We recently connected with Christopher Lloyd Bratten and have shared our conversation below.
Christopher Lloyd, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
Having worked in higher education for over ten years, I’ve discovered what I believe to be the essential ingredient to successful learning—curiosity. Without this, it’s extremely difficult—if not impossible—for anything new to enter one’s psyche. Curiosity implies and depends on humility, an admission that “There’s something I don’t yet know or can’t yet do.” Once we enter this mindstate, a universe of possibility opens to us. I’ve also discovered that teaching curiosity is difficult—if not impossible. At least it seems that way much of the time. My students and the people I’ve known have largely seemed intrinsically curious or incurious. I’m not talking about specific curiosity. Everyone is curious about some things and uninterested in others. I’m talking about an aspect of character, a fundamental and general trait and state of being. This allows us to choose wisely where and how we invest our time and attention. It allows us to be rationally aware and critical of ourselves and others. I attribute any success I may claim in the realm of music or education to the belief that I am a generally and genuinely curious person. I do feel it’s something that can be learned, but it might be something that we can only cultivate within ourselves through concerted effort.
Christopher Lloyd, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Currently, my main title is Educator. I am the Academic Department Director of Musical Theatre at AMDA’s Downtown Los Angeles location. Teaching is something I stumbled into inadvertently and ended up falling in love with. Much the same way I stumbled into and fell in love with music when I was younger. My cousin had a beautiful grand piano and was taking piano lessons at the time. She showed me a few things she had learned, and I picked up an easy classical piece just by mirroring her fingers. This led me to ask my parents for piano lessons and within a year I knew this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I went to college for music education—hated it (ironically). Dropped out and moved to California. Floundered for a bit and then decided to finish my education. Immediately after graduating, I was invited to audition for the music director role of a local cabaret company, Upright Cabaret. I booked the gig and stayed with them for several years. This gave me the opportunity to work with countless performers from stage, screen, and studio. One of the creators of the cabaret show and I broke off to start our own venture—For The Record. This is a theatrical concert based on movie soundtracks. We garnered a lot of success over the years and caught the attention of big directors like Quentin Tarantino and Baz Luhrmann. It was in the transition from Upright to FTR that I started teaching. I took a break from it when FTR got too big for me to do both. But eventually I left FTR due to creative differences and a personal crisis. I returned to teaching a bit later and am still doing it today. Teaching is, and continues to be, both the most fulfilling and most challenging thing I’ve ever done. I’ll say that music is where my heart is, teaching is where my mind is… And as for my soul, that’s with mindfulness, which is another story for another time.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
I’ll elaborate a bit on the personal crisis I mentioned earlier. The word “depression” is often used somewhat casually these days. But clinical depression is nothing short of a personal hell, something I wouldn’t wish on anyone. One of the reasons I left my production company is because depression had taken over and nearly crushed the life out of me. I had no idea what was happening, I had no resources. I and my tiny social circle were no match. I was driven to the brink of losing, well, everything. The silver lining to a moment like this is, if you survive, you are forever changed, forever stronger and wiser. This was the moment that stripped my life down to its studs and I was given the opportunity to discover what was truly important. My priorities were backward. The epiphany was that I should be prioritizing people. There’s nothing more important. Why do we do anything if not for others? What meaning would anything have if there were no one else? I started prioritizing, investing in, and cultivating my relationships with people. Because I had been worn down to a single thread, I didn’t have much to give, but I gave what I could to the few closest to me, and continue to do so today. It was also in this period of utter darkness that I figured out how to generate my own light—I began my journey of mindfulness. It started at an incredible secular meditation center that was called Against The Stream. This is where I found my footing and planted the roots of my soul. When the venerable Sam Harris launched his mindfulness app called Waking Up, I was one of the first adopters. Mindfulness is now woven into the fabric of my daily life and every endeavor. (I should also acknowledge the great benefit of therapy and medication.) So, this was a pivot professionally, but more to the point, this was a pivot existentially. Now, the professional side is properly prioritized—significant and valuable, but a distant second to how I show up in the world and who I can be for other people.
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
What we can do is to treat Art with the respect and reverence it deserves. Nothing is sacred unless we make it so. If we treat Art as an expendable commodity, that’s what it will be and that’s how we’ll experience it. If we treat Art as something spiritual, something transformative, something transcendent, something sacred… then that’s what it will be and that’s how we’ll experience it. As a society, I feel we need to raise the bar, to elevate what we create and consume. There’s a lot of junk food out there, literally and figuratively. Many people have never tasted fine cuisine, and their palate and diet and Artistic well-being are the worse for it. As an Artist, I aim to never create anything that is soulless, mediocre, or deceptive. As a consumer of Art, I aim to use my attention, my patronage, and my voice as a bulwark against mediocrity, a bastion of quality, and a catalyst for excellence. Our lives would all be improved if more of us ceased to settle for less.
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