An Atypical 'Performance' Talk

by Chris Arcand

In the video titled 'An Atypical 'Performance' Talk', Chris Arcand presents insights from his journey as a musician turned software developer, blending experiences from both fields to provide valuable life lessons. Arcand introduces himself as a remote worker at Red Hat, focusing on open-source software, specifically ManageIQ, a cloud management platform. He shares the significance of his musical background, especially playing the clarinet, and how it shaped his approach to software development and life.

Key Points Discussed:
- Background in Music: Chris Arcand reflects on his childhood aspirations to become an orchestral clarinetist, detailing his experiences in music education, youth symphonies, and the challenges faced when transitioning to higher levels of performance.
- Dealing with Complexity: He emphasizes the importance of breaking down complex tasks into manageable parts, which is applicable to both music and programming. He describes how he learned to analyze musical pieces beforehand to better grasp performance requirements, paralleling this approach with understanding new codebases in software development.
- Concentration and Deep Work: Arcand draws parallels between the focus required in music and programming. He introduces concepts from Cal Newport's book 'Deep Work,' distinguishing between deep and shallow work, and emphasizes the need for deep concentration in both fields to achieve excellence.
- Balance in Life: He stresses the significance of maintaining a work-life balance, drawing from his musical training where over-practicing could lead to burnout. He argues that a healthy life balance allows for personal growth outside of professional duties.
- Imposter Syndrome and Hero Worship: He discusses the commonality of imposter syndrome in both the music and tech worlds, emphasizing that admired figures are also ordinary people who have worked hard to achieve their status. He encourages the audience to understand that continuous learning and handling complexity are key factors in success.

In conclusion, Chris Arcand illustrates how the lessons learned from music apply seamlessly to software development. He reminds the audience that the journey from novice to proficient involves embracing complexity, maintaining focus, balancing life, and recognizing the humanity behind public figures in any field. This blend of experiences not only enriched his career but also made him a better person, reinforcing that these truths are universal.

00:01:35.830 Hi, how's it going? Before we begin, I just need to ask one thing. Who here used to play the clarinet in middle school? Yes! We are going to be best friends! You see, I too used to play the clarinet in middle school, but I'll talk about that in a moment.

00:01:42.220 So first off, my name is Chris Arcand, and I work full-time on open source software for Red Hat. I work remotely out of Minnesota in the Twin Cities. There's no entering office there; I've been working remotely for almost five years now, and it’s been awesome. At Red Hat, I work on ManageIQ, which is an open source cloud management platform that powers the Red Hat CloudForms product downstream.

00:02:04.630 In a nutshell, it allows you to manage containers, virtual machines, networks, and storage all from a single platform. The code base is on GitHub, it's easy to find, and you can learn even more about it by talking with me afterward or going to ManageIQ.org. So as always, thank you to Red Hat and the ManageIQ team for giving me the opportunity to come speak here. Thank you all for having me; I really appreciate it.

00:02:30.130 Now, if you met me at some conference, you'd see I'm just another developer. I have my science degree and I've settled happily in a suburb outside of St. Paul with my wife and our seven-month-old son. I really love what I do, and I wake up every single day fully aware that I'm incredibly lucky and entitled, and that I shouldn't take it all for granted.

00:02:54.459 So before software, I was doing something very different. I've been playing the clarinet since I was nine years old, and growing up, I had grand aspirations of becoming an orchestral clarinetist. If you think that picture of me is super nerdy, I'd like to say two things: number one, look around you at this tech conference; everyone looks pretty nerdy. And two, I have a whole lot more embarrassing pictures. Imagine me holding a clarinet, and I call this one back here the magazine shot. See you on a magazine cover!

00:03:19.549 I originally wrote this talk for 40 minutes, but I found out a couple of days ago that I only have 25. So, I’ll be cutting some things out a little bit. I have a whole lot of topics I wish I could cover, but for the sake of brevity, I’ll condense it. As for my background, I got to study with some of the best teachers in my area and played in various youth symphonies and other extracurricular activities. Yeah, I was that band kid!

00:03:54.919 After high school, I auditioned all over the northeastern United States and got accepted to a few fancy conservatories that wanted me to sell my soul and pay them 40 to 50 thousand dollars a year to attend. But in the end, I was lucky enough to not sell my soul and stay in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where I grew up, because there was a unique opportunity there.

00:04:19.519 One of the most talented, well-known clarinetists in the country happened to live in Minneapolis and played clarinet for the Minnesota Orchestra—fantastic Orchestra! I got accepted there with a decent scholarship and was only one of two undergraduates allowed in the studio; the rest were graduate students, master’s students, or Doctoral of Musical Arts students. Yes, if you want to be a doctor of clarinet, that is a real thing.

00:04:44.240 I remember the first wind ensemble rehearsal I attended. After playing one piece with the group, I was absolutely terrified. These players were extremely good, and the music was really complex. I was not used to playing at that level, especially not at the speed and quantity that this was expected.

00:05:11.090 I quickly learned my first lesson: I needed to learn how to deal with looking at complex music in a very short amount of time. In high school, I had all the time in the world to learn my music; I could get it, show up at rehearsal, fumble through it, and lean on my colleagues and the director to help me through.

00:05:23.740 The concert wasn’t for another three or four months, so who cares? No big deal. I’ll get through it. But in university and the professional world, you can’t do that. You need to get every single note off the page in your first rehearsal. Scheduling time and space for 80 musicians plus some hotshot conductor isn’t cheap, nor is booking your accompanist to practice recital music for endless hours.

00:05:46.930 So, you need to concentrate on the expressive aspects of playing with a group instead of scrambling to practice technical execution. Getting used to new music that looks really complex was extremely daunting for me, and it fueled many feelings of intense imposter syndrome.

00:06:02.140 You might wonder how I even began to look at all this ink on a page and bring it out of my instrument. Well, I soon learned how to do that. I'd take an overview of the piece. I'd look at it from beginning to end and ask, 'What sort of piece is this? What's the time period?'

00:06:28.480 The style dictates the form and structure: Is it a four-movement symphony? A short duet? What’s the tempo? Is it fast? Slow? A mix of both? And if so, where does it change? I would sing the music to myself without even picking up my clarinet. If you can't sing it, you can't play it. It's similar to what L was talking about earlier—if you can’t explain something simply to someone, you probably don’t understand it.

00:06:55.120 So then I would find phrases, circle specific ideas, practice those areas individually, and then, very slowly under tempo, I’d begin putting it all together. Eventually, I would be able to play the piece. Looking back, I’d often think, 'Oh, it’s actually not that hard. It’s not as tough as I thought!'

00:07:20.380 The initial complexity I perceived while looking at the piece of music no longer felt daunting. So, how does this relate to software? Seeing a new codebase can be extremely daunting, right? You get a new client, a new job, whatever, you open up the codebase in your text editor, and you freak out.

00:07:49.729 You think, 'Oh my God! All these moving parts, all this bad code, all this good code, whatever! What am I going to do? How am I going to understand this?' But eventually, as you all know, you often look back at that once-daunting codebase after some time and think, 'Oh yeah, I like this. Even if it's still not super easy, I get it now; I can work with this.'

00:08:04.879 So for me, my music experience taught me from the start that if I broke things down and didn’t freak out, I was going to be fine. One of the most memorable things my instructor ever told me that I always remember is: playing the clarinet is easy. And while there's some obvious falsehood in that statement, there's also a lot of truth in it.

00:08:20.520 I thought at first he was just being the figurative lead developer of my future, who just didn’t understand what it was like to be in my shoes anymore. But what he meant was that when you get down to it, playing the clarinet boils down to a small list of things that you see over and over again, regardless of skill level.

00:08:51.340 It doesn't ever change. You're used to using all those same skills. So taking that into account, there are actually fewer pieces than you'd think that are simply ridiculously hard.

00:09:11.710 There aren't many problems in programming where the code itself is so inherently complex that anyone, regardless of experience level, is just going to say, 'Alright, that's just that hard.' It’s always going to be that hard to you at whatever stage you find yourself.

00:09:35.350 So what I’m saying is don’t let initial complexity scare you from diving in, or don’t freak out if something looks hard. This realization was important to me in both music and programming.

00:11:03.260 So looking back, I think I spent a third of my time at school concentrated on a single thing: technique. There’s a lot more to performing than just playing all the notes off the page. Going to school isn’t purely about just sitting and practicing, but I struggled with that aspect at first.

00:11:55.289 And I thought it was just learning technique, that if I just got better at technique, I’d be fine. However, what I soon realized was that it's not just about technique; it's about concentration. You need utmost concentration to perform a piece of music with no technical mistakes and bring it off the page in a believable way to your audience.

00:12:15.840 You have to block every other thought from your brain and pour your entire being into considering what you're playing. It sounds really corny, right? Like, the music takes you away to a special magical place. But however you view it, that’s actually what’s required for technical excellence.

00:12:44.680 In software, this level of concentration we often refer to as being 'in the zone'. Oh, the programmer is in the zone! They’re distraction-free, concentrated, and super productive. This is what we always want as programmers. There’s the notion of 'don’t disturb the programmer when they have their headphones on' because they’re in the zone.

00:13:10.620 There’s a lot of writing, talks, and all sorts of discussions about concentration and working deeply. Instead of just talking about it, I want to plug a book I read recently called Deep Work by Cal Newport. It’s a fantastic read.

00:13:42.580 The subtitle of this book is 'Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World.' In it, the author talks about deep work versus shallow work. Shallow work involves doing low-demand tasks like checking and responding to emails—anything with notifications. It’s the small, repetitive tasks that don’t require much brainpower but take up a lot of time in your day.

00:14:07.500 Deep work, on the other hand, is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. First, he makes the case that any knowledge-based profession will reap huge benefits from doing this. In the second half of the book, he gives various strategies and advice to actually achieve a regular habit of doing deep work.

00:14:33.909 It's a really good book; I could talk about it for a while, but please just go read it! Maintaining this comfort zone for deep concentration is really exhausting.

00:14:50.640 So related to intense concentration, deep work is the concept of balance to produce quality. As you can imagine, musicians practice their music a lot. There was a colleague in a different studio who claimed to practice like seven hours a day in the practice room, studying their music. This doesn’t include the two and a half to three hours spent in wind ensemble or orchestra rehearsals.

00:15:12.710 Most people do another one or two hours of chamber music on top of that. That’s a ridiculous amount of practicing in a day! In contrast, my instructor advocated no more than a couple of hours of practice each day, maybe creeping up towards four hours when you’re gearing up for auditions.

00:15:35.540 But really, no more than that. Why? Because concentrated work, when done right, is exhausting. If you’re not careful, at some point you’ll just be mindlessly playing notes and not actually pushing yourself to be better. Practicing without concentration can lead to performing without it.

00:15:56.430 That’s a detrimental cycle to fall into. I discovered the same problem transitioning into software. As I reached the stage in my career where I was considered an intermediate, I overworked myself consistently.

00:16:17.780 I worked ridiculous hours and struggled to decouple my thoughts from work at the end of the day. I wasn’t using my time productively, and my personal life suffered as a result. This concept of balance stretches beyond just the hours in the day; it’s about balancing yourself as a person.

00:16:38.340 And making time for things you enjoy outside of programming or work. As members of the Ruby community, you’ve probably heard plenty about it from people like DHH at Basecamp—things about avoiding burnout, not working 60-hour weeks, and not glorifying someone who says they never spend time with their kids.

00:16:54.650 I didn’t have it all figured out when I started doing software, and I don’t even have it all figured out now. However, this notion of balance was already very natural to me because of my musical background. And as I read the Deep Work book, I constantly found myself thinking, 'Oh yeah, I know this.' I’ve experienced this already in a different way.

00:17:13.030 The 'no practicing for more than four hours' that my instructor taught me directly reflects the author's estimate in the book that anyone, regardless of skill level, struggles to concentrate very deeply beyond that time. It's uncanny how many correlations I discovered through music that applied to software development.

00:17:39.820 My experience in music on how to make the most of my time, combined with the understanding of the importance of being a well-rounded person, ultimately made me a better programmer from the start.

00:20:59.010 There’s one more thing I want to discuss: hero worship and impostor syndrome. Throughout my years studying music, I had the opportunity to meet many well-known individuals in the classical music world. I've studied and played alongside some remarkable players who are now with the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C.

00:21:39.800 I've worked with internationally recognized conductors and composers, people who I still can’t believe took the time to listen to me play and teach me. I have so many stories that I wish I could share, but these musicians are akin to the DHHs, Aaron Patterson's, and Chad Fowler’s of the orchestral clarinet world.

00:22:06.100 Now, I can say I’ve gotten to know some prominent individuals in the Ruby world, especially at Red Hat while working full-time in open source. I’ve worked with many names that everyone in this room has undoubtedly heard of.

00:22:29.750 I’ve been internally screaming at myself since the last slide because I’ve been purposely setting humility aside to make myself sound important and impressive, but I’m actually trying to convey the opposite. I’m just a normal person, and honestly, right now, I feel like an impostor talking in this manner.

00:22:54.770 But I've interacted with enough people from both music and software to say that your heroes are normal people. The clarinetists I met and studied with all started somewhere. It wasn’t sheer talent that brought them to where they are today.

00:23:10.890 It was mostly hard work, a lot of sacrifice, and honestly, a little bit of luck. There’s a reason the saying goes, 'practice makes perfect,' not 'talent makes perfect.' Your heroes are not inherently better than you. They don’t know everything you don’t know, just like you don’t know everything they do.

00:23:29.040 Your heroes have simply learned how to handle complexity, concentrate deeply, and balance various aspects of life to create the work you admire. That’s not to say they have everything figured out, especially when it comes to balance.

00:23:51.360 Everyone I’ve talked to struggles with balance. Your priorities change, life changes; finding balance is always an ongoing struggle for everyone. In the end, what I’m trying to say is that everyone here, including your heroes, are just people.

00:24:22.740 They too deal with imposter syndrome and feelings of inadequacy. Coming from music, where I got to study with some of my heroes, I feel like I internalized that knowledge quite quickly.

00:24:45.430 I know I’m running out of time, and there’s so much more I want to discuss that I can’t possibly cover. So I’ll just wrap it up and want to play one more piece for you.

00:25:04.250 I did finish my music degree and taught my own studio of students for a few years. I decided to move on, and the rest of the story brings me to where I am today, standing in front of you.

00:25:28.890 The inevitable question I'll get after this talk is, 'Why did you move on from music to go into software?' I looked at myself in the mirror and decided that I wouldn’t be able to maintain the balance I needed in my life while attaining the career goals I set for myself.

00:25:50.800 There’s more to life than just playing the clarinet, just as there’s more to life than just programming. I knew I needed to sacrifice more time and effort to be a successful musician, whereas with software—something I enjoy almost as much—maintaining a healthy life balance doesn’t require me to sacrifice that time.

00:26:16.940 I can spend my time doing other things that I enjoy which aren’t even related to music or programming, and I get to spend time with my family. So although some might say I wasted my time not going straight into what I ultimately did for a career, I don’t regret it at all; the things I learned made me a better programmer before I even started.

00:26:56.520 And the dirty secret, if you've been listening carefully, is that everything I’ve talked about isn’t just related to music or programming. These lessons extend to life in general. Many of you have likely discovered these truths for yourselves, coming from different angles and backgrounds.

00:27:34.510 So really, these lessons didn’t just make me a better programmer; they made me a better person. Now, for one last question: Does anyone know what a bandoneon is? Anyone know what an accordion is? Great!

00:27:56.730 A bandoneon is like an accordion, but it sounds a little different. It’s the instrument that brought about Argentinian tango music, and as the bandoneon is considered the tango instrument, the man you see here, playing the bandoneon, is Astor Piazzolla.

00:28:24.100 He was a virtuosic bandoneon player and is considered the world's foremost composer of tango music. He single-handedly invented a style in the wave of tango, blending tango music with classical and jazz.

00:29:06.050 I've been playing some intentionally weird pieces for you here at Keep Ruby Weird. Now, I’m gonna play something that might feel a little more familiar to your ears. This is a tango piece by Piazzolla that he originally wrote for flute, but I'm going to play it on the clarinet instead.

00:29:31.380 I also wanted to say I’ve been trying to do this talk for a long time, blending the two spheres of my life, and I hadn’t found the right venue for it until now. Thank you all for listening so much; I really appreciate it.