Tim Holstad: A Glance Behind the Curtain

Hello, you... Thanks for stopping by. It has taken decades of trying for me to be at a point where I am writing this to you... with a product finally out and a website from where I can sell it and get the word out. There were many times where I asked myself why I was doing it... wondering why I kept trying... because for a long time I fought this. Who wants to open themselves up to where you can be hurt, and put yourself out in the open where there is no place to hide? I can tell you I surely didn’t. But this is the way it has to be if you are going to write songs that touch others. If you want to touch someone at their deepest core, you have to throw yourself that wide open first. It took me a long time to make my peace with that.

I grew up in a household where my mother and her parents wanted us all to be concert pianists. I remember the first instrument I ever had exposure to - the accordion at age 6. That didn’t last and it was piano lessons shortly after. But I couldn’t stick with it. I was basically an ADD child who was different and got picked on, battled depression a lot and just couldn’t deal with the frustration of hearing music in my head and not being able to get it out. It was so discouraging to not be able to play something the way it sounded, and I walked away. I isolated myself a lot, which was a huge mistake, but I survived it and it gives the songs a different viewpoint now. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

One day at school, when I was in third grade, the school band came to our classroom and gave us a test. We had to listen to 20 pairs of notes and tell which ones were the same and which were different. I got 18 of them right, and the band was interested. We got to choose what instrument we would like to play and I thought about trombone, but they asked me to play baritone horn as they had plenty of people who wanted to play trombone so I said OK. I started to take piano lessons again at this point, although eventually I was told at home I had to choose between the two. In hindsight I would have chosen piano, but maybe then things wouldn’t have played out the way they should have...

Now I was in high school, playing baritone horn in the school band. But the pep band which played at the basketball games needed a bass guitarist. I was asked, would I try it? I said OK... took lessons from the guy who had graduated and who I needed to replace. When he said he had taught me all he knew, Mom went back to a store where she had bought some music that I had needed for the school band. So I began taking lessons from Bob Sanderson, a guy who had played bass for 20 years and got tired of doing the standard bass parts and so devised his own system of playing. This was very good for me as I was trained to try and outdo myself every time I played, and really got comfortable playing bass lines, and listening to other players who pushed the limits of the instrument... and this was huge because this was the early 1980’s, when keyboards blew the scene open with the invention of MIDI (music instrument digital interface). So many musicians were getting "synthed out" and it was critical for a role player - a bass player like I was - to come up with a distinct style so you couldn’t be easily replaced by a keyboard and could keep playing.

It was about this time that Mom said to me one day that if I was going to keep playing I should focus on an instrument that I could make a living at. As high school drew to a close, I retired the baritone, having gotten braces which killed my tone, and focused on the bass. I didn’t think I needed to go to college if I was playing music, but Mom came from a family of college professors and there was no way in you-know-where I wasn’t going. There was a state school, the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, that she had tried to go to for a time. She went long enough that she really enjoyed it, and that’s where I was going. Period.

She might have changed her tune (no pun intended) if she knew what I was in store for. I remember after having passed entrance exams, I met with the dean of the Music College there, Dr. Howard Inglefield. I was a bass guitarist, and told him my intention was to major on that instrument. He said that wasn’t possible as they had no curriculum for that and so I would have to major on something else... and so I went back to piano and dusted off some of my old books of show tunes, really. The college had a policy that they would not let you major on an instrument that you were just starting on. You had to have played it for a while. ...So I went to the office of LaVonne Coppenbarger, the associate professor who would be my instructor - IF I passed. There was a harpsichord next to the door and then two pianos next to each other on the wall directly across from it. She sat at her desk and there were three chairs with three other faculty members, and this was my audition, my jury. So I walked in, sat down at one of the pianos in this university with a classical curriculum, and played these show tunes as best I could... and these professors just looked at each other... and they said OK. I don’t doubt I was the worst piano major they had, but the chance to learn what the classical composers had to learn... to practice like they had to practice... to learn all the music theory and have all the ear training... it was priceless. While I was there I started to write songs, took a singing course and started guitar lessons.

I had almost not survived the combination of isolating myself and all that depression before I got to college and did some time in the hospital, but I did survive. I faced it and found my reason for writing songs then, the reason why I was going to do it. I couldn’t really talk to people, but I could write songs to tell them in their darkest times that they weren’t alone and things would change if they kept trying long enough. You would think I would have been an instant success... but there was more I had to learn... I graduated college and kind of fell off the face of the earth with music, because I had no idea where to go with it.

I had married someone I should not have - she didn’t support the music. I was being far too altruistic and trying to kill it, but I just couldn’t. In this agony, my guitar teacher, John Jason, told me, "Listen. I’ve been watching you and I’ve always gotten the impression that this was more than just a hobby for you - and if the gift is in you, it’s not going away." That made me think, and I had to accept the obvious. Between the marriage at the time and another later, trust me when I tell you that you are better off alone than lonely with someone. If they can’t back who you really are, they aren’t for you and you have to turn them away.

During this second marriage, there was a time we were moving. I was throwing out some stuff when a passerby stopped and asked if he could take some of it for a friend in need and I said, sure. He then asked me if I played music and I said yes... and he told me about a singer who needed a bass player for a gig... and I went to this, and there I met a drummer by the name of Jeff Clair.

Jeff was instrumental (again, no pun intended) in the opportunity he gave me. He had a band and he was a very social guy who made it his point to know everything that was going on. A veteran, he worked at the local VA hospital and between that and his hustling, he always seemed to find gigs. The stuff the group (with an always-changing lineup) played was stuff like jazz, funk, R&B, soul... all kinds of stuff I didn’t grow up listening to, let alone playing. I made the mistake of mentioning I went to school for music and majored on the piano, and the response was something like, "You play KEYS? Well! We need you to do THAT! We can get somebody else to play bass!"

So I tried, and it was very hard. Playing keyboards by yourself is one thing. Playing them in a group is something else entirely. It took a while because I had the knowledge, but I wasn’t figuring it out fast enough for some of the other players and I washed out...

...Except that it was only temporary because Jeff called me one day. In short, the band left him and he had gigs coming up and he needed me to come back. We had a long talk, but we eventually reached an agreement and I was given a bunch of songs to learn, about two hours of stuff - in three weeks.

While I was out of the band, I had joined a book club, the Neothink Society, after getting a mail invitation. I was trying to get my head around being a self-leader, organizing my schedule into mini-days, reading about the dangers of altruism (which I know all too well by this time after all the health problems I developed living a life that made others happy but it denied my own), and many other concepts about leveling with yourself and being honest enough to find and admit to your purpose in life. Too many times I couldn’t argue with what I was reading and I had to figure it out. There were conference calls for this. One on Sunday nights was run by a couple of guys named Steve Fagan and Charlie Moore. I had met them at a conference that I got an invitation to and then I heard about this call, where they really went in depth to explain all that the books were saying. I had a lot of questions for them, but when you ask a lot of questions and you are honestly trying, people will see that and they will start asking you questions. Eventually Charlie started life coaching me to help me deal with where I was still stuck in life.

Now back to the upcoming gig, because when the day came up for it, I was life coaching with Charlie and could call him for advice, because I didn’t like my chances. He said what you would expect, to just try and have fun with it...

I got to the venue, a bar and restaurant with a circular stage in the middle of the dining area. I knew there was no chance I would be perfect as I set up and gave the sound man what he asked for, and helped where I could so everyone was set up. So I just tried to play and make music... and because I wasn’t stuck on worrying about screwing up and tried to make music instead, I stumbled onto what I had to do to successfully perform and I was able to bring it off. This was very helpful as the band had me play more than one instrument and started having me sing songs at shows. COVID basically killed that band, although there was one last show after it.

I kept working with Charlie and kept talking with Steve as well. Of course they found out who I am and what I do. I ended up writing several songs for them and performed at several gatherings and even MC’d two of them, but that is another story. I had so many adventures because of this gift and all the people who took an interest in it along the way. ...And so, after 40 years of trying, I finally have finished albums I have recorded and gotten released - and you can hear and get them here. Do yourself the favor of all favors: Be ruthlessly honest with yourself about who you really are, and then you can find your purpose. Then once you find it and know what it is, never ever ever turn away from it. That is the only way you will find fulfillment. Yes, it will cost you to go for a dream, but I can tell you from experience that it will cost you so much more if you don’t. Make your life count - go for it. Never Say Die.