
Speaker 2:So I mean when I first told my parents, my parents, no, didn't know who the who were.
Speaker 1:Even being British.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Did your parents live under? Oh convent, that's right.
Speaker 2:But also, you know, we had no television. I'm growing up in a time with no phones, no internet, no computers.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you were closed off to the outside world Extremely and you had mentioned before you were in the middle of nowhere. Yeah, your nearest neighbor was forever, yeah, away. By the way, I am really impressed you were able to maintain composure, hike that, that huge elevation along a stream with lots of life. You are not out of breath. And you did it all while wearing sparkly gold and silver chuck tailors Impressive, I must say, very impressive. And we're back on the white with red square.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go, beautiful.
Speaker 1:So we did the stream path, just so we could see the beauty and absorb it.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yes, again, I will say this is the most challenging hike that I have gone on on an episode of I Took a Hike. Nice, Awesome yeah you wanted it, I did. It's also the second hike that I did where I've had ever done in my life, which is why I wanted to come back and now see it again. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Do you mean this was the second one you ever did? Yes, oh wow.
Speaker 1:I'm, um, what you would call crazy. Well, I love crazy. So, for instance, yesterday I almost had died of hypothermia. Yes, what, not on purpose I do this. Thing called Banya and it was my wife's birthday, so we took everyone to the spa and we got into the hot 217 degree sauna. The security guard, who doubles as the Banya expert, decided, upon our request, to make it hot. He made it hotter, stayed in there for 10 minutes, Just probably seven minutes too long. That heat, oh my god, and then we went to the cold plunge at 41 degrees as he timed us to challenge us, and my friend and I stayed in there for three and a half minutes what? Which is 30 seconds too much. It was very euphoric. I do not recommend it because I felt my heart physically pound in my chest and just go doom, doom, oh, my gosh, doom, yeah. And then when I got back to our little Kibana area, my friends looked at me and said you look like a ghost. And then I started to shiver, which tells you you had hypothermia. So that was fun, not recommended. You know what? Talking of.
Speaker 2:I'm going to take a sip of water.
Speaker 1:Yes, please do. Thank you, let everyone know I am your pack mule.
Speaker 2:Yes, you are Amazing pack mule, amazing pack mule, thank you.
Speaker 1:Sometimes they add extra weight to this backpack just for the workout.
Speaker 2:Do you have water yourself? Do you want to sip?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah no, I've got I carried on a hose. This way I can talk and drink I love all your brilliant. This is what I do for life, so you know, if you're going to do something, you have to plan it out, you have to be strategic about it, you have to execute. That's absolutely right there you go, I come for business.
Speaker 2:There you go.
Speaker 1:Yes, plan and execute.
Speaker 2:I love it, thank you.
Speaker 1:I will say that podcasting is not a great business if you need money or want to generate revenue. It is a very long trail and many have failed. We'll see if I can make this happen, but either way, I'm having fun doing it.
Speaker 2:First of all, I believe in you Well, thank you A thousand percent.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:And secondly, so cliched, but well, you've already done it. You've already been so successful, so you know about keeping to it, you know all the things needed. So here's the challenge.
Speaker 1:Yes, I ask a lot of questions and no one asked me the amount of questions that I asked, which is fine, I want to ask you.
Speaker 2:No, no, no. I really want to ask you, I want to ask you.
Speaker 1:This episode is about you, but I will tell you I haven't reached success yet. Yes, that's why I keep asking people what their personal level and definition of success is. I have checked off the wealth bucket. Yes, right, this is not braggadocious, I sold the company.
Speaker 2:I know.
Speaker 1:Fantastic you did. I hit a depression. I brought myself out of that depression by trying to listen to my own advice.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I decided to don a backpack and take a hike. I love my family. I'm surrounded by great people yes, and now I'm surrounded by great stories and storytellers yes. So I'm on my way to success, but I'm not there yet.
Speaker 2:What defined success for you?
Speaker 1:Oh, someone's been listening to an episode. This episode is sponsored by Business Therapy Group. Are you feeling lost along the winding trails of your business journey, searching for guidance to spark your entrepreneurial ambitions? Look no further. At Business Therapy Group, we're here to help you navigate the challenges and guide you to business and professional success. Book your session with me at businesstherapygroupcom to break free from the entanglement of employees, processes and growth. Take action now and book your first session. My definition of success is true balance, purpose, relevancy, support for others and yourself and, most importantly, health, followed by happiness. Beautiful. I am not fully in alignment with all of those. When I am, I will tell you that day will probably be my last day.
Speaker 2:I was going to say With no regrets. No, because we need the feeling of we're not there yet.
Speaker 1:So that's right. Otherwise, which did happen to me and unfortunately COVID came crashing down at that same time, which made it worse- yes. But I didn't have to work, I didn't have to panic about losing my job or any of the normal human conditions during the pandemic. Yeah, and that drove me to lose my sense of purpose, self-worth and yeah, all right, so let's go back. You came to the States. What age were you?
Speaker 2:I was 37 because I'd when I so I kind of got successful in a classical way as a kid, like I played Royal Aberhoel when I was 14 playing a Bach concerto which is a yeah, 7000 C Hall, and then went to the Royal College of Music which was a kind of Juilliard of London.
Speaker 1:So would you say you were a savant and music, or you just practice really hard.
Speaker 2:Maybe neither.
Speaker 1:But you had to do something right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was definitely good, I wasn't say you know, in the classical world there are people who are like four years old who can play some of the most virtuosically difficult music ever written for violin, Like Do you think they are naturally that good or their parents kind of forced them? I think they I believe in other lives. I mean, some people pick up the violin they can just play like massively.
Speaker 1:So I kind of align with you on that. Yeah, I don't think that we're the first.
Speaker 2:Right, right. You know we bring in DNA, maybe from our ancestors, maybe from other lives, I don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm open to it all. You know who knows? Well, every brain is slightly different. Yeah, so you're wired in a way that's more musical.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right Creative brain, left brain, right brain.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:I mean it would be foolish to think not right. We pass on genetic diseases and genetic traits, yep. So why can't we bring on extra ways of thinking, yep, left brain, right brain in this? By the way, I'm out of breath on that last one. Yeah, me too. That was rough.
Speaker 2:That was rough and beautiful.
Speaker 1:This is a great trail, so sweet, reeves Brook, harriman State Park. Worth the exploration.
Speaker 2:It's just idyllic the whole way yeah.
Speaker 1:Fantastically marked. The blaze is clear. Yep, beautiful scenery. We were just along the stream path.
Speaker 2:And really nice variety, Like even though we go up quite steeply, there's always like a gentle. You know, right now it's pretty gentle.
Speaker 1:In business we call this hockey sticking, which is the right way to run a business. Yeah, you have a nice elevation curve and then you plateau a little bit. So regroup, rethink, retool and then you go repeat again. Yes, yes, you never want to go straight up.
Speaker 2:No, that's exactly right. Just like life, take time off, like us on our hike.
Speaker 1:Take a break vacation.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So what do you do for a break besides hike?
Speaker 2:So, god, so many things I love to do. I love going out, dancing, I love, honestly, whether it's a hike, but also walking, so I do a lot of walking. I love reading, reading, I love.
Speaker 1:Reading is great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love things that really expand my consciousness.
Speaker 1:Okay, Well, I can tell you're very spiritual free spirit yeah. What brought that on?
Speaker 2:I think that's something that all I believe were actually all on the spiritual path. We're all heading to the same place.
Speaker 1:All of us.
Speaker 2:Every single one of us. That's my feeling.
Speaker 1:Even the bad ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because for me, we need the bad. You know, we need the bad and the good, we need all of it.
Speaker 1:Balancing it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's as age old as the dawn of man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. So my darkness is just as much as a gift is my light, you know.
Speaker 1:Okay, what would you say your darkest darkness is. By the way, I asked tough questions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love it. The fear of things.
Speaker 1:Like.
Speaker 2:The fear of. Well, like, for example, we're doing this music mentorship program now and we are expanding into a lot of different areas, and I know that I mean I do it, but I'm always kind of scared somehow. I know that there are people who really want to see the kind of transformation we do in kids. So I want to see, they want to see it happen and they want to give money. But for me to ask is like always challenging for me. Okay, and even though they're so happy when they donate and they're so happy when they see what's happening, like it makes them just give purpose, you know, to them. And the other thing is I still feel like I need to take like, like real courage to open up my deepest voice. So I've started singing. My next album is going to have my own songs with my own voice.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's a big leap, especially from instrument to voice.
Speaker 2:Yes, Especially because I played the violin on such a high level with so much success my whole life, with such, you know, incredibly, a million hours, whatever it was of practice.
Speaker 1:Well, at least 10,000. Yeah, 10,000. So we're going to go back to two points that you said about your fears, but I want to ask this question first, because this is important to me. Yeah, it's beautiful here, right? What? Well, because you've played an instrument for so long.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Do you believe that anyone, including yourself, that can play an instrument so well can also sing, because it's another instrument, or do you think there are just some people that can't sing for the life of them?
Speaker 2:I'm going to actually use the research done by somebody called Geysers Sylvain, who's Finnish. He did, you know, research on thousands, of thousands, of thousands of children and he came to the conclusion that anybody can be taught to sing Anybody. Anybody can be taught to sing.
Speaker 1:Okay, because I strongly want to disagree with that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because you have not heard my aunt.
Speaker 1:Okay, but you're saying anybody can be taught to sing. So that falls under the same level that anybody can be taught to anything.
Speaker 2:So maybe it has to do with their will, their, you know, surrounding. I mean, he's in Finland, he's I don't know if he's still alive but he created a program. Interestingly, it's very related to your question because he was mainly teaching strings and he created this whole way of teaching strings, a lot of fun. It was called color strings. He created all these wonderful books with full of all the notes being different colors and just really using color to, I guess, kind of excite the child's mind and get them, you know, really connecting to this and remembering it and all that stuff. But also he would train all of his children to sing. Okay, Because he felt that that I agree with him. Once you can sing, you can hear the pitches in your head and obviously, playing an instrument like a violin, yeah, you're recommending it.
Speaker 1:You can recognize better.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you've got to hear the note and that's how you can play the right pitch, of course. So singing training.
Speaker 1:It's like a guitarist tuning without a tuner.
Speaker 2:Yes, you hear it. Yes, the guitar has frets as well. I mean, I still believe you know you have to learn how to hear it. But on the violin there's no marker which tells you where to you know, place your fingers.
Speaker 1:It's even tougher, yeah, so we're going to go into that, but I don't know if anybody can be taught to sing. Yeah, you have to have the will to do anything.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:There are some people that do not have the vocal range to sing, so I think anyone can sing better.
Speaker 2:Yes, maybe.
Speaker 1:With practice, will and drive.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I haven't tried it so I can't comment. I can only say that he came to that conclusion through his way of teaching, you know.
Speaker 1:But he taught his children all from similar genetic backgrounds, though.
Speaker 2:Yeah, probably I'd have to research this a little more. Yeah, it would be interesting.
Speaker 1:But not anybody can be a surgeon. You need specifically steady hands, and that's not a practice thing, that's a natural talent.
Speaker 2:That's interesting. But also I mean learning to sing as a child is different, maybe, than taking a whole career. Yep, because that is.
Speaker 1:By the way, we've gone straight up. Yeah, it's good, it's an entire conversation. Woo, this is beautiful, beautiful. So you talked about your fears.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you are a creative. Yes, cells is probably not your fort.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So to unlock your fear, that takes practice. Yes, anybody can be taught to sell.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you for saying that, so I think I need to Not need. Maybe I'm inspired to go on a sales course.
Speaker 1:It's not even a sales course, it's just knowing how to ask.
Speaker 2:What tips would you give?
Speaker 1:Although we're going this way, I think yes.
Speaker 2:We are.
Speaker 1:We're going to go back around, although that does look like a peak. Do you want to see the mountain peak? Yeah, all right, let's do it. Here we go. I took a hike. Extreme addition Even I get winded. Wow, maybe it's because my near-death experience yesterday.
Speaker 2:Yes, maybe your body's like what Another one?
Speaker 1:What are you doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:All right, let's see what's up at this peak man, you are racing ahead of me.
Speaker 2:Maybe it's not quite.
Speaker 1:Not quite.
Speaker 2:It might be one of those ones where it goes on and on until you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not quite. All right back to the trail.
Speaker 2:I'm going to take a sip of water. Please, yeah, please do.
Speaker 1:I get to say but we can go straight. If we want, we can go that way.
Speaker 2:We can go straight on.
Speaker 1:Go that way.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1:I'll take the blue yeah rather than going back. I'll follow you, you can take the blue, with blue square and the white blades.
Speaker 2:It feels like just over there might be some kind of valley, doesn't it? Some kind of view, that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, we can just keep going this way. Yeah, let's go to HCS, let's go to the top. We can take that there's a couple of cutthroats.
Speaker 2:Good, I'll follow you All right, I need a second. Me too, definitely the second. This is great. Thanks for doing this. Oh, thank you so much, darren, I'm so happy.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about your violin playing and one of the coolest things, and you were going to give me some tips on marketing. Yeah, you want some tips on marketing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Here's the most brilliant tip I can give you Just ask. Worst case, someone says no. But if you truly believe in yourself and you believe in your product or your service, then asking should be easy.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I feel, if I'm so focused, I want to say open and focused. You know, that way, trusting maybe is more the word I'm looking for than whatever they say is the right answer, because it's all leading towards that place that I know will come.
Speaker 1:The worst they'll say is no. But, when you're selling altruism and it's got a good story. Yes, hard to say, no, right, but you have to work on the pitch. That's where the practice comes in. Okay, awesome, right. As episode one, alan Young famously said, you never had the sale, so if you lost it, you didn't lose the sale no, that's right. Someone else won it. Yes, don't be afraid to ask. Yes. And as far as marketing goes, that's where you have to invest, someone who has talent. Yes, in marketing you don't need to learn those 10,000 hours, right, but there's no better salesperson than the person who has the most to gain, most to lose.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:That's a beautiful way of putting it.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 2:That's why I love you. Know Napoleon Hill, where he says oh my God, now this is interesting. Because is that building Dick's Castle? Because one of my dreams is to live in one of the apartments there. They're not on sale. That's just one of my dreams. It looks like it could be.
Speaker 1:I guess make your dream happen right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it will in a few years.
Speaker 1:There you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:We're definitely at a peak not the peak, but at a peak, all right, so let's carry on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Hey, listener, thanks for hiking along with us. Discover more episodes at hightokahikecom, or to recommend an adventurous guest, apply to be a sponsor, discover books along the trail, or to simply drop us a line. Alright, let's talk about violin. How many stages have you played on?
Speaker 2:Oh thousands.
Speaker 1:Thousands.
Speaker 2:I did meet a violinist amazing one, he's passed now who said he counted every single concert, and I was like God I should do that, and then promptly forgot.
Speaker 1:What's the largest audience you ever played in front of?
Speaker 2:Oh, that was fun and I, you know, I wanted dreamers to get back there. 30,000 people 30,000 people. Yeah, that was 30,000 people.
Speaker 1:I was in Vienna and it represents 59,942 pairs of eyes. I imagine there are some people that only had one eye. I love the ways of that. Right, right, are you nervous?
Speaker 2:Well, I was. So what I find is I get incredibly nervous, but maybe even like a week before, like literally, I'll be so nervous. I feel like sometimes I might vomit or something a week before, of course but then gradually wears off until I, when I arrive on stage, I'm like this is the best moment of my life.
Speaker 1:And the profession kicks in. Yeah, the professional.
Speaker 2:But also the feeling of the audience, the feeling of being there and it's performing is one of the ways my spirit feels really at home and really thrives and I can I really shine on stage, Like it's one of my moments of most fulfillment, and for the audience as well.
Speaker 1:So that I obviously believe, because you wouldn't be in front of 30,000 people unless you shine bright in front of an audience. Yeah, but it's interesting that you have nerves and the nerves are doubt, the nerves are fear.
Speaker 2:I wonder whether also it's a kind of adrenaline buildup.
Speaker 1:Ah, it's an open mean rush.
Speaker 2:In a good way. You know what I mean. Yeah, like you want to feel nervous, because then when you're on stage, you're so there in that moment.
Speaker 1:You want to be human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Welcome to my office. Pretty cool, huh.
Speaker 2:This is so cool.
Speaker 1:This is where you get to be human, where you feel kind of small. Yes, right, yes, you don't have an audience of 30,000, but you have them in the audience of the world. Yes, all right, take a sit right here Ready. Yeah, eight feet Look straight out. It's really peaceful.
Speaker 2:There's a couple of questions, one really important one, but I never really answered. Well, I did start answering, but where you said which question? Where you said what are those darkest moments? And I started you know which have really propelled me forward. But I started back with my childhood but I probably can think about some other ones which were really you know the challenges which I felt propelled me forward, because I love that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:you know what was that biggest challenge.
Speaker 2:So the childhood. And then I was in a string trio. God, I have to say. The next moment of a big challenge was when I went. So I was offered by a teacher in Vienna come and study with me. When I left the Royal College of Music and there I met two other musicians who felt like me, like they were both amazingly skilled classical musicians, but they really wanted to play other styles, they wanted to write their own music and they wanted to improvise. And we just met and started meeting in the evenings. You know, we were practicing our Tchaikovsky violin concertos for six hours during the day and I was playing in the Vienna Chamber Orchestra just to sustain me. I was there for six months and we decided at the end of the six months to put on. We put on two concerts. I was just about to go back to England, you know, that was as far as we were concerned, that was it. I was going to carry on my career in England as a classical violinist and we put on two concerts, cafes, like 20 people, you know, and unbeknownst to us to the first. Well, actually the cellist had invited somebody, elizabeth Artsberger, a friend of his, who we didn't know, but she knew the person in charge of signing artists to BMG Austria, like BMG in Vienna. He is called Marcus Spiegel and she came to this concert that we did in the cafe and she just had this feeling that he is going to absolutely love this and she called him up and she said next Saturday, come to this cafe. It's this new trio, string trio and he was like string trio. Anyway, she was like adamant. So he came to it and he was absolutely blown away and it was maybe a week I don't remember the exact timing, but I think pretty soon for us. We're supposed to go back to London. You know, as I say, end of my Vienna trip and he came up to us. So this is 30 years ago, a time when these record companies had massive marketing budgets and if they went for you you probably would make it kind of thing and he came up and he said I want to sign you to BMG after the concert. And I remember just going what the hell just happened. The whole night I couldn't sleep. And so I'm not saying that was a dark moment because in the way that was an amazing moment, but I couldn't shift from having played. I was 24 years old, I was three, so over 21 years being in this classical world, totally classical world. I couldn't really imagine that I was going to be earning my money from really what I'd always wanted to do, because even though I'd wanted to do it, I couldn't see it as a possibility, so it wasn't really a want that I'd actually given a voice to. It wasn't like I'm going around saying I want to play other music than classical because it wasn't in my sphere of what I even could think of as a possibility. And I want to say that story because I feel, with this music mentorship foundation, we have basically given the opportunity to, so far, hundreds I mean we've worked with thousands of kids, but maybe so, maybe more, maybe more I don't know about, actually probably more than hundreds to realize that they can play whatever music they want to play. And it's still so different now, you know, 30 years later, but still some kids are being taught in a kind of classical music way and it's not what they want to do, but they love the idea of being a musician, but they can't imagine they could. And, by the way, our programs are about empowering people to become whatever they want to become. It's not about training to be musicians Like they. You know, a lot of people say, because of that program, I'm becoming a you know whatever. It is like something totally else. But we've had tons of kids say, you know, look, daisy, I'm a music college, like, I'm writing my own music. Now I just got my first job, like writing a film music score, like all these stories of kids who before that never thought they could be a musician. So this is so important for me because it was such a paradigm shift and I wasn't even able to say yes, I couldn't imagine that I could even do this and I said no, which of course sounds completely ridiculous, but there was a lot in it, because it wasn't just hey, do you want to live your dream? Just we were talking about with Napoleon Hill. He mentions you've got to cut, and I want to cut all bridges. I don't mean that because I don't believe in that, but like, let go of everything and give your everything to your dream. Because I feel like I was taught no, you've got to have this option, you've got to have plan B, you've got to put your eggs not all in one basket. You know all these things I was taught. Napoleon Hill says the opposite. He says you want something, you let go of your whole everything and you put your everything into this. And that is actually what Jay Solomon said about you that you single mind, you focused, and that's your success came from that. And when he told me that I was like yeah, napoleon Hill, and so so with me I was going to need to leave my family not leave, no, but in fact they weren't. Cell phones, well, video, you know, facetime, whatever, so kind of, leave my culture, leave my language. I was going to a country where they spoke German. I didn't speak a single word of German. Leave everything and my whole not training as a violinist. Obviously I was going to be a violinist but, like training classical music, I was being asked to leave everything.
Speaker 1:In a way, so that was your. So your biggest fear was essentially your yin and yang. You achieved your success. You got offered a record deal, a contract, and your fear came crashing down. Because I will say that that fear was your parents voice. They didn't want you to be in rock, they wanted you being in class. So you had to admit that you were the exact emphasis of what your parents wanted and you had to break free. So, essentially, you created a foundation to destroy your fear for every student that you represent. That's right, pretty noble, that's pretty real, pretty true, that's right and it's amazing.
Speaker 2:The first person to have said like that is beautifully put, because it took me six months. I went back to England. I did go back to England and after six months I'm like what the hell am I doing? And I caught up with the other two guys and I'm like what do you think? Do you think we should accept this offer? And they were like, yeah, we're feeling the same thing. And I went back to Vienna and actually it was about a year, a whole year later that we actually signed to BMG and they still wanted us. And then I started on this career and you know they we made a record quite soon after we. Everything was very quickly like okay, you know, we were in Liset and some months later we were in the time.
Speaker 1:Of course, they threw money into it. They wanted to return.
Speaker 2:So we made a record and they played it all over the world and we were getting you know, hey, we're in Japan. We got this festival. We hear you every day on the radio, you're amazing and we started touring. We toured 52 countries and my dad I remember my dad, by the way, he's passed away and he most incredible man on the planet and really wanted to support me but loved classical music and was his first reaction was such disappointment that I was doing this trio. And he wrote to me now and he's, I remember coming back to England and talking with him and he's like, well, and he's obviously dabbling with it because he knows he wants to be the dad that gives me total freedom to be who I want to be. But he's like, well, well, I hope this won't last too long, that you'll come back to playing Beethoven. But I remember him saying this and then, literally I remember him calling me not long after Maybe I don't know whether it was a week, I can't remember the timing but him calling me saying you know, daisy, I'm listening to this music on the radio. It's not classical, they're improvising and I really like it, I think he was trying to come around to what I was doing.
Speaker 1:So did you ever look at him when he said it's not Beethoven? You have a moment where you put your hand on his shoulder and say, but dad Beethoven never left. That's a beautiful way of saying it.
Speaker 2:No, I didn't, I was just probably crushed and like I don't know I don't crush, but it's like guarantee what I was doing.
Speaker 1:This is staircase wit where you can reenact the scenario, where you can rehearse and teach the doubter yes, right, and I think in their life that in your case, beethoven was the inspiration for your music. Beethoven was the inspiration for Chuck Berry, beethoven was the inspiration for Slash, beethoven was the inspiration for Motley Crue, because if it wasn't for Beethoven, we wouldn't be where we are today.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right, everybody, all of those, all of those great guys.
Speaker 1:Beethoven isn't all of us.
Speaker 2:And I feel my dads with me. I really feel very connected to the very close people in my life who have passed. It's got more and more and more and I'm very grateful for that and my dad's just saying I'm so proud of you.
Speaker 1:That's right. Did he say those words?
Speaker 2:Well, what was interesting, he split with my mom very soon on, like you know well, I was 15, I think, or something.
Speaker 1:Maybe 17.
Speaker 2:But basically for nearly 20 years he had a girlfriend towards the end of his life who we all loved her. She's still alive I love her, miriam and she was the one who said you know, your dad's so proud of you. I was like, really Apparently he told her all the time but he couldn't say it to you. I think it was that and he said, I think he's telling me that he did tell me. But I think he kind of had this thought that because when somebody's very talented like me, sometimes you think, well, they know it, and I've got to make sure they know that they need to get better Like I feel like there was this way that my dad was only trying his best for me, you know. I feel he had to tell me, well, you're not there yet, you know to make me keep on doing Like a coach.
Speaker 1:That's what coaches do. Yeah, and Michael Jordan's coach would have him practice because he wasn't there yet. Right, because the second you hit that as we discussed before when you truly believe you've hit your pinnacle of success, you stop trying for raising the bar.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I I.
Speaker 1:So your dad was your coach.
Speaker 2:I would like to acknowledge right now that actually, even though I've had to work on, my dad's constantly telling me well, you're not as good, you know he would say you're not as good as like. And take any professional violinist, you know, when I was a kid like you're not as good as them I started to feel like I'm not good enough and actually it took me quite a while to really earn money from being a musician. It takes quite a while to, because You're not the first person to cry on the show Because I'm so beautiful, because I had this thought that I'm not good enough to be a professional violinist, so to earn money like I. That's how I internally and my dad never meant this, but I internalized it a little bit like that and you know, he, he, because I think the will to do something. I do see life a bit differently. I think that we growing up people used to think they have to criticize us in order for us to get better, but I think we see life differently now. I want to just encourage somebody, but then. But then you're right, look at the darkness, look at, look at, like you know, roger Deltry from the who he said it was that he wrote his whole autobiography with, like I read was like it was called, thank you and the name of one of his teachers who had said to him I think it was like the principal of the school or some very important teacher within his school who said to him you will amount to nothing, like I'm really meant to.
Speaker 1:That was the best mentor of his life.
Speaker 2:It's the best mentor of his life.
Speaker 1:Into the darkness, out from the light, right. So we, we need negativity, we thrive on negativity. I mean, if you look at just the news, fear cells, negativity cells but no, we need that as an inspiration. All of the successes in my life have been from people who've told me I can't, I won't or don't or no Right, If you look at an entire genre of blues, it's all from negativity, it's all from people that had been trampled upon, held down, forced down sadness, darkness, and their outlet was this beautiful, inspirational music that got everyone in the room to feel the same feeling and that sense is so strongly rooted to who we are. We can't just be encouraging Now. I believe in encouraging, I believe in encouragement, I believe in inspiring others. But yeah, even with my daughters, one of them wants to be an artist. She drew something. It wasn't that great. I said you can do better.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:I'm not going to encourage you to be subpar. I'm going to encourage and push you. Now there's different ways of saying it. Yes, right, but we need that darkness and I think where we really screw it up is we overthink the hell out of everything. When you're dead, definitely was proud of you. How could he not be Right? When your child makes it as high as you've made it, when you're in front of 30,000 people, when you're making the money from being a musician, when you're happy because you're doing the thing that you were passionate about and loved as a parent, you are definitely proud of your offspring. They are doing better than you, which is what every parent wants. But the fear for the parent is if I change my tune, do I change the course of my child? And that's a battle. Yes, this episode is sponsored by Business Therapy Group. Are you feeling lost along the winding trails of your business journey, searching for guidance to spark your entrepreneurial ambitions? Look no further. At Business Therapy Group, we're here to help you navigate the challenges and guide you to business and professional success. Book your session with me at businesstherapygroupcom to break free from the entanglement of employees, processes and growth. Take action now and book your first session. Alright, that was a beautiful moment. Yeah, beautiful moment. Shall we continue?
Speaker 2:Yeah, alright, which way is it?
Speaker 1:We're going to go this way.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'll follow you.
Speaker 1:We'll go up this way.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Oh, this is just there. And thank you so much and because I felt, even before I'd come here, I felt so happy about the thought of being here with you. There's another friend, a couple of friends, who said let's go on a hike. And I've allowed myself to kind of let my business, say I don't have time, and I'm going to be like, hey, let's go on a hike, like I don't care whether I think I got time on it, I'm going to do this?
Speaker 1:Well, now you can. Yeah, because you're a pro hiker. Yeah, where is the blaze? How are those chuck tailers?
Speaker 2:What did you say?
Speaker 1:How are your chuck tailers doing?
Speaker 2:They're a converse.
Speaker 1:Yes, chuck tailer inspired models.
Speaker 2:Oh are they.
Speaker 1:Now, chuck wouldn't wear the sparkle issues, but yes, that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2:They're doing amazing.
Speaker 1:Tell me more about your foundation.
Speaker 2:So we're doing three, focusing on three areas Okay, from October, when we plan to have a full time executive director. Okay, and one of them is really helping schools to have music programs. So every school district we have different, they have different needs.
Speaker 1:That's bear scat, by the way.
Speaker 2:That's bear. Yep, I'm so excited I've never seen a real bear.
Speaker 1:Well, that's not a real bear, but that's, that's their poop.
Speaker 2:How interesting. So they eat lots of berries, all those berries.
Speaker 1:Well, they eat lots of everything.
Speaker 2:Wow, maybe we're going to see a bear. Hello bear, I love you.
Speaker 1:We might, we'll see. Try not to step in. I honestly hope we don't see a bear.
Speaker 2:Why.
Speaker 1:I don't need that new fear unlocked. All right, I love bear times. Dare I say I'd probably prefer not to shit myself on recording. No, I think. I think we would handle it just fine as long as there's no cubbies around, exactly yeah. Let's take this back here. Okay, as long as there's no cubs, then we'll be okay, but I really do not desire to run into a bear in the wild. We try to rehearse the standstill or act tall or any of the required selections.
Speaker 2:So so some schools are starting music programs and they need help. Some schools are struggling with their present music programs.
Speaker 1:I'm just trying to take us on a knot through that. Yeah, we found ourselves stuck. There's a little place right there, a little tiny path. Yeah, if you don't mind navigating some bushes, we'll hold this one for you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much, You're welcome.
Speaker 1:As you can see, others have done the same move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is great. I love this. I actually totally love this. I feel so close. Obviously, we're close to each other.
Speaker 1:I like how easy going you are. Yeah, so awesome. And there is another pile of it.
Speaker 2:Oh wow, Yep Bear, I love you.
Speaker 1:So whatever he was eating, he was eating a lot of it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we just give a lot of love, that is a big lump.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's berries, by the way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, what do you think it is?
Speaker 1:I don't know Human.
Speaker 2:Human there we go. Do you think this is down here yeah.
Speaker 1:Yes, that is it, the orange place. We did it.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, look there you go, Perfect, Well done you.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well done. Well done this fancy app.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So when I get lost, it navigates me back.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:I've had some good moments where I pretended that we weren't lost with a guest, and then others where I have gotten lost, and I will mention that I'm going to pull out the all trails app to get me back on the navigational path.
Speaker 2:You see, it's so nice to go. Oh, this is so beautiful, my God.
Speaker 1:This is great. This is peaceful.
Speaker 2:Wow, wow, this is so amazing.
Speaker 1:Well, as famously said, serenity now, yes. So do you play anything else other than the violin?
Speaker 2:I sing.
Speaker 1:Well, we know you sing, but you haven't done it yet professionally on the in front of an audience.
Speaker 2:I done it a little bit, though. Okay, yeah, and I'm doing it more.
Speaker 1:Can you belt out a tune for us?
Speaker 2:Come on. Yeah, it's cute. No, I don't know what to do. I don't try and be like Freddie Mercury.
Speaker 1:No, I'm just laying so wow, this is interesting about you. I asked you to belt out a tune and the first one you pick is the hardest tune for anyone to sing. You just went for it. It was not a row, row, row, it was. It was geez. You went straight for Bohemia. Amazing, but that's the professional in you and that's the no fear.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I said one note and then stopped, so well you recognize, you fell fast. He's got it against his chest.
Speaker 1:Got it against his head, Pulled my trigger.
Speaker 2:now he's dead. Pulled my trigger. Now he's dead, Mama.
Speaker 1:Life has just begun.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Sorry, I'm going to have to help you on this one. I guess this sounds like a collab.
Speaker 2:What about you with your voice, Darren?
Speaker 1:I can sing some Barry White. Let's go this way. Now I do have a fairly decent voice. If I was in the car and Nobody was listening. I actually do this and you're playing your music at top volume. Yeah, I actually do this little trick where I will be in the car and I will turn the volume up and I will sing, and then I'll mute it and keep singing, just to hear if I sound good. Now there are some notes where I absolutely am on, and then there's others where I do believe I could have learned to sing if I was classically trying to back up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you could have.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm going to try that.
Speaker 2:I'm going to try driving away from here and just practicing my singing.
Speaker 1:Really cool to do that, by the way, because then you realize if you actually can sing or not.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So if we went the other way we'd be backtracking, just trying to get us back to go around the opposite way. So we see a really cool section. Oh good, by the way, the crickets are singing to us?
Speaker 2:Yes, they are. Thank you, crickets. So much.
Speaker 1:Here it is. See how easy it is to miss this one. Yes, unmarked.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Back on the beaten path. Good, which now you understand that.
Speaker 2:Now we can eat these. I think, can't we?
Speaker 1:I wouldn't try it. I mean, it's not a it's. I took a hike, not, I took a vomit.
Speaker 2:It looks like.
Speaker 1:Blueberries.
Speaker 2:Because they're not.
Speaker 1:Oh, there's a different.
Speaker 2:I mean the ones that grow right to the ground, that look like this but it doesn't look like those.
Speaker 1:Well.
Speaker 2:You're going to try one.
Speaker 1:I think you shouldn't, but you're going to anyway.
Speaker 2:So I try one, then eat at the end of the hike. So we finish the conversation. Look at this wonderful caterpillar. Oh, hello caterpillar. He's so beautiful. Look at you, darling.
Speaker 1:That caterpillar will be a wonderful butterfly one day.
Speaker 2:I think I'm going to put you off the path.
Speaker 1:Not visit our people, yes, but anyway, beautiful color. My God, that will be a monarch.
Speaker 2:You think so?
Speaker 1:Probably so. Have you ever had a moment, while you were playing live, under pressure?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, right, where, all of a sudden, you stopped being on autopilot muscle memory and you just realized where you were at that moment and you forgot how to play.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:What's that like I?
Speaker 2:forgot what goes on next. You know, it's happened to me when I play Bach because I've got this idea in my mind that I have not been able to yet really change and I don't play that often, so I haven't worked on it that Bach is not that easy to memorize which for a lot of people it's very easy to memorize, but for some reason I've built that idea. So it's happened to me when I'm playing Bach that I've suddenly forgotten how it goes. Okay, and I haven't been playing Bach in front of a lot of people, but I've managed, through my improvisational skills, to improvise until it comes back to me.
Speaker 1:So when you forget in a moment of, let's say that you wake up, right, you wake up from the mesmerizing moment of auto play.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Right. You are at this point professional enough to where you could just improvise using the same scale, same key, and people will be none the wiser.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and as well as classical music, they might know how it's supposed to go.
Speaker 1:But isn't it left for your interpretation anyway? People are there to see you, or are they there to see and hear?
Speaker 2:Bach In my case. I actually really rarely play classical music, so Of course you revolt. Yeah, so, but classical you're supposed to play kind of what the composer said.
Speaker 1:Okay, so people are showing up to hear Bach. What have you ever been called out on a mistake?
Speaker 2:Like they've said to me oh, I noticed, you made a mistake. Yes, what do you think about it? I'm trying to think of it with me, or whether they were saying to somebody else they blame someone else. Like I've noticed that you were very focused and then you weren't, so there kind of Okay. And yeah, I think I've been called out. Definitely, I'm pretty ton of times actually.
Speaker 1:What do you do with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great learning lesson. I'm remembering, actually, a moment when a very, very, very amazing classical virtuoso violinist called Janine Janssen, who's a mega, mega star, I was performing with her, so it was a classical piece, and she Well. So we performed together our music with this string trio TRIOLOGY, and then.
Speaker 1:TRIOLOGY was the name. The name, yeah, oh, that's fantastic. I love it. I love names that are that just fits.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then she needed to place some solo stuff by herself. It was mainly her concert and it was a massive thing. It was on TV live, just a massive thing. And she played a piece that everybody knows and she made a mistake.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:She forgot one part of the piece. She's probably paid hundreds, maybe thousands of times and it's a piece she can play, probably asleep.
Speaker 1:Why do you think she forgot who knows? Do you think she woke up? Maybe, so I believe that happens. I believe that you're playing something by muscle memory autopilot so intensely that if you actually call to take in the moment and pay attention, you wake up and then you forget what you're doing and how to do it. You're conscientiously now aware of where C-sharp is and you forget how to play C-sharp, so you have to put yourself in a trance.
Speaker 2:How interesting.
Speaker 1:So she woke up.
Speaker 2:Maybe, and I was playing in the string trail with one other violin player in a cellist and after the cellist said I saw you make that mistake.
Speaker 1:Well, you're playing with you, yes.
Speaker 2:And to her right and she was like so annoyed because she's a very, very, very high level I mean, one of the best in the world, basically Classical violinists and she's not supposed to, in a way, make mistakes or have a memory. So I was really talking about the darkness. The cellist was really touching on something that she had then had to deal with, to kind of forgive herself that on this massive show she made a tiny mistake and everything. So, anyway, I'm just living that experience, because those are those moments when those are real. Yeah, we're forgiving ourselves and realizing it's all good.
Speaker 1:Well, that's where we realize that we're human.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the human condition. Yes, right, all that practice puts you on autopilot. When you are you personally, when you're in that moment, are you taking in the moment or are you just doing what you do? Are you realizing there's an audience that paid to see you, hear, you, appreciate you?
Speaker 2:So this very interesting question, because those maybe I think I'm going in and out of different modes of Maybe I could use the word different modes of consciousness. So sometimes, literally, I am playing and I am thinking, oh, when I finish playing this song, I want to remember to say thank you to this person. Ah Like literally I'll have thoughts like that sometimes Really so. In other words, nothing to do with even the music I'm playing.
Speaker 1:So you're playing a concerto or a nice piece? Yeah, your hands are doing what your hands are doing. You're not paying attention to them, you're just doing, and in your head your thought is I have to say thank you to Bob. Yeah, right, that's interesting. I get like that too on certain things. So, for instance, this trail, there was a moment where my wife had texted me. I'm texting her back, but I'm still carrying the conversation with her. Yes, right Now you obviously have a much better example than I have, or, let me say, a much cooler example than I have.
Speaker 2:No, but it's the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in that moment, though, do you ever lose track of what you're doing?
Speaker 2:So a lot of my performing is actually in a place where I'm even releasing thought and I'm in a place of being. So when you say wake up, it's not like I'm thinking, oh, I'm playing C sharp, it's like I am in an observation place, in a very being place.
Speaker 1:You're grounded.
Speaker 2:Just being yeah. I can't really find another way of saying it, well, it's spiritual. Yeah.
Speaker 1:You are literally engulfed in the moment.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Listen to that bug. Yes, it's not amazing, crazy. Yeah, you know what he just said.
Speaker 2:What did he say?
Speaker 1:He said I'm looking for a hamburger. Ah no, he's probably warning his other friends, we're finding a mate at the end of the day. I mean, that's what bugs do.
Speaker 2:Yeah Like hey, this is either hey, I'm absolutely gorgeous, or hey, this is my territory, or hey, you know whatever.
Speaker 1:Whatever that is, it is in the tree, and I'm not talking about the plane, and it is loud, yeah it's amazing, probably a cicada, oh maybe. Yeah, oh my God, look at this view. That is stunning. Wow, that is a view.
Speaker 2:So I think that might be the house I'm going to live in. I think that might be Dick's Castle. Do you know Dick's Castle? We'll look on the road.
Speaker 1:Related to Dick's morning goods, not a sponsor. Throw that in there in case they do. Wow, what a view. No picture could capture this. No, thank you. All right onward Momentary breaks or, as Pink Floyd says, momentary laps, silence. I'm a huge Floyd fan.
Speaker 2:Oh, me too, I'm not a huge Roger Waters supporter.
Speaker 1:politically he's a nut bag, but I do think he is a genius when it comes to writing music song lyric.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too.
Speaker 1:And I'll give credit to David Gilmore.
Speaker 2:Yes, oh, my God.
Speaker 1:As well. So what's next for Daisy Joplin?
Speaker 2:Okay, so foundation getting onto a level where we have a full-time executive director and therefore I am actually going to be focusing on finishing my new album and doing all kinds of touring and projects, including so there's just been this big opening for me in the Middle East, which has included Egypt, saudi Arabia, qatar, doing big concerts there. I find I have this ability, this talent, to play styles of music from different places around the world. I love doing it and I play some of their music and they're blown away. They're like you play your music, like you're from here. You know you play, I play their music like I'm from there.
Speaker 1:Well, that's very spiritual.
Speaker 2:And they feel really amazed by that. And one of my themes today, one of the things I love to do I was going to say missions, but is to really bring cultures together. Music, obviously, is a perfect way to do that, and so I open up a lot of minds. And you know, I did a big, for example, middle Eastern concert in where I live in Northern Westchester, in Peakskill. A thousand people came and heard Egyptian music and there was some musicians from different places around the Middle East and people had never heard that music before, had never been performed at the Paramount before, and some of them were like, well, that was out there. Some of them were like that was the best concert I've ever heard, you know, and it was all something just opening up, you know.
Speaker 1:Does that surprise you when people say it was the best concert that they ever heard?
Speaker 2:I've had it now a lot.
Speaker 1:Do you believe it?
Speaker 2:Of course, things feel amazing in the moment, so I'm not saying it's the best concert they've ever heard it might be one of them but what it means is that they have had an experience which is so powerful. They've felt so moved, they've felt so much joy. They've cried, they've felt healed, they've felt their minds have been opened. They've just felt something they will never forget, and I am so grateful to share that with them, you know.
Speaker 1:What do you believe your job is as a musician on stage?
Speaker 2:To connect myself and everybody to a part of our spirit which is fearless, which is experiencing every type of emotion that we're often scared to feel, which is crossing all boundaries of our 3D world, whether that's financial, cultural, all the boundaries we put between us. It crosses all of those. And in that place I mean people tell me, for example, there's one guy who came to my last concert. He said last big concert with the Middle Eastern thing actually, and he's in his 60s. He's like, and somebody goes to concerts every week, like he goes to a theatre every week in New York City.
Speaker 1:So he's very cultured.
Speaker 2:He's been to unbelievable amounts of concerts and he's like I've never been to a concert where and he came by himself, where he said I just started making friends with all the people around me and my vibe was so just joyful and extraordinary. He said I made friends that night. I said I've never done that. I've never sat on a Broadway show and started talking to the people all around me who I don't know. You know, yeah, or even at a normal concert. So somehow that happens. I don't even know, I didn't intend that, but it always happens. At my concerts people have made got together after my concerts, you know, it's like all kinds of stuff. So yeah, so that is my job is to let us sort in that area of our spirit which is out of problems or even where the solutions to problems suddenly come.
Speaker 1:So what was the most challenging thing you ever did Besides hike with me?
Speaker 2:Maybe the concert we did at the pyramids.
Speaker 1:You played the pyramids.
Speaker 2:I played a concert on November 4th 2022, so last year in front of the great pyramid of Giza, and I performed with legendary Egyptian musicians.
Speaker 1:And that's amazing. I also isn't it true that nobody plays in front of the pyramids?
Speaker 2:Well, people do, but I think, as far as I can understand and my producer, we did extensive research I'm the first ever international violinist to perform a major concert like that.
Speaker 1:That's amazing.
Speaker 2:In front of the pyramids, how many people watched 700 people were there in person and yeah, no, we'll have thousands online.
Speaker 1:That is amazing, wow. So how did that feel to be one of the first?
Speaker 2:It felt like one of the best moments of my life and also one of the most challenging. Leading up at the moment on stage, I was in joy, like I was in bliss.
Speaker 1:basically, I was in awe. Why was it the most challenging moment for you?
Speaker 2:Because my intuitive thought right now is that, because I was going to a new country, I didn't know anybody in Egypt. I knew actually one person, a friend of my mom's, an amazing Egyptian woman, a man who had married a British guy and had moved next to my mom in England. So I had met her before I went to Egypt and apart from that I knew not a single person in the whole of Egypt. And there I was going there to try and find the producer and the right situation to put on this concert. And I feel that one of the main things I learned is to follow my intuition, because I was told by people oh, you shouldn't work with Egyptians, they're not trustworthy. Now, not that they're not trustworthy, I mean they'll say they can do something, but then they don't deliver, which is a lot of people's experience, but I have never found that with Egyptians.
Speaker 1:Well, that's the danger of stereotyping. Right there's lots of cultures where people would say the same yes, except for the time. That's not true.
Speaker 2:Right. So I ended up working with somebody who did put there oh wow.
Speaker 1:So your experience then was great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and we also had my foundation raised money from the Rotary, from different Rotary clubs, to sponsor 120 kids. Hello Hi.
Speaker 1:So you are. I was going to say yeah.
Speaker 2:So we sponsored 120 kids from one of the poorest areas of Cairo and these kids were in a very special arts healing program. So they'd all been brought by the social services to this program because they'd experienced some kind of trauma, trauma which had led them to maybe not speak, you know, like they were going through some very difficult emotional situations. So they were in this arts healing program and I, from my experience with my foundation, know that the experience of putting a student child on a stage with legendary musicians around them, in a magical place like the pyramids, is completely life changing.
Speaker 1:Oh, for sure.
Speaker 2:How many students have you?
Speaker 1:helped out.
Speaker 2:So as far as kids actually performing with us on stage, it's like nearly a thousand altogether. Oh wow, Over the last 12 years.
Speaker 1:So you made the dream happen.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was actually maybe, anyway, thousand to eleven hundred. And then you know, we've also I mean, kids come up to me honestly all the time with like, oh, 10 years ago you performed in my school. It was amazing, I'm one of your biggest fans. So just also, performing in schools, we do that. This is one of the things our foundation does all this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:You took the smarter path than me. Nice job.
Speaker 2:I heard your shoes and I'm like I'm not sure whether my shoes are that so good.
Speaker 1:My shoes are meant for hiking, yours are meant for basketball. If it was 1974. Exactly All right. So you've given these kids such an amazing yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Well, eight of them ended up. They had nine months of lessons in dance and theater and singing and eight ended up actually performing with us, but yeah.
Speaker 1:Do they play an instrument ahead of time, or you're literally teaching them from scratch?
Speaker 2:Yeah, this program was already in effect and we just sponsored these particular kids for this amount of time to have these lessons.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:This program deals with kids who don't have any prior training. So this and the teachers are absolutely amazing and I'm still very closely in contact with this. You know this program and I still support them and I will probably, you know, forever. I don't know Like they and those kids actually, they were like ending the program was to 18 years old and these kids have been in the program for a while. They were often 18 or over and they were looking at what they were going to do, leaving this program, you know, not having maybe any family support or, you know, often both their parents have been killed or all kinds of crazy stuff, you know. And and they hadn't really had proper vocational training. So 20 of them put this idea together to start their own like arts healing program. They needed a space and they they came to me and I said, well, I want a business plan. I paid for them to find, you know, somebody to work with them and they created a fantastic business plan. But the and anyway they did. A few months after the pyramids concert, they texted me saying we've got funding and we're doing this which was so incredible because when they first came to me about a year I guess, nearly nine months maybe, before the pyramids concert they they came to me and said because you know, it's a hundred million people living in Egypt and 90 something million are poor and they're some of the poorest, so it's a paradigm where you know, talking about me and my classical music paradigm, we're all in certain paradigms and they didn't even see they could ever have something like this. But they wanted to and everybody told them just forget that idea, like nobody's going to care about you. Why will they ever care about you? Not one person had said you can, you can do this which again sparks future prodigies. Yes, Exactly what we were talking about. Look at this. Oh my God, I just have to look at this river. There's a little stream.
Speaker 1:I mean the sound and yeah, we had a lot of rain, which is feeding all of these streams, and you know what you know what.
Speaker 2:This water is so healthy and I feel inspired just to take a little bit right now.
Speaker 1:I don't think that's a good idea.
Speaker 2:No, I always do this.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:It's water that has lots of minerals, because sometimes, sorry, I'm already falling over, because I'm sorry, we're trying to do All right, you are definitely more adventurous than me.
Speaker 1:I would say in a survival moment, yes, if it's running flowing water, it is probably safe and drink, but it is running.
Speaker 2:You see, and even here it seems maybe stagnant, but it's going to keep on going and you can tell, it's very clear, and sometimes you know when we pass, sorry, what's the word. Pasteurize our water. No it's a different word. Anyway, we take out some of these very healthy minerals.
Speaker 1:Oh, we do.
Speaker 2:So if you just drink this water, sometimes it's just getting close enough to it.
Speaker 1:but if you drink this water, Well, you have made it this far. I will let you trust your judgment.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, you see it's water. Water doesn't really taste like this. Oh, it's fantastic Wow.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm connecting with the sacred waters, like I said to you before right, the sacred waters of the whole planet. Thank you.
Speaker 1:And, just for the record, she does have a water bottle.
Speaker 2:It's filled with water.
Speaker 1:I'm learning so much about you Just ping me in 24 hours. Let me know how things are hanging on. I might check in with you and call some local hospitals. It's okay, they have pills for this. That was a first. That was an eye-took-a-hike first.
Speaker 2:Nice, I love it. I'm loving it too, so much.
Speaker 1:Daisy Joplin, thank you so much for your very inspirational story, your moments. I certainly feel more connected with you. We definitely shared several moments, being one with nature, bathing in it, enjoying it. I am inspired by you as a person who wished growing up to be a musician. You are an inspiration to many. Your foundation helps many and I hope it continues. Thank, you it's so powerful it will so. Daisy Joplin, thank you so much for taking a hike with me.
Speaker 2:Darren, thank you so much for everything that you do, who you are, the inspiration and that absolutely fantastic time and views and being with nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, I tried, I love it, we did it. And guess what? I think your little prayer in the beginning worked, because I didn't see one mosquito. Next time on I Took a Hike. We find a source of inspiration in a charismatic leader, with the president of Rochester Institute of Technology, dr David Munson.