The following contains excepts from the book Lateral Thinking (Edward de Bono).
At our music school in Odessa, Texas we believe that music is more than sound, it is relationships. If you are looking for music jobs in Odessa, Texas and the Permian basin, we offer meaningful experiences in the development of relationships and creativity.
Relationships and creativity matter when working with others and leading a team.
“This book is about lateral thinking which is the process of using information to bring about creativity and insight restructuring. Lateral thinking can be learned, practiced and used…Vertical thinking is immensely useful but one needs to enhance its usefulness by adding creativity and tempering its rigidity…Even when information can be evaluated objectively, as in science, an insight rearrangement of information leads to huge leaps forward.”
I have read other books by the same author, “Six Thinking Hats” and “Tactics,” in which the author references this book. If you are looking for music jobs in Odessa, Texas and the Permian Basin, our music school offers an opportunity to develop your teaching skills in lateral ways.
My main way of thinking, by the author’s definition, is lateral, so many of the concepts he lays out in the book are familiar to me. In the process of writing music and literature, I most often employ the concept of motivic development, in which an idea is looked at by inverting it, reversing it, transposing it, making it twice as long, twice as short, etc. These kinds of processes are not normally taught in our Western education. Most education is linear, analysis-based. I agree with the author’s premise, that lateral thinking can be learned and applied in creative endeavors, as well as in problem-solving.
If you are interested in developing your thinking abilities in these ways, then we encourage you to reach out to our music school and discover our music jobs in Odessa, Texas and the Permian Basin.
“In vertical thinking one moves forward by sequential steps each of which must be justified. The distinction between the two sorts of thinking is sharp. For instance, in lateral thinking, one uses information not for its own sake but for its effect. In lateral thinking one may have to be wrong at some stage in order to achieve a correct solution; in vertical thinking (logic or mathematics) this would be impossible. In lateral thinking one may deliberately seek out irrelevant information; in vertical thinking one selects out only what is relevant. Lateral thinking is not a substitute for vertical thinking. Both are required. They are complementary. Lateral thinking is generative. Vertical thinking is selective.”
“Lateral thinking enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking. Vertical thinking develops the ideas generated by lateral thinking. You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper. Vertical thinking is used to dig the same hole deeper. Lateral thinking is used to dig a hole in a different place.”
To find music jobs in Odessa, Texas and the Permian Basin that allows teachers to explore both vertical and lateral processes, we encourage you to reach out to our music school in Odessa, Texas.
“Vertical thinking is concerned with proving or developing concept patterns. Lateral thinking is concerned with restructuring such patterns (insight) and provoking new ones (creativity). Lateral and vertical thinking are complementary. Skill in both is necessary. Yet the emphasis in education has always been exclusively on vertical thinking.”
Materials that are used to train lateral thinking are: 1) Visual (i.e. progressive arrangement of cardboard shapes, to devise new patterns), 2) Verbal – written or spoken (to create different points of view), 3) Problems (how to solve general, immediate, design and innovation problems, etc.), 4) Themes (like taking an object and elaborating it into a theme, 5) Anecdotes and stories. “The whole idea of lateral thinking is concept restructuring.”
This kind of creative thinking is what we do best at our music school in Odessa, Texas. If you are looking for music jobs in Odessa, Texas, we hope you will reach out to us.
“There comes a time when one cannot proceed further without restructuring the pattern – without breaking up the old pattern which has been so useful and arranging the old information in a new way…there is often an alternative way of arranging available information. This means that there can be a switch over to another arrangement. Usually this switch over is sudden. If the switch over is permanent it gives rise to insight…The purpose of lateral thinking is to overcome limitations by providing a means for restructuring, for escaping from cliché patterns, for putting information together in new ways to give new ideas.
“Vertical thinking is selective, lateral thinking is generative. Rightness is what matters in vertical thinking. Richness is what matters in lateral thinking. Vertical thinking selects a pathway by excluding other pathways. Lateral thinking does not select but seeks to open up other pathways. With vertical thinking one selects the most promising approach to a problem, the best way of looking at a situation. With lateral thinking one generates as many alternative approaches as on can. With vertical thinking one may look for different approaches until one finds a promising one. With lateral thinking one goes on generating as many approaches as one can even after one has found a promising one. With vertical thinking one is trying to select the best approach but with lateral thinking one is generating different approaches for the sake of generating them.”
“Vertical thinking moves only if there is a direction in which to move, lateral thinking moves in order to generate a direction…With lateral thinking one does not move in order to follow a direction but in order to generate one. With vertical thinking one designs an experiment to show some effect. With lateral thinking one designs an experiment in order to provide an opportunity to change one’s ideas. With vertical thinking one must always be moving usefully in some direction. With lateral thinking one may play around without any purpose or direction. One may play around with experiments, with models, with notation, with ideas. The movement and change of lateral thinking is not an end in itself but a way of bringing about re-patterning.
Vertical thinking is analytical, lateral thinking is provocative. Vertical thinking is sequential, lateral thinking can make jumps. With vertical thinking one has to be correct at every step, with lateral thinking one does not have to be. The very essence of vertical thinking is that one must be right at each step. This is absolutely fundamental to the nature of vertical thinking. Logical thinking and mathematics would not function at all without this necessity. In lateral thinking however one does not have to be right at each step provided the conclusion is right.”
“With vertical thinking one uses the negative in order to block off certain pathways. With lateral thinking there is no negative. With vertical thinking one concentrates and excludes what is irrelevant, with lateral thinking one welcomes chance intrusions…With vertical thinking one uses information for its own sake in order to move forward to a solution. With lateral thinking one uses information not for its own sake but provocatively in order to bring about re-patterning.”
“The two processes are complementary not antagonistic. Lateral thinking is useful for generating ideas and approaches and vertical thinking is useful for developing them. Lateral thinking enhances the effectiveness of vertical thinking by offering it more to select from. Vertical thinking multiplies the effectiveness of lateral thinking by making good use of the ideas generated.”
A lot of musicians are looking for music jobs in Odessa, Texas and the Permian Basin that offer this kind of creativity. If that is you, please reach out to us, and let us help you explore the possibilities.