Imagine you're a professional musician. You've flown halfway across the world for a big concert in Istanbul. You walk out on stage... and there are three people in the audience. The band literally outnumbers the crowd. So what do you do?

That one story from violinist Jeremy Cohen got host Vonn Vanier thinking: In a creative life full of uncertainty, in a business known for being brutal, what is the engine that actually keeps you going?

This special episode pieces together the answer. Drawing from the archives of Beyond the Notes, Vonn traces a journey through the four essential stages of a creative life. It's a path that begins with a private spark of magic in the studio with Grammy-winning sound engineer Leslie Ann Jones; builds into an unbreakable bond on a stage with Jeremy Cohen and his quartet; grows into a hard-won connection with the wider world through the perseverance of acclaimed composer Peter Boyer; and ends with the profound weight of a mentor's final words, in a story from legendary producer John Snyder about the man who discovered Bob Dylan.

This isn't a story about fame or fortune. This is the story of what keeps you going.

Guests in this episode:

• Leslie Ann Jones: Multi-Grammy Award-Winning Skywalker Sound Engineer
• Jeremy Cohen: Multi-Grammy Nominated Violinist, Founder of Quartet San Francisco
• Peter Boyer: Grammy-Nominated Composer
• John Snyder: Grammy-Award Winning Record Producer

Listen to the full episodes here:

• Jeremy Cohen: Jeremy Cohen Owns One of the Most Heard Violins in History
• John Snyder: Producer John Hammond (Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen) Told Him on His Death Bed "It's up to you now."
• Leslie Ann Jones: From Apocalypse Now to Halo and Beyond - the INCREDIBLE Career of Leslie Ann Jones
• Peter Boyer: How Grammy-Nominated Composer Peter Boyer Is Scoring America’s History