I can tell you, having studied with really great teachers, the art of playing “pah pahs” is not taught. We hornists and sometimes violists are left to ourselves to learn this art. The knowledge of when to play is communicated, but not overtly. When it is done well and correctly, the audience and orchestra know.

The waltz has a magical affect on the environment wherever it is played. Transformation just happens – people are happier, uplifted, healthier, and the spirit becomes celebratory, cheery, and vibrant.

While listening to the concert, I had a flashback.

Many years ago I took it upon myself to take a rowing class. Not the kind with a canoe and paddle, but team rowing like you see in the Olympics. I found myself in a six week class. I was one of the oldest in the class of about twenty and the tallest. On the fifth week, I was beginning to wonder why this sport held the mystique I had for it. Since I was a least six inches taller than the next highest student, I was in constant pain. We as a team had to carry the boat from the boat house to the pier on our shoulders. Well, my shoulder was a good foot higher than the average, so I had to carry it in my hand propped with my elbow on my side. By the time we got the boat into the water, my arm was half spent carrying the load that way.

We had several rowing routines we practiced every week. The important thing with rowing in teams is the rhythm. If everyone is in sync, and following the technique accurately, the boat will balance itself and “fly” on top of the water. Well, the boat this particular was not flying. Rowing that day was like pulling through molasses. Our boat kept tipping to the side so instead of my oar side in the water, I was rowing in air! Occasionally we would get the technique right, but something would go amiss and we would be staggering in the water. Then there was a change.

The instructor told us she was going to do something different, and that we were to trust all the we learned the previous weeks. We started with the usual routine and she would yell “Stroke! … Stroke!” This time she got faster, and we pulled harder. As the commanding rhythm to “Stroke” got faster, she got … softer. Instead of hearing a command to do, I found myself hearing a rhythm in my head. My musical mind turned it into a Strauss walt (no kidding!). Miraculously, I noticed that my body was not in pain, nor was it struggling to keep pace. I was no longer pulling through molasses, but my oar, as well as my teams’ (!), began to cut into the water effortlessly. Magically, our oars were perfectly connecting with the water. We were flying! Pure joy flowed through me. All of us felt it. We were in perfect sync with each other, with the lake, and with the whole world. This was the closest I felt to playing a Strauss waltz in a symphony orchestra!

Tonight, as the program is ending, I am reminded of playing in a symphony orchestra and the rowing experiences. I would like to offer that these moments – these moments of perfect synchronization – where knowledge is transferred to a group seemingly invisibly, are the result of shifting focus. Information is transferred, perhaps allowed to be transferred, and awareness is heightened. The whole environment is transformed. Performance is instantly brought to higher high levels of output. All of the participants are aware of the change.

Soon, I will post some application of how these shifts can be used to bring change to an organization.

Orchestra of Life Nite Flight presentation:
1. Prelude to an Afternoon of a Faun by Claude Debussy. Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Sir Georg Solti, Conductor.
2. This Majestic Mountain by Michael Hoppe from the album, “Solace.”

Springboard Class “C:”
1. Homeland Theme from the album, “Homeland,” by Michael Hoppe.
2. This Majestic Mountain from the album, “Solace,” by Michael Hoppe.
3. Circles from the album, “My Romance, an Evening with Jim Brickman,” by Jim Brickman.
4. Dear Father from “Jonathan Living Seagull,” from the album, “The Nature of America, A Musical Impression.” Cincinatti Pops, Erich Kunzel, conductor.
5. Canon in D Major, by Johann Pachelbel.
6. Shenandoah from the album, “The Nature of America, A Musical Impression.” Cincinatti Pops, Erich Kunzel, conductor.
7. Theme from “Dances with Wolves,” from the album, “The Nature of America, A Musical Impression.” Cincinatti Pops, Erich Kunzel, conductor.
8. Theme from “Lonesome Dove,” from the album, “The Nature of America, A Musical Impression.” Cincinatti Pops, Erich Kunzel, conductor.
9. Feather Theme from “Forrest Gump,” from the album, “The Nature of America, A Musical Impression.” Cincinatti Pops, Erich Kunzel, conductor.
10. The Magnificent Seven, from the album, “Round Up.” Cincinatti Pops, Erich Kunzel, conductor.

It has been my experience that a direct relationship between orchestral music and the human body exists. Stephen Halpern has been the vanguard researcher in this area. He has shown that a relationship does exist between music and the body. I choose orchestral music because I know it so well. However, I am quite aware that many many other types of music can be just as effective.

I look at the choice of instrumentation and the harmonic processes a composer uses. Through the workshops I led in St. Louis, I found a consistent response to my theories within the attendees, and now I would like to formalize some of the research and its application. I also teach the principles I use to choose music, and students become more aware of what they are listening to in their immediate environment.

As an example, I am offering my readers this suggestion. Go to iTunes or your favorite music store and get a recording of Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2. Another choice would be any of the J. S. Bach Concerti for Four Harpshichords. Play the recording while doing your work today – these should be excellent choices for heavy thinking. Would like to hear/read your comments on this!

There still may be more changes coming, but for now, this feels like a good fit for me.

I am in the process of selecting how to present this new blog. There is some discussion in the blogging community about whether a blog internal to a web site, like this one, should have a consistent look and feel. I am choosing to play with the look and feel and see what I like.

Welcome to the newest addition to my web site! I hope you will find interesting articles here.

I am reminded of my childhood, the vacations at Grandpa’s house, where I and my sisters would ceremoniously take walks with Grandpa to the Creek, where we explored what we imagined to be the great canyons and cliffs surrounding the roaring river. The walk down that alley to the creek was certainly a bus ride – Grandpa was always in control. But when we arrived at the creek, we were on our own to explore to our hearts content. Our imaginations were wild with adventure. Climbing down from the street down tot he water was like Tom Cruise on the cliff in the beginning of the Mission Impossible movie.

Back to the present. While exploring informal learning with blogs, wikis, and Web 2.0 technologies, I am pondering how innovation fits into the picture. True, just as we explored the creek at my Grandfather’s house, we were innovating in terms of our own personal experiences. However, I am sure that many other kids visited that same creek, climbed the same embankment. I am sure that our adventures and imaginative play was original, maybe not, but there is no documentation of our experiences, or theirs, to know.

The creation of new knowledge is my passion. How it is created, how the experience of innovating can be recreated, and why it happens in defferent situations fascinates me.

The technologies we are exploring in our Unworkshop3 are innovative in themselves in their application to learning. These tools are certainly instruments for transfering of knowledge between bike riders as well as bus riders. Unlike other tools for learning, blogs and wikis certainly make the process of moving tacit knowledge to explicit knowledge more easy and accessible (if not entertaining).

I am offering my readership to participate with me in my exploration of innovation in this technological paradigm. Can it be that innovation can be enhanced in this process? My wonder is that maybe it will have to be redefined. Honestly, I am finding that these questions are in my head, but i don’t understand why yet. And this is why I am inviting others to participate – I am exploration my own personal awareness here. I cannot put my finger on the question I am wanting to ask…or answer for that matter.

My mother is now a retired teacher from the high school in my home town. At the time of the story, the high school was a seven building campus, all located on the same lot of land. A new science building was being built on a new parcel of land across the street from the main campus. The superintendent (my mother’s boss) was under fire because he refused to allow sidewalks to be built. Parents and board members were concerned that the students would be able to safely navigate crossing the city street in the short time they had to get to the new building from their classes.

The summer ended, and the building opened on the first day of school. One temparary path of wood chips to each of the entrances was provided. The rest of the lot was sodded, but no other landscaping was done.

One month after the opening of school (and the new science building), the school board met. The superintendent invited parents, the architect and landscaper to the meeting. Upon the opening of the building, the superintendent relocated the meeting to the grounds of the new science building.

When the meeting recongregated at the grounds of the new building, the superintendent simply asked all there to look at the ground. They discovered that paths had been worn into the ground in an intricate, simple design of straight lines that directly connected many buildings of the main campus with the new building’s entrances. Also, they discovered a now grass-barren area off the side of the building that resembled a courtyard. The superintendent ordered the architect to build the sidewalks where the paths were and to create a courtyard.

Allow me to first say that I know that there are many versions of this story in circulation. I don’t know if the superintendent knew those stories when building this building. However, what I have stated is fact. He would not allow permanent sidewalks to be built until the students themselves created their own paths to the building. He allowed the students to discover their own paths to the knowledge. The students created their own user interface!

This true story serves as a powerful metaphor for me on so many levels. As a professional in designing and building web applications for the distribution and acquisition of information, I always keep this metaphor in my consciousness.

When I am asked to build a new tool, or to design an interface for an application, I first examine all aspects of the users. Who are they? How do they do what they do now? I spend time with the users and examine how they accomplish their tasks now. In two cases, I rejected the project because I saw the project proposal as an example of building a sidewalk without paths defined (the sponsor wanted to tell the users how to do what they do).

An example of how innovative this approach can be: My manager asked me to automate an emergency contact list our organization relies on. It currently existed as an Excel spreadsheet that was updated monthly. My task was to create a web based tool that allowed searching, updating and creating of new contacts on the fly. I asked my manager how he wanted to use the application, and how he wanted the application to be used. They were two different things, as it turned out. He thought about my question, and later came to me with a new specification for the project. He wanted me to design the application/tool so that he and the users could find a person by a) whom they report to, b) what they did in the organization, and c) by their location in the building. Once the application was implemented, it soon became widely used throughout the organization, even though it was designed with our specific division’s purpose in mind. But that one simple question instigated curiosity and innovation where it did not exist before.

In summary, I am paying more attention to the paths I follow and create in my life. As I mature in my profession, it is my focus to find and discover paths engraved in the ground, rather than to blindly and arrogantly build concrete sidewalks.