Learning to work together is one of life’s most challenging and rewarding efforts, and music offers many opportunities to develop in this highly important life-skill.
Let’s face it, working with others is not always easy. Everyone has a different opinion, based upon their unique background, skillset, philosophy, and personality. Not everyone sees the mountain from the same vantage point, and many times they are looking at an entirely different mountain altogether.
When working in music and the arts, there is the added vulnerability of emotional commitment from each participant. I once had a member of a creative team I was leading who would occasionally wear a t-shirt that read “I yell because I care!”
Indeed, working with artists who have a reputation to uphold, a highly refined artistic prejudice and an ego that is required to stand before audiences and perform successfully, is perhaps one of the most challenging venues to establish interpersonal cooperation that exists on the face of the earth!
But, this is what makes it a golden opportunity to develop relational skills. It’s a veritable gym, filled with emotional, intellectual, interpersonal, imaginative equipment ready to strengthen one’s capacity to learn how to work together.
In our drumming lessons, in Midland, Texas we help the drummer learn the importance of working in a rhythm section, as a team player.
In the previous chapter, the subject of coordination was discussed, regarding musical collaboration. Music requires agreement and community and, as I often quote, “music is more than sound, it is relationships.” The foundation of all relationships is trust. And trust is not easily achieved. It takes time, patience, and a track record to establish.
One of the first places to start in the development of trust is learning to trust one’s own self. This comes through personal sacrifice, discipline, and the pursuit and conquest of personal goals. This is where having a mentor, a teacher, coming alongside to give instruction and encouragement can help a student achieve what they thought was impossible.
When we provide drumming instruction in Midland, Texas we teach the student to develop skills that help them play better than they thought was possible, giving them the confidence they need to participate in ensembles.
None of us becomes great on our own, we all need help in our understanding of the terrain, the skills necessary to develop, and the ‘outside of ourselves’ perspective that a mentor/teacher can provide. When we accomplish something successfully and grow in our capacity to complete projects, we begin to understand the value we can bring to a team.
There is a principle that is both spiritual as well as scientific: agreement produces power. The Bible has the following passages:
“Can two walk together, except they be agreed” (Amos 3:3)
“Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.” (Matt. 18:18-20)
There is also an interesting phenomenon in acoustics. When two waveforms of the same amplitude (volume), and are in phase with one another, come together, they double their amplitude. In other words, they are twice as loud.
Private drumming lessons in Midland, Texas help the player to perceive the differences between instruments that are in-phase, as well as out-of-phase.
The term ‘in phase’ can be explained as sine or cosine. Sound, if you were to see it visually, would look like bubbles rippling out from the source. It is a three-dimensional version of what the waves do in a pond from a pebble being dropped into it. There is an ‘up’ part of the wave and a ‘down’ part of the wave.
When two sound system speakers are in a room, adjacent from one another, the positive signal wire and the negative signal wire need to be hooked up the same way for both speakers. If not, the cone on the first speaker will be going in, while the cone on the other speaker will be going out. When they are both going in the same direction, this is called “being in phase.” On the contrary, if someone accidentally hooks up the speaker wires backwards to one of the speakers, it causes the cones of the speakers to be “out of phase” with one another, creating “phase cancellation.”
Tuning drums in drumming instruction in Midland, Texas uses this concept, listening for the resonance of various parts of the drum-set.
The military uses this technology in various ways, and one well-known example is the Stealth Bomber with all of its angles. This is how it can defy radar detection, using phase cancellation. Noise-cancelling headphones also use this technology.
Nevertheless, this becomes a metaphor for our relationships. When we are ‘in-phase’ with one another, interpersonally, it creates a doubling of our efforts. When we are ‘out of phase,’ our time and energy is rendered ineffective.
One of the most profound concepts in Western Culture is that of ‘consent.’ Human history is filled with examples of authoritarian governments ruled by an individual who was seen as a demi-god. All others were merely slaves to his rule. However, in Western Culture, the uniqueness and value of the individual is seen to have importance in decision-making through consent.
In a creative, synergistic environment not everyone is going to agree on everything. However, there can be areas of agreement to which individuals can give consent. If you can imagine a Ven-diagram, where each circle is whole, in and of itself, yet intersects with the other circles in certain areas of agreement, this describes how we can maintain our own individuality, while at the same time participating in agreement.
In our drumming instruction in Midland, Texas we help students learn to rely on their own internal sense of tempo and leadership in a group, while at the same time being sensitive to the contribution of other players in the group.
When a symphony orchestra gathers together, each section and player has a unique role to play, a specific part orchestrated by the composer based on the uniqueness of the particular instrument a player has dedicated his or her life to perfect.
The difference between a team and a committee is that in a committee, everyone has an opinion, and rarely does anything get done. However, in a team, the unique contributions of each participant are recognized by everyone in the team. The team learns to appreciate the unique contributions of each individual and seeks to put to the fore those uniquenesses based upon the ‘orchestration’ of the moment.
When music students learn to trust themselves, in their own strengths, and recognize the strengths of others, they become willing to make music with one another by listening to one another. Listening, at its core is empathy. Valuing someone else’s contribution is the foundation of community and relationships.
One of the things that we, as teachers, do in our private drumming instruction in Midland, Texas is to encourage the student to be open to new relationships and new collaborative projects.
When people come together to make music, they are creating agreement both spiritually and physically, making exponential power available. When this happens, lives are changed.