7-13-03
PLAYING OUR LIFE SONG
Once I stumbled into an orchestra's tuning session. It was a shock. Pure chaos. A clarinet was dribbling out unrhythmic notes in a chord that clashed with all the brass instruments. The woodwinds sounded like a roomful of drunk birds. A great orchestra making some of the worst sounds I have ever heard!
We are like that orchestra. To sound great, we have to be willing to sound horrible. We have to be willing to experiment, take chances, risk failure. We have to get in tune in a room where others are checking out their own instruments and making sounds that can make us cringe unless we are totally focused on tuning our own instruments.
As tuning and practice time starts to merge into the hour of performance, you will notice a gradual coming together – maybe a couple of trumpets putting together a riff they have been discussing. An oboist and drummer alternating and building a bass bottom.
Then, the hour of performance. The conductor taps his music stand. Every musician comes to attention. As he points to the different sections with his left hand and moves his wand in perfect rhythm with his right hand, sounds fuse. Intricate blankets of sound wrap around the audience. Musicians, listeners and the music become one.
We are like that in our personal life experience, in our psyches, in the use of our talents. Just as an orchestra has many instruments, we have many talents. As we use the magic wand of decision to bring all our talents into our life songs, we make music for ourselves and for the world.
Emerson correctly said our callings are in our talents. A survey showed that 61% of adults over 30 still did not feel they knew their life callings. All they need to do is to look at their talents. Talents are built-in magnets pulling us to our callings. Talents and callings are synonymous.
In personal orchestration, we point with our left hands at the talents we need on a project and with the wand of decision in our right hand, we choose when to call in each talent needed to do our thing, our song.
We are also orchestrators of talents and time. The way we use time to tune and experiment and sound bad is as important as the way we use time to perform. The two essential ingredients of great orchestral music are sounds and timing. Every part of our being needs to be reading the same lead sheet.
View yourself as an orchestra. Personal organization is personal orchestration. Play your own, beautiful life song.
