Week 1 Response Post to Nick Oaster

I followed all of the aspects in the video well, but I too am a musician and music educator. I've stated a few times in responses to the reading and in class, that I had the opportunity to hear Ben Zander speak in person. I have to admit that I gained more when seeing him live than through the video, but the video (and readings) brought me back to that space. During the conference I attended he was able to get the room of business leaders to sing Beethoven in harmony. It was an amazing experience.

I often have conversations with non-musicians about the idea of 100%. Music is difficult in this way. In business if you meet a goal of increased sales by 20%, it is considered success. In sports, you can look at all of the statistics and they are less than 100% (think batting averages for example). Even the Super Bowl Champions only won 81% of their games in the regular season.

Bring these numbers into music. Take your favorite song and cut out 20% of the notes then play it. Even a non-musician is going to notice something is wrong with that piece. It is hard to strive for that 100%, but it is expected of musicians. The ideas I get from Zander is to go ahead and give yourself that perfect grade ahead of time. This enables you to let go of the stress of perfection and achieve your top performance. After all, this perfection is merely an invention anyway.


Original post wk 1 Extra Readin (MAC) from Nick Oaster on March 5, 2010:

As a music educator, this video was right up my alley. From a music standpoint, I was blown away by his ability to reach the audience through classical music. As a classical musician, I counted myself among the 3% he mentioned trying to push classical music acceptance to 4%. It was an eye opening experience to see him try for 100%. I would be curious as to if anyone else was able to watch the video and what you were reflections were. Specifically, were you moved by the song? Were you able to follow his technical talk of Bs and Cs going to E?

As an educator, I know that 100% of anything is not possible. Indeed, if I handed out a test in class and told everyone “just write ‘I want an A’ on the paper and you’ll get an A,” there would probably be students that wouldn’t do it because they weren’t paying attention, or they were trying to be rebellious. Perfection is, in most cases, simply unattainable. However, that doesn’t mean we should try any less hard.

As a music educator, I know, or thought I knew, that I will only be able to reach a small percentage of students in upper level ensembles.Imagine if I didn’t have that restriction. Even now, the idea can seem ridiculous, but is it where my profession and I should go? Oh, the possibilities…

Resources:

Video from: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/286