Meet Morgan Maassel

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Morgan Maassel. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Morgan below.

Morgan, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

Personally, I just don’t believe there is another option other than to keep going. You can change directions, but that’s still going. You can take a break, but that implies you’ll continue on. The only way you stop, is if you’re no longer here. That being said, I’ve had a lot of examples of resilient people in my life, and I happen to be pretty head-strong, so I turned out that way as well. I also believe that I am here for a purpose and am exactly where I am supposed to be. As a Christian, I draw my strength from God and I am able to cast my stress, anxiety, and worries on Him. I recently learned that if I’ve prayed for a way to be made clear, and it isn’t being made clear, it’s not for me to worry about. God will make a way if that’s where He’d have me be. Otherwise, I can only do the next right thing out of love.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m a freelance string player! I have a private studio of students in Franklin that I teach weekly; I perform regularly with several orchestras in the area, but namely, the Tennessee Philharmonic as a substitute violist; I do session work/arranging as well typically out of my home. I recently played all the strings on Jenna Weidner’s recent EP, and we played on Today In Nashville and had a whole release show at the Gibson Garage. Everyday looks a little different, and it keeps things exciting for me!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Determination, curiosity, and access to music educators shaped my entire musical journey into a career. If you are early on in this journey and would like to be a professional one day, practice efficiently, give yourself grace- you are a human after all, stay in your lane, and when your teacher says use a metronome, use it! Lots of young musicians feel a lot of pressure to be better than some other person or to be perfect, but that sort of pressure only takes the joy out of the process. Once you reach a certain point, you realize the process is never truly complete and there is always more to learn or improve upon. If you can be curious about what’s out there, be determined to do the best you can do, and not beat yourself up for not being perfect and just have fun, you’ll go a long way! Access to music education is very important and I believe that it is easier than ever now because of the internet! There are so many great online tutorials, camps, and trainings for a relatively cheap price. Nothing really replaces the one on one mentoring and direct feedback, but these can be good tools. Finding a teacher that genuinely cares about your whole well-being is also important.

What would you advise – going all in on your strengths or investing on areas where you aren’t as strong to be more well-rounded?

I think it depends on the person, but for me, it was better for me to be well-rounded. Musically, it exposed me to so much cool stuff that I’d never have found otherwise. It also allowed me to mentally and emotionally open up enough to be able to create and express my own ideas. It also gave me confidence in myself and my abilities and in the knowledge that I really can do anything I put my mind to. I’ve also made so many friends along that journey that I never would’ve met otherwise. Going to Belmont University and majoring in commercial music was what gave me the tools to really expedite that learning process in myself. I had already started that before going, but it just exploded after I went.

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