Predictable surprises?

Here is an interesting concept which I read about in a comment in the blog of Bruce Schneier. I can think of many applications for the principle.

Why are we predisposed to wait for a major disaster before we start regulating? "Predictable Surprises" by Bazerman and Watkins, 2004, have a pretty good answer. They claim the following general characteristics of predictable surprises:

- Leaders know a problem exists -- and that the problem will not solve itself

- People recognize that the problem is worsening over time

- Fixing the problem will certainly cost money, while the reward is an avoided cost that is uncertain (but likely to be large)

- The up-front costs will be significant, but the benefits will be delayed

- And last, but not least, a small but vocal minority benefits from inaction and is motivated to lobby for its private gain

Consider the problem of global warming and go through the list. Would we be surprised if the Atlantic Conveyer stops and the temperature in Europe starts dropping?

I see

Nitzan Haroz, principal trombonist for the Philadelphia Orchestra, will perform the Trombone Concerto by Simon Cohen with the Fairbanks Symphony Orchestra on Sunday February 27, 2005 at 4:00 PM in the Davis Concert Hall on the campus of the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Yesterday he led a master class for members of the University of Alaska Trombone Studio. Four young musicians played solos and received instruction on their performances while many of the musicians from the university watched and listened. Under the coaching of Mr. Haroz, we could hear significant improvement in their musical delivery. Mr. Haroz was gentle, but firm about how he presented guidance, revealing skill as both teacher and performer.

After the master class, different ensembles played for him and for the public in a short, informal concert. I had my own brief moment of attention when, standing on stage next to Nitzan Haroz, with six other trombonists to my right and our leader to the left beyond Haroz, I took out my music glasses. They literally fell apart in my hand -- one hand held glasses with an earpiece broken off; the other held a trombone. These are glasses I had made especially for playing trombone. They have a tint across the top of the lenses to cut down on glare, but more importantly, they are an intermediate prescription cut to optimize vision at the distance of a music stand. I found years ago that lenses for distance focused beyond the music and reading lenses, comfortable for books, didn't reach far enough to see the music clearly. Bifocals simply produce two out of focus images with a line across the middle. It's kind of nice to see the music, especially when, as last night, I was reading a part new to me -- in concert!

I dug quickly for my reading glasses. Nope, can't see far enough. Quick, bring out the distance pair, which I usually don't keep with me on stage. Yep, those look a lot like notes. Step back. Oh, of course, that's a G, or maybe an F. I confess to missing a note or two and an entrance, but got through all four numbers somehow. Life is such fun. Never a dull moment in the frozen northland.

Oh, God. Save us from ourselves.

I never really thought much about who George W. Bush would nominate for supreme court justice (or chief justice?) until I looked at a NY Times article about tapes of his early conversations. Four to five years ago, he appears to have said, "John Ashcroft would make a fine supreme court justice."

John Ashcroft. Supreme court. First thought: is this possible? Second thought: why not? Third thought: oh, Lord, no!

When the Roll is Called Up Yonder

More Alaskana. When it came time to board our flight back home to Fairbanks from Anchorage, the good folks at Frontier Flying Service called the roll of passengers. They were checking "to see if everyone is here so we can board." Back to school, or check-in at Heaven's Gate. We had to wait a couple of minutes while the copilot put the two unaccompanied kids into seats. And I didn't bang my head on the door. Flying in Alaska is fun.

The Eagle

I was stopped for a traffic light in Anchorage this morning when a bald eagle passed over about 20 feet up. Maybe I'm just easily impressed, but it seems so cool to see that kind of sight, long missing from so many places.

Travel in Alaska

Friday morning we packed a bag and wandered out to the airport, checked in with Frontier Flying Service, and climbed the stairs to a Beechcraft 1900C Airliner. As usual, I banged my head on the entryway above the door before I duck walked to a seat labeled 7E. Fairest of the Fair was in 7A, just to my left across the mini-aisle. I had both an aisle seat and a window. One seat left of the aisle, one on the right, makes a row on this slim bodied airplane. There are 19 seats for passengers in the aircraft. The cockpit door doesn't go all the way to the ceiling. No baggage search, no metal detectors, no body search, keep your shoes on, no hassle. Fairbanks to Anchorage is still about an hour, close to the time you would spend on a jet. The turbo-prop is a bit louder, but the ear plugs are free. The hour that you don't spend in security is well worth the bother.

Brass Playing

I've been reading The Art of Brass Playing, by Philip Farkas. He goes into great length in describing proper formation of the embouchure for brass players, including the structure of the muscles around the mouth, placement of the teeth and jaw, and placement of the mouthpiece on the lips. He talks about the use of the air stream, and the use and avoidance of pressure in playing, and on and on. I wish I had read this, or at least been coached on this stuff 50 years ago when the trombone and I were new friends. It didn't happen, and I grew into playing with little coaching on the fundamentals. I formed a few bad habits, many of which are still with me. I work around them and, on occasion, try to make corrections, but carefully, so that I don't totally disrupt my playing.

Farkas is an interesting person. He met his wife to be in sixth grade, when they were both young students of music. He never dated anyone else. When he went out to seek work as a professional musician, he auditioned with the Chicago Symphony, at the time the premier American symphony orchestra for brasses. To his surprise, and probably that of everyone else, he was offered the job of principal horn. He held that seat for 53 years, until he retired. That is an amazing career.

Dog days

It's the season for sled dogs in Alaska. The annual 1,000 mile race of dog teams between Fairbanks, AK, US and Whitehorse, YT, Canada began Sunday, 13 Feb 2005. This is the Yukon Quest, one of the big two races in Alaska. (The other is the Iditarod from Anchorage to Nome.) The Quest starts one year in Whitehorse, the next in Fairbanks, alternating direction each year. It begins in Canada on the Yukon River. It will end this year, and start next year on the Chena River in downtown Fairbanks.

Owning and using dog teams is traditional in the north and continues as a means of transportation in rural areas, although the snow machine, nicknamed the "Iron Dog" is replacing them to a large extent. As a sport, however, mushing remains popular, both in the long distance format and in shorter races from sprints to about 300 miles. It pits a team of human and dogs against northern winters. Both person and dogs must be in good physical shape and well trained. The dogs are lean, well fed atheletes, subjected to rigorous examination by veterenarians before and after each race and, in the longer races, at checkpoints during the event. They probably get more attention than the mushers.

I used to have the impression, from childhood impressions of a radio program, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, with his sled dog, King, that mushing was a noisy affair, what will all the dogs barking. It turns out that it is very quiet. The only sound one hears is that of sled runners hissing across the snow. The dogs, sensible creatures, don't waste their breath on barking. But on radio, barks are the only way to tell that there are dogs around -- so the sled dogs barked.

It's a pity that watching these races isn't much of a spectator sport. One stands in the cold -- most noticeable since one is just standing around. Then, "Here comes a team." Whoosh. "There goes the team." That's it. The dogs are pretty when they run, but only for a momentary glimpse, especially since, on the trail, they often run at night. Our summer long distance outboard races are at least held during the daytime, perhaps because there IS no night at that time of year. This year, however, the weather is mild and sunny, unlike some years when the mushers face 50 below temperatures. The dogs will be out, running in their booties, maybe with coats on, hauling sleds and musher across a varied terrain of largely unsettled Alaska and Canada in one of the big annual events around here.

Composers

It occurred to me, while sitting in a Brass Literature class, that all the major works of classical music were written by penguins. That's how they are signed, after all. Symphony No. 5 in D (by) Opus 211.

Are you nervous yet?

I mentioned in a note about “Fear coming” that an act before congress grants really interesting powers to the Secretary of Homeland Security, in what seem to me clear violations of provisions of the US Constitution. I also have a small bet with Spouse of the House about the imminence of a national id within the United States. Well, folks, both are covered in a bill which has now passed the House of Representatives.

I’m talking about HR 418. For text of the bill, go to Thomas and specify HR418, which includes these points:

Section 102(c) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. 1103 note) is amended to read as follows:

`(c) Waiver-

(1) IN GENERAL- Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the Secretary of Homeland Security shall have the authority to waive, and shall waive, all laws such Secretary, in such Secretary's sole discretion, determines necessary to ensure expeditious construction of the barriers and roads under this section.
(2) NO JUDICIAL REVIEW- Notwithstanding any other provision of law (statutory or nonstatutory), no court shall have jurisdiction—

(A) to hear any cause or claim arising from any action undertaken, or any decision made, by the Secretary of Homeland Security pursuant to paragraph (1); or
(B) to order compensatory, declaratory, injunctive, equitable, or any other relief for damage alleged to arise from any such action or decision.’.

So much for judicial review.

Section 103 is also interesting. It defines as a terrorist:
`(i) IN GENERAL- Any alien who— (among other things)

`(II) a consular officer, the Attorney General, or the Secretary of Homeland Security knows, or has reasonable ground to believe, is engaged in or is likely to engage after entry in any terrorist activity (as defined in clause (iv));

In other words, you are a terrorist if one of those people says you are.

This bill goes on.

SEC. 104. REMOVAL OF TERRORISTS.

(a) In General-

(1) IN GENERAL- Section 237(a)(4)(B) (8 U.S.C. 1227(a)(4)(B)) is amended to read as follows: ...
(2) EFFECTIVE DATE- The amendment made by paragraph (1) shall take effect on the date of the enactment of this Act and shall apply to acts and conditions constituting a ground for removal occurring or existing before, on, or after such date (*emphasis added*).

So much for ex post facto laws.

Section 201 ff. goes on to the supposed purpose of the bill according to its title. It establishes national requirements for a driver’s license or a state identification card which must include a common list of items (license number, name and address, photo, etc.) and, in 202.b.9, includes “A common machine-readable technology, with defined minimum data elements.”

And, in case you thought your Social Security Number was to be used only for retirement and disability purposes, not as a national ID number, 202.c.1.C requires “Proof of the person’s social security account number or verification that the person is not eligible for a social security account number.”

There goes privacy of the Social Security accounts.

This passed the house as HR 418 “REAL ID act” on 10-Feb-2005 at 2:41 PM by a vote of 261-161. It has not yet passed the senate.

Are you nervous yet? IF NOT, WHY NOT?

I’m as anti-terrorist as the next guy, maybe more than some. But if we abandon our principles in defeating the bad guys, then they win. I don’t really care if I have to carry a national ID card. I have the thing in my wallet anyway. I am in favor of linking data bases. If we have the things, make them useful. I would like some assurance that they are protected from hijacking for nefarious purposes, which is hard in today’s atmosphere of distrust, but there must be ways somewhere. But I am really concerned when congress passes laws that:

• make past events a crime


• define criminals based on an accusation only


• pass laws exempt from judicial review


• pass laws that preempt any unspecified existing law

Fruit flies

Catchy title. I wonder if that is a nour+verb or an adjective+noun.

I’ve never been one to care much for or about computer programs creating music. By this I don’t mean annotation programs that write down what a composer specifies, but a program that creates on its own. Now there comes along something in between. This fellow has written that produces music based on encoding a natural phenomenon. Specifically, he encoded the genome of a fruit fly: Drosophila melanogaster. The result surprised me; it is hauntingly pretty.

He also wrote a short story for Analog Science Fact and Science Fiction magazine and describes the idea behind the story here. The tune itself can be downloaded from here as an MP3 file. I used QuickTime to play it on my Mac.

From Boing Boing.

Papa plays alto

My new toy and current challenge is a Conn alto trombone, on loan from the university. I’m slowly learning to play it, but it is something of a struggle. For one thing, the instrument is pitched in E-flat, meaning that the fundamental tone is E-flat instead of the B-flat of my tenor trombone. For another, it is tiny. All the notes are in different positions, the slide is proportionally shorter so the positions aren't as far apart as my arm expects, and to make matters worse, the music is usually in alto clef. It isn't quite as bad as learning a not-trombone, but it's still tough. I love it.


It's always nice to have something new to play with. I had a lesson today. We played unison etudes and duets. All in all, it’s great fun. It just takes practice, as always, and is progressing fairly well. There is some hope of playing the alto with groups in coming months, and doing spring solos on it.

Rocky and Bullwinkle

While zooming along the expressway today, I was passed by one of those aggressive, gotta get there now pickups that we have here. We don't put much salt on our roads, mostly because it doesn't work well -- just makes the roads wet and more slick. But we do put down tons of little rocks to give us enough traction to get through an intersection before the light changes back to red. Pickups with blocky tread on their tires are nasty about picking up the little rocks and throwing them at the car behind.

Bullwinkle, the moose of a pickup, did just that today. OK, unintentionally, I admit, but it left a nice ding in the windshield anyway.

That meant I bought two bottles of wine instead of one (for later, mind you), picked up a little box of popcorn chicken with soda, and dog and I munched our way along to Novus windshield repair. Windshields are short lived creatures here, or at least they used to be, when even major roads were unpaved. Left untended, those little dings become great long cracks. It isn't uncommon to see cars and trucks with cracked windshields in Alaska.

The fellow at Novus was most helpful. He knew more about my insurance than I did. One phone call cleared the way for repair, including waiving the insurance deductible. I pulled into the garage and watched the whole process, sharing the chicken with the drooling German Shepherd that was leaning on my shoulder.

It was fascinating. He used a dremel-like tool to drill into the crack, then put a pointed pick into the hole and tapped it once with a small hammer. Positioning a complex looking, three legged cup over the chip, he moved inside and heated the inside of the windshield with a mini-torch. The cup came off and a piece of clear, flexible, transparent plastic went over the chip, along with some epoxy. An ultraviolet light, supported by two suction cups illuminated the patch with UV for a few minutes. A bit of scraping removed the excess material. He cleaned the window, handed me a receipt to sign, and dog and I, now sated with chicken bits, were on our way. The whole process took about 15 minutes and I shelled out not a dime.

I can barely see the ding, and then only with light coming through. Great work, well organized, and done quickly. I'm impressed at how easy and efficient this was. It's really nice to see work done well. Thank you, Novus and All State.

Fear makes rules

An article in Wired News, as of 10:04 AM Feb. 06, 2005 PT,
discusses a proposal to knock down some hills and fill in a canyon in order to close part of the US/Mexican border north of Tijuana. Environmentalist are opposed, as expected. What bothers me isn't that this is being supported in the atmosphere of (selective) fear rampant in our government lately, nor that environmentalists who often seem opposed to everything, are protesting. What bothers me is this paragraph:

A provision in an immigration bill expected to pass the House next week would give the homeland security secretary authority to move forward with the project regardless of any laws that stand in the way, and would bar courts from hearing lawsuits against it.

That is scary. Our congress is proposing to authorize action:

• regardless of any laws that stand in the way, and


• to prohibit judicial review.

Down that road lurk many bad things. Judicial review and three independent branches of government seem to be a fundamental principles of our constitution directly threatened by this proposal. Our country long has promoted, or claims to promote, the rule of law, and, at least on occasion, the idea that no one is above the law. This isn't the first threat to our principles to startle and to alarm me. Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib raised concerns, for example. It troubles me that we are threatening Iran over the possibility that they might build a nuclear weapon, but are beginning design of a new generation of our own such weapons. I don't want to produce a laundry list of things I find troubling about US policy and direction; the list is too long and probably easy to find if one looks.

This item, however, really rang an alarm for me, and not because of environmental concerns. Where are we going? What are we doing? How will the great experiment in continue if we shoot ourselves in the constitutional foot upon which we stand?

The Outback

I've been looking out the back window while tinkering with the blog template. In between adding the current weather block and link to Wunderground, and the Creative Commons license, we had a visitor. Mama moose passed through, with calf in tow, to sample some of the tastier bites of tree in the back yard. While it isn't uncommon to see a thousand pounds of moose ambling around the house and through the yard, they still merit attention.

Moose have the prettiest ears around: a soft grey inside, dark brown outside, longish and erect. [Note: if the ears are laid back, the moose is not laid back. Great discretion is advised.] They have incredibly long and slender legs with which they can easily clear a six foot fence or wade through five feet of snow. They are amazingly graceful and fun to watch -- from a safe distance.

My electric fence usually keeps them out of the garden, but I suspect that's because the neighbor's garden is unfenced. It certainly isn't because they can't jump the fence. Tracks show they don't like it, though. We found tracks showing an approach to the fence by a young one, encountering the wire, probably while reaching for a succulent cabbage, then flying backward several feet. With easy pickings next door, why bother?

These critters are common, generally unconcerned with puny humans -- except during hunting season, when the males mysteriously vanish -- and wander about freely, even inside the city limits. One hung around a picture window at the library, providing great moose admiration views. Others just walk about, browsing, distracting drivers. For the curious, there is a picture of my lady, giving directions to a backyard moose about what and what not to eat here. Alas, the moose wasn't receptive to her choices, and is displayed here, moving on to finer treats.

Securing seniors

The Golden Heart City, right here in the middle of the Last Frontier, Fairbanks, Alaska, isn't the place where one would think to look for compassion. Isn't this the home of rough, tough, pioneer types, braving the elements, driving our sled dogs through blowing snow at -40C (or F), being hardy and self sufficient? Sure it is. That's the Alaskan ideal. Isn't it?

Well, maybe not. Last week a group of people went before the borough assembly to ask for $10,000 in support of a plan to establish a retirement community here. There aren't many places in interior Alaska where people can live when a house or a cabin becomes too much work to maintain. A local group decided that is a shame, and set out to do something about it. I went to some of the planning meetings, but couldn't attend the assembly meeting where the request was presented. I heard part of it on the radio, though. The assembly was discussing the proposal, after raising the amount from $10,000 to $15,000, in a budget that isn't full of easy money.

The discussion was reassuring. In general, the members said, one after another, that we need seniors in our community. We need the sense of history, the mentoring, the ideas, and yes, the skills that people with experience bring to our area. It is worth some money to keep seniors here instead of shipping them off to the mercies of the crowded, busy, mile a minute cities to the south. Supporting seniors is a duty for the community, not a chore for individuals. Our seniors need and deserve our support, not to be forced into reliance on private investment schemes. We have all seen what happened to the stock market after 9/11 and to the return on investment that went through the floor. We don't need to leave our elders to depend on that never happening again.

I found it really reassuring, one of the reasons I live in this place. Despite the cold and the dark, there is a warmth here that keeps me going -- and growing.

Preachers and singers

I love discussion. I believe that if two people totally agree, then one of them is unnecessary. This doesn't worry me, because I have never met another person with whom I totally agreed. Not even my beloved spouse is at risk here. Our discussions, in which one of us tries to convince the other, have led to hours of exploration to the extent that just talking with each other is our preferred pastime. Our discussions, sometimes passionate in intensity, are guided by principles of mutual respect for the other person. We are able to separate the speaker from the message, loving the speaker while at the same time, casting that silly idea far into the landfill, to be covered over by appropriate piles of moose nuggets and garbage.

Occasionally, I bump into situations where the distinction between message and messenger is missing. I find this sad and immensely frustrating. Since I value diversity of opinion and firmly believe that nuggets of gold are as likely as nuggets of moose in social intercourse, I'm willing to consider almost any viewpoint. The thought that I would discard a friend or a relative because we hold different opinions really goes against my personal value system. Preaching to the choir seems pointless to me. If preach I must, I want to talk to the people whose values differ from mine. I can't convince them that I see more clearly than they if we don't interact. That they will convince me that they own truth is just one of the risks that make the game worth playing.

Question everything!

-- EA Games

Balanced on the sharp edge

I was recently asked to contemplate Federalist Paper # 41 and Aristotle Contemplates the Bust of Homer by Rembrandt van Rijn. No context was given other than that the two works represented different points of view in a discussion between two people I know fairly well. That seemed challenging enough for a winter morning, so I did as suggested. With a nod to the obvious beauty of both works, but looking for something more, I began with the painting.

Aristotle seems to have moved from 350 BCE to the early 17th century. He has a longish beard and long hair, not typical of Aristotle's time and not at all like the statuary of him. His clothes are typical of 17th century Europe. In the upper left of the painting is a stack of what looks suspiciously like bound books, somewhat unlikely since Aristotle lived some 1,800 years before the time of Gutenburg and and his printing press. What would be Rembrandt's purpose in placing a modernized Aristotle before a bust of Plato? Perhaps this marks the end of the geocentric and highly regular Aristotelian cosmos, in favor of the heliocentric design from Galileo? Is Aristotle, hand on the head of Plato, eyes fixed on something distant, thinking that, like Plato, his work has at last been superseded? Is it a statement that time moves on unfettered by what we think of it?

And what of Madison, a federalist in a time when people said the United States "are" instead of today's verb, "is". He is highly suspicious of vesting too much power in the central government, yet he understands that not everything can be done by independent and squabbling states. I would like to drop this paper on the desks of some of our current leaders, just to remind them that (I hope) there are limits to their power and we (I wish) are watching. As nice as it would be to live without the Defense Department, Madison makes the point that, as long as one country anywhere maintains a standing army, we would be foolish not do do so as well. Granting that power, and the concomitant funds to support it, does not, however, grant unlimited power to government. Freedom from government interference in our lives is inherently limited by the actions of others. In granting power to government to protect our freedoms, we must be vigilant that we do not sacrifice the very things we need government to protect.

Now for the hard part. How do these two images interact? What do Rembrandt's painting and Madison's Federalist Paper say to each other? I drew from this effort a sense that nothing is permanent. We can respect our predecessors, study how and what they thought, bring their views forward in time, and learn from them. We cannot, however, expect to find an ultimate, final, unchanging truth and must rely on the interpretation of principles from the past, informed by current events. We need not -- must not -- abandon first principles when we find them flawed in light of later discoveries or events. We must sift through history and the wisdom of great thinkers for the building blocks of new ideas, avoiding rash impulses to rush off in one direction or another without the contemplation evident in both of these works. Rembrandt's attention to light and shadow, to eyes and expression; Madison's attention to sentence structure, word choice, the placement or absence of a semicolon; these represent the level of care we need to apply to changes in the way our world is structured and restructured. Pay attention to the devil hiding in the details. Ferret it out before acting, but work quickly. We do not work alone in the world. Remember the adage: "Look before you leap if you like, but if you mean leaping, don't look long."

Aha! It fits.

Information overload is rampant in my life. Yesterday, while sitting in a class on brass literature, I picked up another pair of web sites which look really useful. One led me eventually to a database of all published literature for brass quintets, a project of the American Brass Quintet, and clearly a nice thing to have while investigating literature for brasses. I noticed two things in this process.

First, I got the original web site addresses by copying onto paper an address from a computer display, projected somewhat blearily onto a screen, then transferring the address by hand to my browser. Getting computer output into another computer by retyping it has always annoyed me.

And, second, we should be able to share this stuff, so that what I find can be easily used by others in the class. More to the point for me, so that I can easily use what others find. Yup. Pure laziness. So?

My first thought, in my usual overly complicated way of doing things, was a Wiki solution. Put up a wiki page and let everyone add their own stuff. Easy, yes? Well, no. It quickly became apparent that this is overkill. A much more sensible approach, one directly to the point, is to use and promote del.icio.us which does exactly what I want, allows any or all of us to share bookmarks to sites of interest.

Del.icio.us is a tool I found a while back from the 43folders productivity web site by Merlin Mann. It looked interesting, a tool hunting an application. I knew I needed that, but only today did I know why. It fits the current need, is simple to set up and use, is free, and eminently sharable. Aha. It fits! How's that for cool?

Lessons

This week the Robin Cox Ensemble is in residence at the UAF Music Department here in Fairbanks. Last night, the group came to our brass choir rehearsal and, after playing two pieces, talked with us for an hour about their work, musicianship, and performance in a group. They said some things which to me are applicable well beyond the realm of professional musicians and worth sharing.

The fundamentals are simple to describe, if not always easy to practice.

Familiarity with the task at hand

This doesn't mean practice; it means repeated performance before a paying audience, people who put up money to hear you and expect a return on their investment. One can practice forever and still not achieve a completely satisfactory product. It is necessary to put it out before the listener/user/consumer, listen for feedback, and pay attention. Fine tune the product. Every time you release the music -- the product -- into the air will be different. That's what live music is all about, and why we don't replace musicians with computers which can be programmed to perform perfectly every time. Perfection isn't the issue. Communicating the underlying intent to satisfy is more the point.

Professionalism

One doesn't succeed by going into a room, sitting in a chair, and producing sound or any other product in a vacuum. A flawless performance requires blending the capabilities of several people into a working whole and to achieve that blend demands full attention every time. That's why it takes years to develop a musician, a systems designer, a carpenter, or a cook. Just as there are no two concert halls with identical acoustics, there are no two office settings, system configurations, or new houses which will be exactly the same. Just as the carpenter adapts on the spot to the lumber in hand, so does the musician adapt to the acoustics, the audience, and the way each player in the group is feeling on any particular day.

Communication

Robin Cox, who plays violin in the group, also writes most of their music, of necessity. There isn't a large, published repertoire for two percussionists, a (bass) clarinet, a cello, and a violin. I asked if having the composer playing in the group affected their approach to interpretation. The reply, consistent between Robin and other members, was that they worked together to build the product, adjusting the scored piece as needed from both directions, author and performer. In other words, the designer must listen when the performer says that a passage is out of range, whether the subject is music or software or a bridge over a river. Creativity done well is a group effort. Approach each rehearsal, each performance, as a professional, paying full attention and giving your best. It is difficult and tiring to work this way, but the result is oh so satisfying to performer and audience alike.

They also stressed being a part of the larger community. Network. Talk to people outside your group. Be visible in settings where your clients appear. And be professional in demeanor. Don't argue with a client or patron. Make your points with respect for the views of the other. If the director insists on a particular interpretation, discuss it quietly and privately. Ultimately, the director of the group makes the decision, whether that director is of a software development team or a musical group.

Innovation vs. Improvisatioin

Most of the ensemble members are not improvisors, although one of the percussionists is comfortable in the improvisational setting. Improvisation requires a specific skill set and a lot of development. Their music is largely scored and the performers follow the script, interpreting as necessary how to play what is written. Such is true of most builders, regardless of product. Scores, blueprints, plans, even sketches play a major role in development, and the importance of these expands as the size of the group grows. Once upon a time, software development was largely improvisational, but today, with notable exceptions, even FOSS (free open source software) is built by teams working together. Improv has it's place and, done well, is an exceptional delight. Improv in building spacecraft, however, is largely frowned upon.

Innovation is a different story. A constant theme in the group was to try new things. Attempt new music. Perform every chance you get, for an audience, with an expanding repertoire. Play the music of student composers. It will lead you in new directions and show the composer where his concepts work and where they need adjustment. Ideas are wonderful things, but they are tested only when put into practice. Results matter. Use the old adage from creative writing: show, don't tell.

Transfer across Media

I gained a lot from our time with these people. I listened first as a musician, then as a retired developer of software and systems, and then through the lens of my MBA. If I have a strength, it is the ability to see things from many sides, with many mind sets. This essay, longer than I had intended, is still but a part of what I learned. The more ways I can look at a subject or an event like this, the more fun I have with it. This rotating of ideas under different perspectives brings me much enjoyment and keeps me going. I recommend it to one and all.