Steve Barnett's Blog

I conducted a group from a truck tire company in Stratford-Upon-Avon last week.

Its interesting the power of the name Stratford-Upon-Avon, that when I mention this to people, everyone remarks. - Its like “Oh, you’re going Shakespearean now?”

Well no. But they do have a very nice grand old hotel with conference facilities and fine gardens and a golf course, on the outskirts of the town. And this is where we worked.

I had decided to have two accompanist musicians join me, JK on guitar and Eliot on violin. I have worked with Eliot a few times and we have been friends for years. He composes and plays his own music. He is a fine fiddler and has played with some rocking bands, and he has given me musical insights that have changed the way I listen to music

JK is eighteen, a really gifted guitarist and kit drummer. As a friend of the family I have watched him as he developed in his teenage years. I have sat with him in his room sometimes with the instruments that I make for my audiences, and he instantly seemed to understand the kind of progressions that I could use as accompaniment, and I have been hoping for a while that he could join me for some sessions.

He has played with groups around London but had never done a corporate gig, so we did have to scramble around in he cupboard for a suitable ‘smart-ish’ sort of trousers and a pair of black sneakers that would do. .

I often don’t even register the detail of what is being played by the musicians behind me, on stage The aim is to have a musical or rhythmical foundation (like a tight jam session) from which to work as I face and orchestrate the audience. There is often great discussion between the musicians or percussionists, after the sessions, about what they have played, the detail of which I did not even register, and I am often amazed when I listen to recordings afterwards. There is incredible stuff happening.

If I were to explain to a business audience, as a team-building idea, using a simple musical metaphor, I would say “Keep in the rhythm and play in the right Key” (which is of course easy to say but a bit more complex to apply) But sometimes a special combination of talents comes together in just the right way (and there’s a lesson in that too!), and so it was with Eliot and JK, both improvisational and both with a feel for African sounds and rhythms – and the session rocked.

I used chimes, and tubes for the audience, a combination I have not used before. The chimes are tuned in C and lend themselves to a more delicate kind of music, even though their sound is piercing. And the tubes, in G, are softer in sound but one can really get physical with them so playing can become a kind of dance as well. In Africa, music and movement always go together.

As usual, the audience see the performance they are part of as being the norm, but sometimes something special happens musically, that is out of the usual, and this was one of those times. and I hope I can expand on this in future with Eliot and JK.

They had never played together before but the chemistry was right, and the audience responded, and they got it! And therein lies the question of what happened right, and how to apply the principals to other walks of life?

Teaching some people to play the vuvuzela.

Video linked from http://www.mg.co.za

Let me give you an example of something that inspired me when I experienced it.

In the tribal area of Venda in the Limpopo province of South Africa, a chief of a village traditionally has a village orchestra. This is made up of up to 80 members of this community, each of whom playing a simple pan pipe. These pan pipes are of different lengths and can be made from different materials, anything from reeds to plastic tubes to old chromed school chair legs, and each one had its own different note and different tone.

The drummers in the middle of this circle of players give the signal and everyone starts to play, dancing and moving slowly around in a circle with the drums playing in the centre.

And at first, to the untrained ear, this sounds like a cacophony, un-tuneful and un-rhythmic. But when you listen more carefully, you hear something deeper.

The drums are playing different rhythms but they play to the same pulse. And if you stand at the edge of the circle as the individual players move by, so you can pick out the notes of the three or four closest to you, you will notice that they each play their note with a different rhythm but within the pulse of the drumbeats. And as you pick out the individual notes that they play you can hear the ‘song’ that they make with the combination of their notes.

And as the players move on, you can no longer differentiate the notes of those in the front of this small group, but you start to pick out the notes of the players moving into your earshot, and the new notes and rhythms form a new ‘song’.

And as those players move on so the ‘song’ you hear keeps changing and you start to realize the coordinated complexity of the orchestration.

And the result is a huge buzzing energy that draws in the players and the listeners, and the objective in a tribal sense is to reach out to the ancestors, the spirit of the tribe.

And as a metaphor for an organization: If we each play our part within the pulse or heartbeat or vision, as different individuals with different skills, the song we play and the energy we create reaches out to that which we want to achieve, be it our market, our clientele or however we define our success.