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If You Meet Mozart On The Road, Kill Mozart

August 29, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Back in June there was an interesting piece on The Creativity Post about the Mozart Myth.

The Mozart myth goes something like this. Some people are born with talent so tremendous that music and other cultural products spring from their minds fully-fledged, as if by magic. Mozart, so the myth goes, would compose his symphonies in one sitting with nary a revision through a single act of inspiration. The more generalized myth, popularized by writers such as Arthur Koestler, is that all creative people work this way.

The authors, Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein, recount a story about a student they had who had made it big with a rock song in his first year of college, but when it came time to do a follow up, he felt his creativity was blocked. He took their class in the hope they could unlock his creativity again.

They had this student examine his creative process and he eventually came to realize he had actually worked on his first big hit over the course of 6 months. Finally, he had a eureka moment where everything gelled. The reason he felt like he was blocked was because he was waiting for another eureka moment to drop the next masterpiece in his lap, not recognizing the first hadn’t done so.

This story is a good reminder not to mistake the frisson experienced during that eureka moment as the whole creative process. How many times have we heard that genius is 90% perspiration and 10% inspiration but continue to value only the inspiration part?

We may be able to dash off some inspired prose or music in a few moments forgetting that there were years of reading, writing, listening, watching, thinking and practicing that have brought us to that moment. More to the point, there were probably long periods of mistakes, lack of comprehension and frustration involved along the road.

Having a solution come to mind so quickly can provide such a sense of relief and joy that it is easy to forget incidents like the anxiety of having to write a book report each week in third grade and the effort involved in that college paper that you still got an F on.

Yes, talent is still distinctly important and can significantly shorten the supposed 10,000 hours of practice to achieve mastery, but the effort and process is still required.

What is actually probably more damaging than self-recognized creatives buying into the Mozart Myth is everyone else believing it. Believing there is a hard and fast line between those who are blessed with the ability to create and those who are cursed with a lack, is what contributes and reinforces the perception of the arts as elitist.

There is not only the concept that an elite few are granted the talent and inspiration to create, frequently there is a message that there is only a select group that can understand it all, too. It can be difficult to understand that the ability to create and to appreciate are both cultivated over time.

As Michele and Robert Root-Bernstein note, we really only ever focus on the results rather than the process. Bands tell stories in interviews about how they completely wrote a song on the tour bus between Indianapolis and Cincinnati, but no one credits the 15 years spent in 4 different bands no one ever heard of as the incubator in which the requisite abilities were developed.

For the most part, however, our educational institutions tend to do just the opposite: we hold up for scrutiny only finished products, strip them of the processes, tools, skills, histories and personal stories that gave them birth and, intentionally or not, discard and erase creative know-how.

creativity

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Info You Can Use: Telling Your Boss What You Really Think

August 28, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

One of the challenges non-profit organizations often face is in relation to personnel evaluation. Many organizations don’t have a formal human resources department and don’t often engage in a constructive evaluation process. Even if they did, so many companies are so small it may be a little difficult to speak candidly without fear for repercussions.

I became aware of a website, Tell Your Boss Anything, which provides a tool that can help with this process a little. The site allows employees to submit feedback anonymously. This can be used by employees who want to tell their bosses something, but also by bosses who want to solicit feedback from their employees/team about programs and situations.

The service can be set up so that upper management in the organization can monitor what people are saying about a manager, though the anonymity of the commenter is preserved and the lower/middle manager apparently doesn’t receive direct access to the feedback.

There is a cost involved with the service but it seems pretty reasonable. A manager can solicit unlimited feedback for $20/month. Larger companies can get plans to solicit feedback for multiple managers.

There doesn’t seem to be a cost involved for an individual providing feedback to their boss. I suspect there is probably some mechanism which monitors and limits how much feedback is going to a particular email address in a given period to thwart an attempt to avoid paying for an account.

There will still be challenges using this tool in smaller organizations since it can be difficult to avoid providing information that makes one identifiable. Unless everyone in the office is openly disgusted with the boss, it may be easy to deduce who is complaining about lack of opportunities, the sick leave policy, or that big project with which only three people were involved.

Whatever feedback is submitted goes through a moderation process. I initially assumed it was to prevent people from using anonymity to issue a stream of explicative laden invective, but perhaps they would also suggest changing elements that might make it easy to identify an individual.

If nothing else, the tool can be useful to solicit feedback from employees on many topics where perceived expectations and peer pressure might keep them from more publicly voicing their true thoughts: the board’s proposed capital campaign plan; health insurance and retirement plans; reflections on how a controversial decision might have been better handled.

Info You Can Use, Leadership, Management Philosophy

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When Good Ideas Occur To Lazy Readers

August 27, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Occasionally I get a sense that I have a bunch of interesting ideas percolating in my subconscious because I will occasionally misread the title of an article and have a whole slew of assumptions about the article which don’t bear out. It makes me think my subconscious has these ideas but is just waiting for someone else to do all the hard work of proving they are viable.

This occurred with an piece in Fast Company about how Minnesota based Artspace (not to be confused with ArtPlace) prevents artists from being displaced from communities due to the gentrification they helped encourage.

Artspace has done this by building all types of artist housing/work spaces in the Twin Cities (as well as 21 other cities in the US). Because Artspace controls the housing, the artists aren’t as apt to be priced out of the neighborhood as they have been in so many other place.

But the article title which included the words “artists revived an old warehouse district–and got to stick around to reap the benefits of what they helped create” and “Give Artists Their Own Real Estate Developers,” made me think someone came up with a plan where the artists received some increasing financial benefit as the neighborhood improved.

I imagined there might be some sort of version of the 1% for art for the neighborhood where artists received a share of every real estate transaction that occurred–every time a construction project began; every time a property was sold or leased to a new business; every time an apartment was rented and re-rented–artists actually benefited financially from the improving fortunes of the neighborhood.

Since all this came flooding into my mind when I caught sight of the titles, I am not quite sure how it would work. But I wonder if a city would be willing to license an organization like Artspace or create a sort of investment fund which would receive a cut of all transactions for 25-30 years. I am not sure at what stage this might happen. Gentrification of a neighborhood often starts when artists move into spaces they aren’t really supposed to be inhabiting so they wouldn’t want to call attention to themselves too soon.

All charter artist members of the organization/fund would get a payout every so often which would help diminish the impact of the gentrification and benefit those responsible for inspiring the improving conditions. If the money was going to a non-profit like Artspace, perhaps they would use a portion of the funds to develop low cost artist accommodations and seed similar artist beneficial gentrification efforts in other cities.

Imagine artists having a piece of every Starbucks lease, every high rise luxury apartment construction project, every boutique shop renovation, every bar and restaurant opening, every skyrocketing apartment rental or sale.

And if having to pay that percentage inhibits this sort of development–well that is all the longer that artists can actually afford to live there. It would actually be good if companies started moaning publicly about paying a percentage because it would start to illustrate the real economic impact of the arts.

Just think if rather than just real estate, every transaction, from cups of coffee and shoes sold to parking fees and haircuts, within a district was charged even a quarter of a percent in support of the artists there. At the end of every year you would have some real hard data about the economic growth the presence of artists initiated in that neighborhood.

General Musings, Government Relations, State of the Arts

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Teach First, Ask Questions Later

August 22, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Along the theme of my post yesterday about good ideas, I wanted to point out some interesting ideas about higher education for arts majors suggested by David Cutler on The Savvy Musician blog.

I won’t say all the ideas are completely viable, Cutler doesn’t make that claim either, but some implementation of the basic intent might be practical enough to break up the status quo a little.

One of the common themes of Cutler’s suggestions is predicated on the fact students looking for a career in the arts need to be more than just talented artists. They need to be good collaborators and have some basic entrepreneurial ambitions. He proposes evaluating those factors right from the time of auditions.

He also suggests multidisciplinary approaches including more allowances for electives, having at least two areas of specialty and working with different specialists.

“Encourage or require students to select at least two areas of specialty throughout their single degree program. This priority reflects the real world, where artists must possess multiple skill sets to survive and thrive.

[…]

“For at least one semester, each student studies with someone from another artistic specialty. Imagine the lessons a violinist might learn from a cellist, trombonist, dancer, or painter.”

This idea appealed to me because one of my former employers ran a residential arts and music camp where students had one major (an area they were already good at) and two minors (areas the want to explore.) The focus there was more about letting kids explore disciplines they had no experience in but were curious about. They might learn they were really awful at it or might gain a new interest.

A more rigorous approach in higher education could give students cross-training they may need in their careers but also provide the basis of increased avenues for creative expression.

What really interested me were some of Cutler’s ideas about what the educational experience might look like:

Paradigm 4: CLASSES & ASSIGNMENTS

Traditional model. Classes are typically built around a lecture. Students are assigned homework or projects to complete on their own time.
An alternative. On their own time, students watch lectures online. During class, the teacher works interactively with them on homework, projects, and other experiential endeavors.

If this alternative model sounds like wishful thinking, let me assure you what he suggests is very close to how some math classes are being taught on my campus right now. The approach has been very successful in terms of improved grades and student persistence.

Paradigm 5: PRIVATE LESSONS

Traditional model. Music students typically take a one hour lesson with a specialist in their area each week (i.e. violinist study with violin professors).
[…]

Alternative C. Teachers are in their office for certain hours each week. Students are free to show up as often as they want, and stay as long as they desire. If unprepared one week, perhaps they shouldn’t waste the teacher’s time with a meeting. On the other hand, maybe someone could benefit from 3 lessons a week leading to an audition. This open structure also allows students to observe their teacher interacting with others who face similar/different challenges, teaching valuable lessons in pedagogy and beyond. (This is the model I experienced when studying composition at the Hochschule für Musik in Vienna, Austria).

Cutler also proposes flipping the timing on education students’ teaching semesters and doctoral candidates’ orals from the last semester to the first.

The benefit for student teachers is, “This shows them what needs to be learned early on, and frames their entire college experience.”

For graduate students, “Begin the degree with some version of orals. Get people excited about researching and learning on their own before choosing classes.”

Now granted, I wonder how valuable having a completely inexperienced student teacher would be to the school in which they were placed. That whole experience would probably have to be redesigned.

I do think he is spot on saying that it would show arts ed. students what needed to be learned. I think I have mentioned before that when I was pursuing certification in secondary ed, everyone in my cohort agreed that it would have been helpful to have had a refresher course in grammar rules before we had done our student teaching. We would have paid more attention to that throughout our college careers had we known just how terrifying it would be being uncertain.

In terms of career preparation, he suggests students having a career mentor rather than (or in addition to) an artistic mentor for at least one semester. Instead of doing a summer or semester long internship, “Partner students with an external organization throughout their studies, so they are constantly challenged by real-world, practical concerns and trends.”

I have only covered some of his proposals and I quoted some of his ideas out of their original context (though I feel I accurately represent his overall argument) so you should check out his blog if any of this sounds intriguing.

If you are like me, when you read it you will wonder where in a student’s studies would there be time to implement many of these ideas. But I think his whole point is that the entire approach and prioritization of art student learning needs to be examined and revamped in order to make the experience and the degree granted more relevant.

Art(ist) Education, State of the Arts

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