Patrick Dexter, Musician, County Hall Arts
Patrick grew up playing music with his seven brothers and sisters in Dublin, the cellist in the family ensemble. After graduating from Trinity College Dublin and the University of Leiden with a Master's Degree in Politics he relocated to the west of Ireland to teach music. As schools closed in March 2020 due to the coronavirus lockdowns, Patrick began playing music from outside his cottage in the west of Ireland. Since then, his performances have been viewed millions of times online and have become a needed comfort for people worldwide. Currently, Patrick is the head of music at the County Hall Arts, London, where he composes music, and he is also working on his debut album to be released in Autumn 2021.
What is your favourite social media platform, and why?
Instagram because of its simplicity.
Tell us about you and your current role or area of interest.
I am a musician and composer and father to a young child. Family and music are my life at present, and I have never been so content.
What do you like about your career or area of focus?
I am learning all the time new skills and improving those I already have. Music is satisfying both while you are making it and afterwards when you listen back to your work and feel the pleasure of completion and detach yourself gently from your work. Also, I love to work in my own time and easily fit work around family life.
What is the best advice you have ever received?
Don't worry about trying something different. If it doesn't work out, you will have learned something. If you never try, you won't learn a thing.
What inspires you, motivates you, or helps you to move forward?
Landscapes inspire me. I am inspired by the feelings that erupt inside you when faced with the beauty of the natural world, its sights, smell and sounds. The sounds are made by the countless ways wind passes through spaces, from cities to cliffside ocean expanses. Birds, human speech, the shivers down your spine when a chord changes in a powerful piece of music, crying, loving and being in love, and dreams all form pillars of my inspiration in life and music.
I am motivated by curiosity. Curiosity fuels my urge to learn new skills. To make something better, bolder, more refined and more expressive than I did before. Curiosity fuels my interests in all areas of my life, from science, philosophy and connecting with people. Curiosity is the engine that keeps me moving forward.
What are you proud of in your life so far?
In managing not to make compromises in life, I want to live.
What is your preferred way to meet new people/network?
I love connecting with people when working together or doing an activity where you can have a sense of completion; this can range from making something creative together to washing the dishes side by side or throwing stones in a river together. Activity, for me, is the catalyst for creating satisfying foundations for friendship and forms the basis for a productive working relationship.
What skills or qualities do you feel have helped you?
The ease at which I can get along well with different types of people. Creating a connection between people quickly and efficiently has helped me in almost every situation in my life. Being able to put another person at ease has benefitted me so much. It sometimes feels like a very dull superpower! I am grateful for this skill.
What do you wish you had known when you started?
I only began this career last year, so I am yet to learn. Everything has been going so well since it's hard to advise my past self to do anything differently. I guess it would have been nice to know how successful I would become so as not to worry. But then again, knowing this, perhaps I wouldn't have put in the same effort. I might have liked to know that there is no need to worry about the end goal or even know what that goal is.
Keep pursuing your interests and doing what is working for you at that moment. A goal will only distract you from the importance of what you are doing right now. You have no way to know this idea you are tinkering around with might become life-changing in a year!
Who do you most admire in business, academic or creative circles and why?
I admire collaboration and an encouraging environment for the cross-pollination of ideas. Especially in academia which, in my experience, is very competitive, when people cooperate and build ideas with each other, the competition can fall away, leaving a much truer reflection of human nature.
Despite what popular historical accounts might tell you, the most significant ideas were not born out of fierce and solitary competition but by the human ability to coordinate and cooperate between different people. I admire business, academic or creative circles where, in practice, cooperation is encouraged.
Outside of your professional/work area, what hobbies or interests do you have or what other areas of your life are of real importance to you?
Family life is enormous to me. Walking/running in nature with family and friends but also alone are essential elements of my existence. I love philosophy, especially listening to audiobooks on continental philosophers such as Schopenhauer and the phenomenologists while out in gardening. I am not a skilled gardener, but I love spending as much time as possible out in gardens pottering around. Acknowledging all the variety in nature in a small patch in a garden makes my mind fizz with effervescent delight.
Has the pandemic had a positive or negative effect on you or your business, and how have you managed it?
It has transformed my working life in very positive ways. There was always tension in my life as a musician. It is expected for a musical professional to live in the city. Where nearly all the work is, I realised that city life was not where I wanted to spend most of my one life on this planet. The explosion of online remote work during the pandemic changed all this. I was offered a top composing job-based in London to work almost entirely from my rural home. A dream that would not have been possible pre-Covid.
What advice would you have for someone looking to get into the same area of work or interests?
People are interested in who you are as much as what you do. Whether you think it is a good thing or not, allow this fact to influence your work and career plans.
What do you feel is the most common reason for people failing or giving up?
Feeling that they should have an end goal and be seeing themselves move towards it. In my experience, end goals are nonsense and an unnecessary distraction from the great things you could be doing right now.
Is there a phrase, quote or a saying that you like?
An old Irish language proverb (a seanfhocal) sums up much of my attitude to life. It translates as: "Life is like a cup of tea; it's all in how you make it". The meaning behind it is that how you live your life results from what you do in it.
What companies, brands, or institutions do you like or do you think are getting it right?
Ableton Live.
How do you define success, and what lessons have you learned so far that you could share with our audience/readership?
Success is an unhelpful and nebulous term. I would advise anyone to be cautious about it. For me, success has to do with an evaluation from both your perspective and those that you most love and trust, that you experience fulfilment and satisfaction from your life and work.