In this post we’ll look at Chris Broderick of the band Megadeth. Chris is an ISTP in the Myers Briggs System. ISTPs include some of the best technical musicians. Their primary process is introverted thinking, which seeks logical alignment and accuracy.This accuracy is applied to the external sensory world through their auxiliary function of extraverted sensing.
Some of the best athletes in the world are ISTPs, including Tiger Woods, Ray Allen, Michael Phelps and Michael Jordan. Like ISTP athletes, ISTP musicians often spend inordinate amounts of time perfecting their craft.
“Broderick has been said to have practiced 14 hours a day during his summers as a teen.” – Wikipedia
“You have to be professional at all times. In today’s day and age there is a lot of scrutiny and you end up on YouTube almost every night.”
I used to take lessons from Chris and I found a couple things about him that were especially remarkable. For one, he had amazing command of music theory. He also had amazingly precise ears and could tear apart anything of my own that I played for him with amazing accuracy. He could tell me exactly what I could do better and was very good at explaining it.
As an intuitive, I would tend to put my own spin on things that he would assign me to do, such as writing a counterpoint harmony piece, for example. He encouraged me to actually learn what I was doing properly first, before I started messing around with it. This helped me to make some significant advances and I can hear his influence in just about everything I’ve done since.
This is a good example of how learning from someone of a different type, with a different approach can be really valuable.
