Get Inspired

We are in the Holiday season of 2012, and here is an inspiring post. This entry is regarding an inspiring TED talk that I had the pleasure of viewing recently.  A very charismatic Benjamin Zander talks about classical music, but really a whole lot more.  Now before you say, “boring,” I challenge you to watch the video with an open mind.  It very well may create an unexpected sense of inspiration.

Zander achieves this through a number of techniques that include humor, musicianship, stories and charisma.  He opens the discussion with this bit about two English salesmen that are sent to Africa to look at the market conditions for their shoe business.  The first salesman writes back and states, “it’s bad no one here wears shoes.” The second salesman responds, “good news, no one has any shoes!” It is this positive attitude that Zander utilizes over the next 20 minutes creates this sense of inspiration. 

Through a number of examples, Zander demonstrates a piece of music that is often taught to young piano students.  The demonstration illustrates students’ progress over the course of a few years.  Zander states that students improved, but not as a result of passion.   If students began to adjust where they place the emphasis in the phrase, the performance would improve.  Beginning students tend to place an emphasis on every note, making the phrase sound choppy.   The advanced student, after several years, is using a single pulse over the entire phrase, which results in very pleasant sounding music.

And while Zander is talking musical theory, he is really speaking to vision.  He is alluding to the metaphor of seeing past the individual notes and visualizing the entire phrase.  The big picture is the real topic.

Zander states that the classical music industry estimates that 3% of the music listeners love classical music.  And the industry believes that if they could achieve 4%, all of the industry’s problems would be over.  Zander asks this question, what if everyone loved classical music, and just did not know it yet? How would that make you feel? To think that everyone loves your music, they just do not know it yet.

My wish for you is to take just a moment to get inspired.