[Music]
hi I’m Greg Nelson and I grew up in
Bismarck for 29 Shirley Street out by
the Memorial Bridge I can remember when
I was two and three years old my mother
marching its around I usually in my
underwear marching around the living
room playing music for us
we’re hitting pots and pans so we’d
march in time and and then when we were
in grade school she bought us little
theory books and have us fill out our
theory books and we had to practice and
then we had contests to who could write
the major minor modal scales the
quickest and that was my upbringing I
went to Wilmore school he was junior
high Bismarck high school Bismarck
junior college at the time the hope is
Mike state college then a year at und
back here at Mary college
am I taught in the school system here
and had the high school orchestra for
about seven years and then moved to Los
Angeles and then went on to my career in
music there so I have and I had a
recording studio with my friend bill
Townsend and and we recorded artists in
the Midwest and here and did commercial
jingles so I have so much that I owe to
this city and to this state but my
childhood was not a good childhood I
have ADHD and I I have a hard time
paying attention that’s just a problem
and my teachers would always say to me
Greg would you mind would you like to
join the rest of the class well I would
have loved to join the rest of the class
learn about dangling participles and
verbal tense verb tense and but ice too
busy counting the squares on the
radiator alright looking out the window
thinking about you know important stuff
you know like why they killed ol Yeller
in that movie I mean I mean this is
where I was thinking they may have been
in history class but I was off the coast
England over here that coupled with my I
had talented brother and sister my
little sister when we were when she was
three years old we were we’re driving
across the Memorial Bridge and they have
a hum to it and all of a sudden she’s
jumping up in the seat before seatbelts
and she said daddy drive 25 that’s a
b-flat what the hum of the bridge at 25
was b-flat that’s how we found out she
had perfect pitch now I didn’t have it
my brother didn’t a couple blinking
suckers over there from us but so and
then she gave her home panel recital
when she was five and playing Bach
partida’s and she skipped first grade
and so that’s why I hated her
a my head my brother was a had a
beautiful voice and he went to he’s
saying in city presentations and one
talent contest and he prayed provincial
proficiently on the violin and then
there was me and for a period of time
there was a adult in my life that
figured his pleasure was more important
than my innocence and that destroyed me
how do you say that this was in the 50s
you know unfortunately I’m all in the
50s so how do you say that to anybody
huh you don’t even say that to your
parents you hold it in and you’re
confused and it’s just a key this is
ugly and I was a lost puppy
but a couple weeks later something
turned there was a call-out to have
cellos in the orchestra more cellos they
didn’t have enough so they asked the
junior high kids of who’s playing violin
if they wanted to switch they’d have
lessons and so I figured I’m failing at
the violin so ok I’ll go I was the only
one there I was sitting in the in the
orchestra room and in walks this woman
and angel her name was rosemary person
and she walked right up to me smiling
Greg I’m so glad to see you tell me a
little about you and that hidden motive
chord in me and I just started crying I
I remember I couldn’t quit cry and I was
trying to fake like oh no I got
something I I and no and she said I
didn’t mean to upset you but what
happened is no one ever asked me about
me I was nothing I was plankton in a sea
of life I was worthless in my mind and I
was stupid but I mattered to her and
that changed everything for me
and she said go pick out a cello so I
did I thought old man I’m gonna screw
this up too and I picked that cello up
and I held it and when I played file I
have a pinched nerve in my left hand and
so when I was holding violated my hand
would just shake like it is now just
like that and I get nervous and it was
just a disaster me playing but when I
held that cello the tension on my wrist
released and I didn’t shake and I sat
down and I took to that cello and I
practiced all summer and I could play I
was good and what was it was it her
words was it what wasn’t about that
it was her it was her attitude
now for me there were there there were
three different types of students there
was the student that was the high
achiever there was a student that is the
gifted learner and there was the
creative thinker well the high achieving
student was if someone has their hand up
all the time it takes 8 to 16
repetitions dr. berty King Gore had
these three groupings she’s an author
and educator and they go home they they
study and he come back they give ace and
the teacher loves them the gifted
learner it’s a whole different thing
he’s kind of could be bored because he
just knows or she one two three
repetitions they know they understand
complex things they can speak in
complexities and they’re going to fare
well but the creative thinker there’s
somewhere over the rainbow I mean they
are somewhere else and that described me
I always had a lot of ideas they never
work but I had a lot of ideas but what
was it about rosemary rosemary it was
her attitude she thought that I mattered
and there’s a Edwin Freeman wrote this
and I loved it he’s a rabbi and he’s
really he’s real smart guy I know little
about that but he says this the colossal
misunderstanding of the universe is that
somehow we think insight motivates
people to change he said nothing could
be further from the truth because when
your words are pursuing people they move
away even the most powerful words most
twice words when they’re used to
overpower lose their power attitudes are
the true figures of speech and nothing
could be more true for me than that and
I could spend the rest of this time
telling you about what happened
my life changed I didn’t have a creative
thought in my body I didn’t know
anything about creativity but when she
walked into that room my life changed
just like that and I can tell you about
gold records and platinum records and
lots of Grammys and an oratorio that
premiered at Carnegie Hall as it did the
standing room only I can tell you about
I’ve heard my music plates all over the
world South America Russia London I’ve
seen that translated everywhere and I
remember standing when I first came to
London the first time to do an
orchestral session I was at CTS studios
it’s next to the old Wembley Stadium and
I walked among 88 of the choicest
European symphony players there were and
we were doing something I’d written and
produced and I can’t tell you what that
feels like to get the sum total of these
musicians lives and have that rise up in
me that left me dumbstruck and I went to
my hotel I was laying in bed with my
wife I go I can’t believe they’re paying
me to do this
I don’t even know where it’s coming from
and I didn’t I didn’t know where it was
coming from I didn’t even know how I
could stay alive in the music business
because you’re only as good as your last
recording I mean that it’s a tough
business
I love Hunter s Thompson he was a writer
for Rolling Stone magazine and he said
the music business is a money trench a
long plastic hallway where pimps and
thieves run free and good men die like
dogs there’s also a negative side so I I
like that’s it so I didn’t know how I
was doing that so then I started
wondering where does this come what are
the origins what are the origins of all
this and so I started thinking well it
could be let’s look here I did it I’m
responsible I I knew every step I was
taking I summoned all my the sum total
of everything I knew and just spit it
out and became wonderful while nothing
could be further from the truth because
if anyone knew the left side of my brain
they would see that it’s a vast expanse
of nothingness there is nothing there
there could be an idiot monkey sitting
in a lawn chair eating banana cupcakes
but that’s about it there is nothing
there
so that’s not it thank God for my wife
and and for my production assistant who
kept me together
it could be serendipitous it could be
chance it could be oh that’s a good
fortune you were lucky and that’s a
that’s a valid argument there’s a lot of
people people think that and live that
way so you can’t dismiss that JT Vance
in his hillbilly elegy which is I think
is a great book I love it said that when
people live in impoverished situations
for so long they begin to internalize
their inferiority so much so that they
come to think its genetic and I can
understand that because that’s how I
felt when I was very young I I just
internalized inferiority but that’s a
choice genes it’s in your genes although
some of my relatives would disagree
about that because they don’t see it in
their genes and then what I came to and
this is just for me I’m not trying to
convince I mean I’m just laying out
stuff so don’t think I’m trying to
convince anybody here I believe it’s a
gift given I believe that God gave me a
gift and I know that’s what I believed
because I had no more to do with that
than the color of my skin
I worked hard but I just honed something
that that was just given to me that’s
what I came to and I think how we answer
that question the question of creativity
it has much to do with how we see
ourselves how we see others how we see
the world because if it’s all about us
all about me and I did it I’m the guy
that gives fertile ground I’ll tell you
for comparison’s looking to devalue
dismiss with a look judgment and an
action dismiss people but when you
become grateful you begin to appreciate
things in people you look at them
differently you see them because they
matter they matter dr. Stevens stansky
said something that was so good he wrote
this article anchor in the age of
entitlement that’s what he wrote and
it’s this real long thing it’s real
complicated and I didn’t get all that
because complicated things are just too
complicated for me but there are two
sentences there that I did
and I love these two sentences when I
appreciate you my life is enhanced when
I don’t appreciate you
my life is diminished and that rings so
true to me because I believe that
gratefulness and thinking that people
matter is the positive stuff that is the
core of our society that makes it
stronger I think it’s part of the
positive marrow in the backbone of our
country I think it’s part of the it’s
some of the oil of the essential oils
that nurture the world
that’s what I think and I know this I I
know that I understand that we’re not
we’re not a harbor I’m in an ocean of
people that see things much differently
than I do but it is incumbent on me to
appreciate them to care about them to
think that they matter whether I agree
or not agree with them and so I think
that when you see gratefulness as a
powerhouse it will change not only your
life but our culture I wanted to close
with something but I won’t thank you
very much Cheers
[Applause]
[Music]
hi I’m Greg Nelson and I grew up in
Bismarck for 29 Shirley Street out by
the Memorial Bridge I can remember when
I was two and three years old my mother
marching its around I usually in my
underwear marching around the living
room playing music for us
we’re hitting pots and pans so we’d
march in time and and then when we were
in grade school she bought us little
theory books and have us fill out our
theory books and we had to practice and
then we had contests to who could write
the major minor modal scales the
quickest and that was my upbringing I
went to Wilmore school he was junior
high Bismarck high school Bismarck
junior college at the time the hope is
Mike state college then a year at und
back here at Mary college
am I taught in the school system here
and had the high school orchestra for
about seven years and then moved to Los
Angeles and then went on to my career in
music there so I have and I had a
recording studio with my friend bill
Townsend and and we recorded artists in
the Midwest and here and did commercial
jingles so I have so much that I owe to
this city and to this state but my
childhood was not a good childhood I
have ADHD and I I have a hard time
paying attention that’s just a problem
and my teachers would always say to me
Greg would you mind would you like to
join the rest of the class well I would
have loved to join the rest of the class
learn about dangling participles and
verbal tense verb tense and but ice too
busy counting the squares on the
radiator alright looking out the window
thinking about you know important stuff
you know like why they killed ol Yeller
in that movie I mean I mean this is
where I was thinking they may have been
in history class but I was off the coast
England over here that coupled with my I
had talented brother and sister my
little sister when we were when she was
three years old we were we’re driving
across the Memorial Bridge and they have
a hum to it and all of a sudden she’s
jumping up in the seat before seatbelts
and she said daddy drive 25 that’s a
b-flat what the hum of the bridge at 25
was b-flat that’s how we found out she
had perfect pitch now I didn’t have it
my brother didn’t a couple blinking
suckers over there from us but so and
then she gave her home panel recital
when she was five and playing Bach
partida’s and she skipped first grade
and so that’s why I hated her
a my head my brother was a had a
beautiful voice and he went to he’s
saying in city presentations and one
talent contest and he prayed provincial
proficiently on the violin and then
there was me and for a period of time
there was a adult in my life that
figured his pleasure was more important
than my innocence and that destroyed me
how do you say that this was in the 50s
you know unfortunately I’m all in the
50s so how do you say that to anybody
huh you don’t even say that to your
parents you hold it in and you’re
confused and it’s just a key this is
ugly and I was a lost puppy
but a couple weeks later something
turned there was a call-out to have
cellos in the orchestra more cellos they
didn’t have enough so they asked the
junior high kids of who’s playing violin
if they wanted to switch they’d have
lessons and so I figured I’m failing at
the violin so ok I’ll go I was the only
one there I was sitting in the in the
orchestra room and in walks this woman
and angel her name was rosemary person
and she walked right up to me smiling
Greg I’m so glad to see you tell me a
little about you and that hidden motive
chord in me and I just started crying I
I remember I couldn’t quit cry and I was
trying to fake like oh no I got
something I I and no and she said I
didn’t mean to upset you but what
happened is no one ever asked me about
me I was nothing I was plankton in a sea
of life I was worthless in my mind and I
was stupid but I mattered to her and
that changed everything for me
and she said go pick out a cello so I
did I thought old man I’m gonna screw
this up too and I picked that cello up
and I held it and when I played file I
have a pinched nerve in my left hand and
so when I was holding violated my hand
would just shake like it is now just
like that and I get nervous and it was
just a disaster me playing but when I
held that cello the tension on my wrist
released and I didn’t shake and I sat
down and I took to that cello and I
practiced all summer and I could play I
was good and what was it was it her
words was it what wasn’t about that
it was her it was her attitude
now for me there were there there were
three different types of students there
was the student that was the high
achiever there was a student that is the
gifted learner and there was the
creative thinker well the high achieving
student was if someone has their hand up
all the time it takes 8 to 16
repetitions dr. berty King Gore had
these three groupings she’s an author
and educator and they go home they they
study and he come back they give ace and
the teacher loves them the gifted
learner it’s a whole different thing
he’s kind of could be bored because he
just knows or she one two three
repetitions they know they understand
complex things they can speak in
complexities and they’re going to fare
well but the creative thinker there’s
somewhere over the rainbow I mean they
are somewhere else and that described me
I always had a lot of ideas they never
work but I had a lot of ideas but what
was it about rosemary rosemary it was
her attitude she thought that I mattered
and there’s a Edwin Freeman wrote this
and I loved it he’s a rabbi and he’s
really he’s real smart guy I know little
about that but he says this the colossal
misunderstanding of the universe is that
somehow we think insight motivates
people to change he said nothing could
be further from the truth because when
your words are pursuing people they move
away even the most powerful words most
twice words when they’re used to
overpower lose their power attitudes are
the true figures of speech and nothing
could be more true for me than that and
I could spend the rest of this time
telling you about what happened
my life changed I didn’t have a creative
thought in my body I didn’t know
anything about creativity but when she
walked into that room my life changed
just like that and I can tell you about
gold records and platinum records and
lots of Grammys and an oratorio that
premiered at Carnegie Hall as it did the
standing room only I can tell you about
I’ve heard my music plates all over the
world South America Russia London I’ve
seen that translated everywhere and I
remember standing when I first came to
London the first time to do an
orchestral session I was at CTS studios
it’s next to the old Wembley Stadium and
I walked among 88 of the choicest
European symphony players there were and
we were doing something I’d written and
produced and I can’t tell you what that
feels like to get the sum total of these
musicians lives and have that rise up in
me that left me dumbstruck and I went to
my hotel I was laying in bed with my
wife I go I can’t believe they’re paying
me to do this
I don’t even know where it’s coming from
and I didn’t I didn’t know where it was
coming from I didn’t even know how I
could stay alive in the music business
because you’re only as good as your last
recording I mean that it’s a tough
business
I love Hunter s Thompson he was a writer
for Rolling Stone magazine and he said
the music business is a money trench a
long plastic hallway where pimps and
thieves run free and good men die like
dogs there’s also a negative side so I I
like that’s it so I didn’t know how I
was doing that so then I started
wondering where does this come what are
the origins what are the origins of all
this and so I started thinking well it
could be let’s look here I did it I’m
responsible I I knew every step I was
taking I summoned all my the sum total
of everything I knew and just spit it
out and became wonderful while nothing
could be further from the truth because
if anyone knew the left side of my brain
they would see that it’s a vast expanse
of nothingness there is nothing there
there could be an idiot monkey sitting
in a lawn chair eating banana cupcakes
but that’s about it there is nothing
there
so that’s not it thank God for my wife
and and for my production assistant who
kept me together
it could be serendipitous it could be
chance it could be oh that’s a good
fortune you were lucky and that’s a
that’s a valid argument there’s a lot of
people people think that and live that
way so you can’t dismiss that JT Vance
in his hillbilly elegy which is I think
is a great book I love it said that when
people live in impoverished situations
for so long they begin to internalize
their inferiority so much so that they
come to think its genetic and I can
understand that because that’s how I
felt when I was very young I I just
internalized inferiority but that’s a
choice genes it’s in your genes although
some of my relatives would disagree
about that because they don’t see it in
their genes and then what I came to and
this is just for me I’m not trying to
convince I mean I’m just laying out
stuff so don’t think I’m trying to
convince anybody here I believe it’s a
gift given I believe that God gave me a
gift and I know that’s what I believed
because I had no more to do with that
than the color of my skin
I worked hard but I just honed something
that that was just given to me that’s
what I came to and I think how we answer
that question the question of creativity
it has much to do with how we see
ourselves how we see others how we see
the world because if it’s all about us
all about me and I did it I’m the guy
that gives fertile ground I’ll tell you
for comparison’s looking to devalue
dismiss with a look judgment and an
action dismiss people but when you
become grateful you begin to appreciate
things in people you look at them
differently you see them because they
matter they matter dr. Stevens stansky
said something that was so good he wrote
this article anchor in the age of
entitlement that’s what he wrote and
it’s this real long thing it’s real
complicated and I didn’t get all that
because complicated things are just too
complicated for me but there are two
sentences there that I did
and I love these two sentences when I
appreciate you my life is enhanced when
I don’t appreciate you
my life is diminished and that rings so
true to me because I believe that
gratefulness and thinking that people
matter is the positive stuff that is the
core of our society that makes it
stronger I think it’s part of the
positive marrow in the backbone of our
country I think it’s part of the it’s
some of the oil of the essential oils
that nurture the world
that’s what I think and I know this I I
know that I understand that we’re not
we’re not a harbor I’m in an ocean of
people that see things much differently
than I do but it is incumbent on me to
appreciate them to care about them to
think that they matter whether I agree
or not agree with them and so I think
that when you see gratefulness as a
powerhouse it will change not only your
life but our culture I wanted to close
with something but I won’t thank you
very much Cheers
[Applause]
[Music]
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