The "Stag Line": A Cape Breton Dance Hall Etiquette (part of Cape Breton Social Heritage)

The Stag Line, a male high school dance etiquette, was certainly indigenous to Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia Canada.

Remember those Cape Breton school dances in the 1960s?

The community hall or gymnasium would be dimly lighted by a few flood lights. Whether the music was delivered by a jukebox, a DJ or live band, the use of a color organ and strobe light was prevalent. Waiting in anticipation of being asked to dance, the teenage ladies were seated along the walls of the dance floor while some of the young girls started things off by dancing with each other.

In Cape Breton this familiar 1960s dance scene now took a radical depart from the norm. The young gents, dressed in typical macho denim jeans 'n jacket, entered the dance hall 'struttin' their stuff'. Then, like "the March of the Penguins", these young males, 2 or 3 abreast, began a deliberate saunter (always in counter clockwise direction) around the dance floor.

This procession of "eligible male dance partners" (hence the name '''stag line''') expanded with more guys joining their buddies in the "dance floor walk about". In short order, this stag line grew to a solid moving procession (2 to 4 wide) of guys. For the entire evening, this organized stag line circled the dance floor, positioned between the dancing masses and the eligible ladies sitting along the edge of the gymnasium.

What was the purpose of this Cape Breton dance-matching ritual?

Being in the stag line, provided each male ample opportunity (multiple loops of the dance floor) to scope out the females, both dancing and sitting. He would spot his next potential dance partner. With both the encouragement and jabs from his immediate stag line buddies, once he worked up the nerve, (usually after 4-10 passes) the male would simply step out of the stag line in front of the chosen sitting lady and request a dance.

Now here is the shear brilliance of the stag line. It really was a simple male support system for those almost always shy and awkward teenage guys working up the courage to ask a girl to dance. If the female response was affirmative, the gentlemen simply escorted her to the dance floor then danced to as many tunes as was enjoyable for both. When the dancing was ended by either party, the guy escorted her back to her seat and then (this is perfect) rejoined his comrades in the stag line parade.

Now, should a female's response to a dance request be 'negatory' or even a little hesitant, the "stag line extracted" male need simply to step back into the line right next to the comfort and support ( or jabs) of his buddies. And likely only a few people even noticed the rejection let alone the valiant attempt. Everyone kept face. And the recovering male, once re-composed, would start the hunt for the next dance partner.

How did the stag line practice get started?

One plausible theory about the origin of the stag line is that at a dance enters the local 'fonzie,tough guy with his entourage of tough guys. Being the top catch for any lady, these tough guys started to strut in front of the ladies seated around the dance floor. Low and behold, the 'regular', 'not so tough', 'but wanting to be part of the tough guy club' guys started following behind these tough guys. And so the 'stag line' was born. The stage line phenomenon appears to have only survived the 1960's teenage generation. Not sure if any photographs have captured this social dance practice.

So the stag line really brought a kind social order to Cape Breton teenage dances. No one got hurt and males learned to deal with rejection and ridicule in a more supportive (sometimes not) team environment.

Maybe stag lines should re-introduced for those over 50 dances. If for no other reason, seniors would get their walking exercise. Picture that.....

Carl Chesal is a business development consultant, trainer, photographer, and avid snowmobiler. He operates BizFare Enterprsie Inc, Foursight Marketing and Consulting, and Foursight Photography, which provide business, marketing, and internet marketing consulting services. He also co-operates a number of e-commerce web-sites with his wife: MyLeatherExpressions.com, PewterExpressions.com and CoolComfortWear.com, which provide Pewter Home Decor, custom leather bags and casual and activewear apparel.

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Trash TV's Secret Story

You can tell summer has arrived here in France because the signs are all around us.

First up there are the obvious ones - such as the weather and the dress code. Of course the latter, especially in the nation's capital, can still turn into something of a catwalk as this year's chic hits the streets big time in what for many is the Mecca of the fashion world.

Then there are the music festivals, concerts, outdoor productions, and jumble sales held up and down the country and let's not forget the smell of a BBQ wafting in from the neighbour's garden.

Prime time television news reports begin focusing on the queues at airports and the number of passengers passing through the French capital's major railway stations, rather than hard news. And national newspapers go in for the inevitable silly season.

The inside lanes of the motorways are bumper-to-bumper full of Dutch cars, trailers and caravans, busting at the seams with provisions for a month.

In August of course, when (hopefully) summer will be in full swing a huge chunk of the country will all but close down for a month and Paris will put up shop almost completely as the French head south literally and metaphorically with "Aoutien" holidaymakers replacing "Juilletistes".

But the real clue that the whole shebang is underway has to be the reappearance on the small screen of Secret Story.

It reared its less than attractive head on Friday evening on the country's number one national channel, TF1, and is set to be in everyone's sitting rooms for the next 10 weeks.

In essence it's France's answer to Big Brother - only more downmarket. Impossible you might think, but sadly true.

Basically the idea is very simple. It starts with 15 people, strangers to each other - with the odd exception, as will become clearer later on - moving into a built-for-TV house, where they'll be under the watchful eye of the production team and the viewing public 24/7 (via the Internet of course) for two and a half months.

Each carries with them into the house a "secret" - and the idea is to keep it hidden from the others for as long as possible while trying to cajole out of fellow house mates exactly what they're trying to keep under wraps.

Off camera there is also the deep bass booming tones of The Voice (La Voix), dropping hints whenever he feels like it, setting playful if somewhat idiotic tasks with cash rewards should they be completed successfully without anyone else in the house realising.

Every week two candidates are nominated and television viewers get to vote in a 'phone poll (at premium rates of course) on who should stay in. Original stuff huh?

Yes the country which so often likes to think that it has taken the cultural highroad, brought the world classics in the fields of literature, art and music, prides itself on its language and traditions, cuisine, fine wines and haute couture - now proves once again that it can mix it with the best and worst of what the world of reality TV has to offer.

The new series, which kicked off on Friday evening will have a hard act to follow.

Last summer, when TF1 first ran the programme, the eventual winner quickly had her secret revealed .She was a triplet - and after the other house members wheedled it out of her, in tramped her two sisters.

Thus the three of them provided viewers with hours of entertainment as they played cards, ate, played cards and slept, eventually being crowned the winners because.... well because they were pretty inoffensive and bland.

Up against them was the nudist, the escort boy, the son of a famous French tennis player (Henri Leconte) a transsexual and an obnoxious couple (their secret) who bickered and manipulated their way to the final, earning their Warhol moment of fame and then (thankfully) disappearing into oblivion.

This year's dollop of dubious "culture" kicked off with the contestants tastefully arriving at the house one by one in his and hers blue and pink limos. Each woman seemingly more buxom than the last, many of them sporting micro dresses of which even pop diva Mariah Carey would have been envious.

And with a few exceptions each man was more muscled, more coiffed and more drop-dead gorgeous than the last, preening and pouting as though they were models in Milan.

Separately they tottered, strutted, swaggered or tripped their way through the jeering and cheering masses into 10-weeks-worth (for the eventual winner) of fleeting public notoriety and a stab at the chance of picking up a 150,000 cheque at the end.

Some of the contestants have had their secrets revealed to the public already - such as the lesbian couple from Belgium, the black mother and white daughter or the 30-something hunk and teenage siren who have to pretend to be "a couple". But none of the other housemates (apart from those "in" on their own coupled secrets) is any the wiser yet.

Nor do any of the contestants know exactly what secrets they have to find out, although once again viewers have been told that among the 15 there is an Anglican minister (male of female not revealed), an undertaker, a medium (who you would think might just have a head start on the others and know whether he or she would end up winning), a prince or princess and a Don Juan with apparently more than 750 "conquests" under his belt already.

So as the 15 pretenders to the title of French telly's newest reality TV hero or heroine are busy settling in to their 24/7 life together transmitted live on the Net and daily on the small screen, we can probably expect some tasteless antics similar to last year's offering - such as the rump steak shoved down the underpants of one male contestant.

There'll also doubtless be the same sort of petty rivalries, squabbles and handbags-at-dawn stuff that characterised much of the first series.

But breathe a sigh of relief because at least it's all being done in the name of entertainment. And as much as some might question why and find it "outrageous", there'll probably still be millions tuning in.

Let's also not forget there's always the "off" button on the TV set or alternative viewing on other channels.

As compulsive and trashy as Secret Story might be it'll still more than likely pull in the viewers and become its own story in itself as the nation tut-tuts and hisses in disapproval and indignation at the antics of the previous night's revelations.

Oh well. In the indomitable words of La Voix "C'est tout pour le moment."

Johnny Summerton is a Paris-based broadcaster, writer and journalist. For more on what's making the headlines here in France, log on to his site at http://www.persiflagefrance.com

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Online Jazz Guitar Lessons - Information Overload!

Many years ago I asked a good friend of mine who is now a very successful professional musician, what my next step in learning was as a musician. I was so surprised with the fact that he could play anything he heard without fumbling for notes; and not only on the keyboard, but also on the bass, the guitar and several other instruments.

He told me that the most important thing a musician should learn is HARMONY. Now, I fully understand why:

When you study harmony, you are not only studying guitar, but all instruments at the same time. Harmony is notes and chords in their context. You start to understand the relationship between note intervals and scales, scales and chords. You know what will work effectively in a musical situation and what will not. You can consciously combine genres (i.e. fusion).

Once you've started learning harmony, you literally 'take off' musically. You have so many directions you can go that you'll never get bored. There's always something new to discover once you get 'out of the box'.

But the problem is which direction to take, what to learn first and what to leave for later on. When people are looking for online jazz guitar lessons; are they just looking for information, or how to put the information to good use?

If it were just a matter of information, the web is filled with hundreds of sources to find out what the Lydian Mode is, for example. Wikipedia itself has the definition and an explanation for anyone interested in knowing about it. But how to put it into use effectively is an entirely different matter.

Good online Jazz guitar lessons are well structured in a step-by-step manner and this takes the guesswork out of your learning. You learn step-by-step through watching videos and seeing it written in musical notation and TAB, practice it and consolidate it by playing along with backing tracks so you get the right feel. By learning in this way, you can clearly see how much you've progressed; and being able to play exactly what you hear is one step closer every time.

Ruben Cardos has been a non stop studio and live musician as well as sound technician, electronics technician and sporadic guitar teacher for well over 25 years. Learn more about the #1 recommended "Play What You Hear" guitar method for learning harmony and improvisation by Chris Standring at BandSuccess.

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Art Equals Peace

It is actually very sad, and at the same time funny to be presenting papers, or conducting workshops on Peacebuilding through the Arts because Arts is really about peace-it has one and the same meaning, only the spelling is different. Yet, time and again, we have to convince other people, especially funding bodies that what we do is essentially peacemaking.

An example of how Art equals Peace is this experience I had when I attended the Flying Circus Project 2000 in Singapore. The 21-day workshop-interaction organized by Theatreworks, Ltd. based in Singapore gathered 75 dance, theatre, music, traditional, visual, and film artists all over Asia, many of who did not speak English. Of course there were translators. All the time, we were sitting on the floor in circles or semi-circles. There were sessions where we would listen to an artist resource person who would share his/her work. We would watch live performances, video shows, and slideshow presentations of these artists' works, after which, we would talk endlessly about the presentation, where we argued a lot. Some discussions became heated or boring enough for some of us to leave these sessions. The only time that we laughed together and felt our kinship and solidarity was when we performed together. These were the moments of pure peace and contentment. In the end, some of us who have become real friends agreed in one of our over-lunch tet-a-tets that whenever we opened our mouths to talk about an idea and try to convince the others about this idea, an argument ensues. But all philosophical and pedagogical differences are wiped out when we break into song or dance.

ART AS A RELATIONSHIP

Art is about reflecting your life, another person's life, or another creature's life on stage, on canvass, and in verses, the difference being an entire life is captured in a few moments of performance (theatre) and exposure (film), a few strokes (painting), or a few words (poetry).

But art as a mirror requires: 1) knowledge and understanding of the subject, and 2) communication. When you try to paint a stone, you are actually trying to understand what a stone feels like, where its curves lie, why it's chipped on one side. When a performer portrays the role of a devil or a dictator, s/he tries to put him/herself on that creature's shoes and tries to feel what that creature is feeling.

Art is about communication. When you paint a picture and hang it on the wall, people are bound to look at it and even try to analyze it. They may or may not get what you're trying to say, but the fact that people actually stop and look and try, if desperately, to understand that piece of work, is the beginning of real communication.

A lot of conflicts are the result of the lack of communication.

Artists project onto the canvas, or paper, or onstage their feelings and thoughts and philosophies about certain subject matters. When a child draws on paper what seems to be senseless, vigorous strokes of scratches and lines and endless circles, the child may be trying to say I am disturbed, I am angry, I am hopeless. An ordinary person seeing this piece of confused work is actually seeing a piece of art drawn by a child trying to say that his/her life is, indeed, confused.

ART AS A BLIND PERSON'S JOURNEY

Art is about magnifying or detailing certain things about life. Artists notice lots of things around us that "non-artists" don't. A blind person carries with him/her sensibilities and sensitivities akin to that of an artist. Because a blind person does not have visual references which to hang on to, all his/her other senses compensate for a visual disability by working double time, and twice over. So do artists. They are very keen at observing little things, mostly things that we take for granted, like cracks on walls, and a blade of grass bent in another direction.

As a non-blind person doing a blind person's journey, you are actually afraid to take a step forward because you are thrown in a different perspective, presented with a different point of view. A lot of biases and conflicts arise from very set beliefs, opinions, cultural patterns, and political frameworks borne out of years of social conditioning in the homes, in schools, on TV, in movies, etc. So when another point of view is presented to you-one that you have not experienced, the immediate reaction is resistance, a refusal to take that crucial first step forward and embrace that new space, that new dimension, in order to understand more comprehensively the world and how it works.

It is common to think of artists as free spirits, good-only-for-entertainment human beings. I was once invited to sing in a women's conference and I was introduced as an artist with no political stand or affiliations but they invited me because I was a woman and I knew a few women's songs. We have common mis-perceptions of artists as having no political backbone, when in fact many of our artistic creations-whether they are paintings of a fish or stars or flowers-are political. The images that we show are our political statements. "Nature is beautiful" is as much political as the statement "stop the war."

And with art, everything is beautiful. Even your anger, when expressed on a piece of paper, is a beautiful thing. In this sense, artists are, indeed, blind.

ART AS A TOOL FOR HEALING AND PEACEMAKING

In the olden days in some indigenous communities, two people expressed their anger for each other by chanting or playing the flute or some other instrument. Imagine a world where arguments are settled through song.

When we're really stressed out, angry, or depressed, we go out and watch a movie (film arts), we gormandize on food (culinary arts), we splurge on new clothes (fashion arts), we listen to classical or rock music (music arts).

Art is everywhere-it is as basic as food, without which we'd all be killing each other, which is what is happening now, because there isn't enough art to serve 70 million Filipinos, for example. To calm ourselves and make this world a "peaceful" place to live in, we kill those who make us angry. We kill over parking space. We kill over an uncooked dinner.

Because art has become inaccessible. You need money to watch a movie. You need money to buy food. You need money to buy clothes. You need money to buy a cd playern or an ipod. You need money to buy costumes and make-up and paint and canvasses and stage props. Poverty and inequity has reduced art into an activity available only to a select few. And those who have so much produce entertainment shows and other pseudo-art that reinforces poverty and inequity. And the cycle goes on.

PEOPLE AS PRODUCERS, RATHER THAN CONSUMERS OF ART

Herein lies the difference, the gap, and the greatest challenge for us all as peacemakers and peacebuilders. More often than not, we are consumers, rather than producers of art. But do you notice how children-especially poor children-are the best examples of art producers, yet little do we recognize their natural artistic talents? In the absence of money to buy toys, poor children create toys out of tin cans, stones, leaves, found objects-in adult terms, appropriate technology. This is their way of handling poverty. But this is not enough.

How we translate or elevate these natural talents into a conscious, institutionalized and programmatic art-making is the challenge for development workers and especially for government-so that art, which was once upon a time a language spoken by every member of the community, is reclaimed by every single human being as his/her own.

Imagine a world where every human being is an artist.

http://www.musicanthology.org

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Complimentary Notes To "The Philosopher"

May be we are getting nearer to the end that we are in observance of the confluence of many things that we customarily are used to think and believe never to come too close to each other or never to cross each other's path till eternity. Then philosophy was a pure mental exercise psychology likewise, but limited to human behavior and where it comes from and what brought it about. The time has come now that where we can see and observe every human behavior or almost all human behavior with a corresponding physical and chemical activity within the brain physiology and other parts of our human body. How long ago was that we thought we could relate and map human behavior to a chemical and physiological brain make up and activity? Nonetheless, however hard knowing the knower is, we are making big leaps in shortening the gap between what was simply a metaphysical exercise and what was a quantifiable and qualify able material objective reality. As to who went right and who went wrong though very much dependent on who one asks the question , to an independent and objective observer it comes along clearly that both gave a lot of ground and they sure will give more till they have exhausted all of their individual standing. Will that be? Or will that not be?

However long the time and distance, it seems every bit what we have learned and are learning about us and ever thing else to date suggests that what has begun from a singularity of a sort to terminate in a singularity of a sort. Not ruling out the singularity of time space and matter as suggested by the Big bang theory, but adding to it a singularity of form and essence. As we (the universe and what is in it and it) are creations of information that preceded us we might simply end up being information that outlasts us. After all what we seem to gather is information that made us, that is governing our very essence and that is leading us in to our end and begging. So information we seek, information we gather and information we pass and I invite you to stay on as I embark on the journey of gathering synthesizing and disseminating information about all and us in particular once again and more.

As we are constructs of information we in turn gather, compile, multiplex and decompile to fit our needs and be compatible with the dynamic and ever evolving environment we often find ourselves in. In as much as what comes in to us by way of information affects our inner mechanics and chemistry it seems rather obvious that what we give out as pieces of information will have a similar effect on the receiving end to whom the information is of need to accomplish a task or fit a circumstance. Fitting a circumstance in a life's time entails finding life in a time segment, in a condition and place and the information compatible to make the right decisions and actions to enhance and sustain it. As every life form gathers information it as well learns and inherits from its predecessors who are endowed with knowledge by inheritance, experience and learning. Experience seems to teach that we curriculurize and compartmentalize information delivery and receipt in synthesis with our physiological stage of development that those who are old enough and knowledgeable are of importance in the determination and arrangement of information to be dissipated till such time deemed unnecessary by reach of a physiological developmental stage and meeting the corresponding intellectual and psychological prerequisites. As we are physical constructs of information and our physical body is nourished and sculpted by the constant feed of information we receive and our physical construction as well reverse feeds our information processing and output quality and efficiency. These and many more points which I would be getting in to are made clear to me from the initial chapter of the book.

My conclusions and insights as well may not concur 100% with that of the Author's that is because it is not my intent to summarize nor criticize, but take the outline and jot some the few thoughts that came to mind as I read it. As the amount of information we are able to access increased exponentially, it has become a common worry that we are becoming somewhat disconnected from our immediate social and physical environment and more of individuals than social beings and the author as well elaborates on that very eloquently.

It is though a couple of slanted angle views that struck my vision and carried my thoughts that I wanted to share here. One of them being the relationship between depth and width of vision as governed by the law of optics; that is the narrowing of the field of vision often is a precondition to magnification or magnification of a small item or being without exception narrows or eliminates peripheral vision and if not totally eliminated it is often lost as a background noise without due consideration. Such is the capability and purpose of our modern day gadgets and instruments from the television to the computer, from the internet to the telephone to make as reach and touch what was otherwise impossible. As our reach from all over the county to all over the state, nation and the Glob of like minded people becomes an instantaneity, are we breaking down to getting ever more divergent to our individual beats or are we getting convergent and getting to a common Global beat and rhythm? These increase in distance and scope of our reach has in fact made us people of specialties where generalities could not carry one across any river and our interdependence by that much stronger and important if we are to cross oceans and continents to accomplish a task and fulfill our needs. Social intelligence as such is the awareness and acknowledgment of a fundamental truth that no individual is an island in itself or her/himself. That from the minutest of beings and non beings in our Universe are endowed with an important task for us to be and do when and if it falls within the grand universal scheme and could only harm has when it is out of synch with this grand scheme, and in its struggle to find its rightful place if we happen to be the grand obstacle that it had to overcome. It is only recently that we are coming to the understanding of such an integrated interdependent Globe and Universe and we still have a long ways to traverse to come to a complete understanding of an integrated grand universal and global reality.

A thing is not real only if it is real in its consequences, but if and only if a common reference is established by all of us or most of us and com to a common understanding of what it is and establish an agreement to that effect otherwise both the imagined and the real one has biological consequences, the real one to all while the imaginary to the only one who imagined it. Luck of a common reference would render the imaginations and ideas remain realities of the individual minds (imaginations) until such time they are seen from a common established common reference vantage which is often the very essence and intent of a universal being. When two items or individuals are asynchronous one of them or both seems more than likely out of sync with this grand universal essence and being that often leads to sickness or death.

Our inner self and outer self and anything else's constantly and permanently browses its environment not only to synchronize itself with every other of our and its kind, but also establishes a common reference for affinity and common understanding. Why are particular sound wave lengths with particular pitch and amplitude, tones and overtones appealing to all of humanity and other are not? Is it may be we are all attuned to a common inner and outer audible and non rhythm's tones and overtones? If so what could be its fundamental tones wavelength, amplitude and pitch that is being amplified when we are attuned to music that is at the root of our pleasure and displeasure? We know in our efforts to synchronize and amplify we move with the beat of the drum, tone of the piano wind instrument or string what of our inner parts dance do our instruments of music follow? It seems we create music in by a dance and vibration of some delicate parts of our inner mind only to reinforce and amplify that common inner vibration where ever it occurs and whatever it is.

It is elaborated clearly and at length how we humans are capable of emotional mapping of each other's state of mind and there is no wonder what we humans and everything else have an exact copy of our parts( not organs or body parts, but elements that constitute us) independently of time, space and condition. As our biological and physiological similarities increase so does what constitutes us. That who are in them are as well in us as clones or mirror images in a sort of a worm whole without the effect of time and space , what happens to them then becomes what happens to us in the degree of the cloned entities in us and them. These are rather the source of our empathy and sympathy with others and them with us. It is worth it here to mention why the effects of modern communication machines like telephones ,televisions the internet and the rest of them all are deemed isolating despite the fact that they have, can and will takes us to greater distances and greater number of people in lesser time may be it is because that they don't have emotions that we can map in to our brains for the mere fact that the amount of what is in them and us in common pales in comparison to what we have in live people and others near us. In many words and a single sentence distance and time have direct bearing on the amount of common entities inherited and acquired that exist amongst people and other living and none living things having a direct effect on the degree of each other's emotional mapping.

As it turns out that brain imaging reveals when several people are questioned "how are you doing?" activated the same parts of the brain as when asked "How is she feeling?" I wondered if that would activate the same region of the brain if "she" is exchanged for "it" not it have no emotion, but due to the common in "You" and "it". While "You and "She" are basically constructs of the similar or near the same information, give and take acquirements along the path being, the information that "You and "It" are constructed on in comparison diverge more. " One can safely conclude that the emergence and persistence of cooperative behavior are not at all unlikely, provided the participants meet repeatedly, recognize one another and remember the outcomes of the past encounters." "Throughout the evolutionary history of life, cooperation among smaller units led to the emergence of more complex structures, as for example the emergence of multicultural creatures from single celled organisms. In this case, cooperation became as essential as competition. Spatial structures act to protect diversity. They allow cooperators and defectors to exist side by side. In different, but related context, similar spatial patterns allow populations of hosts and parasites or prey and predators, to survive together despite the inherent instability of their interaction. Such cooperative strategies may have been crucial for pre-biotic evolution, which many researchers believe may have taken place on surfaces rather than in well-stirred solutions. Catalyzing the replication of a molecule constitutes a form of mutual help; hence, a chain of catalysts, with each link feeding back on itself, would be the earliest instant of mutual aid." The Mysteries of Mathematics from the Archives of Scientific American. June 1995. By Martin A. Nowak, Robert M. May and Kari Sigmund. The above quotation is rather not made in the exact context the authors of the article might have intended to explain game theory, yet I find it telling of the mutual help and assistance that existed and exist in the fundamentals of our makeup that calls for a mapping of each other's emotional state for survival and trivial now and in the after now.

As it is apparent that there is a continuous infighting for position, possession, love and ultimately for offspring often when a confrontation becomes eminent with another of similar or different entity, the infighting becomes a matter of secondary importance and instantaneous communication takes a front raw and emotional mapping becomes a vital medium. These are the rules of life and being from primordial beginning to the present, inner peace and intra-peace, infighting and intra-fighting in the March forward and dynamic progress with time always as a valued commodity. " Our abilities, to speak, love, hate, and perceive the world around us, as well as our memories, our dreams, even our species history, emerge from the combination of a multitude of tiny electrical signals that spread across our brains just like a thunderstorm sweeps a summer sky." Seeking the neural code By Miguel A.L Nicolelis and Sindarta Ribeiro, Scientific American magazine Decmber2006. Information reduced to tiny electrical signals are rather readable and understandable by each and any part of our brain thus establishing a common reference for all information that we collect through any of our senses often to be complimented by any other to establish a common reference as I stated some time earlier in this writing and lending some additional credence to emotional mapping of people and may be other animates as well, for tiny electrical signals remain the same before they are compiled in to bites and bites of information.

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The Value of Excellence in Performance - Lessons From Jazz

Folk wisdom holds that we use about 10% of our potential in a lifetime. New scientific research suggests the percentage is dramatically worse we use a mere 1/10,000th of our capabilities over the course of our lives. What a waste!

Can you imagine the benefit that you would contribute if you developed the capacity to use just 1% more of your talents to achieve what matters most to you? Is 10% too big a reach for you? I think not.

Among my most provocative teachers in the field of performance potential are the jazz musicians with who I work in my speaking and seminar business. They are masters at bringing their unique forms of excellence together to generate value for their audiences. They are passionate about increasing their potential to perform by constantly exploring new possibilities for achieving their purpose.

Why Jazz?

Warren Bennis is one of the worlds most influential writers on leadership and performance. In the mid-1990s, he had a significant change of mind. Before, his favourite image for a leader was the conductor of a symphony orchestra, blending the talents of accomplished performers according to a detailed and carefully crafted score. After, he realized that a jazz group was a better image for leadership and performance.

Excellence in performance in a constantly changing environment, he realized, was about improvisation, and that is what jazz musicians did best. They embraced change as opportunity, not threat. They shared leadership according to talent and the needs of the performance. They greeted surprise as a chance to test their talents and dance to forms of music yet to be heard, generating new value through their exploration of new possibilities. And they recognized, as sax great Cannonball Adderley once said, that there were no mistakes, only opportunities to learn.

Five Key Lessons from Jazz

Here are five the key lessons from the wisdom and workings of jazz about building your capacity to generate value through your unique excellence in performance. They form an acronym for VALUE:

Voicing

Aspiring

Learning

Utilizing

Encouraging.

Voicing

Your voice is unique. No one else has what you have to contribute in the style you have to deliver it. Your voice develops through the blending of your passions, talents, needs, and principles. Jazz musicians, pianist Walter Bishop Jr. once observed, learn in a three-step process: they imitate, assimilate, then innovate. They learn their craft from the masters, trying to imitate their sound. Then they take little bits of things from different people and weld them into their own style. Finally, they imagine how they can take the music to where it has never gone before and do it. That is when they generate their authentic excellence in performance. As jazz bassist and composer Charles Mingus once said, Im trying to play the truth of what I am. The reason its difficult is because Im changing all the time. You can meet the same challenges of improvisation with your unique voice in your chosen field of contribution.

Aspiring

You can survive by simply coping with the messes of the past and the present. But you will not thrive unless you focus the energy of your unique voice on new possibilities in the future. Jazz musicians exhibit a fascinating respect for tradition blended with a passion for innovation. They are constantly trying to imagine new ways of using their voices, to do new things with old melodies and techniques, to improvise on old ideas to stimulate new possibilities and achieve new results. They aspire to do better. Trumpet master Miles Davis said that he always asked his groups to play their best and then play above that. It was then, he believed, that great music happened. Excellence in performance is the same. It is achieved when we contribute our best and then more.

Learning

Learning requires listening. Band leader Duke Ellington once said that the most important instrument in jazz was the human ear. Excellence in performance arises when all the members of the band listen to what they are each contributing to their common purpose. It arises when they all imagine how they can use their voices to create the best result through a carefully coordinated effort. Jazz musicians are strong individualists, confident and even jealous of their own unique voice. But they choose to listen to, learn from, and cooperate with each other to produce something they know they cannot achieve on their own. They are genuine life-long and collaborative learners. Excellence in performance requires that you too constantly listen and learn from each other.

Utilizing

All that voicing, aspiring, and learning means little if you do not choose to utilize them to contribute to a broader purpose than your own pleasure. Jazz musicians thrive on their audiences. Duke Ellington saw his audiences as an integral part of his performance. The special moments for Ellington came when he and his orchestra, which he considered to be his instrument, felt the audiences appreciation building, responded positively to it, and utilized their passions and talents to create new heights of meaningful experience for everyone involved. Excellence in performance requires the positive utilization of your unique brilliance in the service of others.

Encouraging

Human beings are designed to collaborate. However alone you may feel at times, you belong to a species that thrives only in community. The whole dynamic and flow of excellence in performance depends on how well you choose to use your unique capacities to encourage excellence in performance in others. Jazz pianist Monty Alexander usually performs in a trio. At its best, he has observed, trio playing is a situation in which participants willingly support each other. Each player brings virtuosity, optimism, mutual respect, good will, and the desire to make it feel good. If we encourage each other in the alignment of all of those elements, we can create excellence in performance.

Generating VALUE through Excellence in Performance

When jazz musicians get into the flow of a great improvisation, they say they are swinging. Canadian jazz master Oscar Peterson told an interviewer that swing is a deep feeling, an emotion. When you are swinging, he continued, you have really gotten into it, really gone deep. When jazz musicians blend passion and talent to create VALUE, they are expressing their voices, reaching for their aspirations, learning from each other, utilizing their brilliance, and encouraging each other to play their best and then play above that. For them, this is Xcellence in performance.

Imagine, then, how beneficial it would be for you:

to discover 10% more of your unique voice

to elevate your aspirations by 10%

to learn 10% more about what matters most to you

to utilize 10% more of your capacity to use your voice to serve others

to spend 10% more time encouraging others to use their brilliance to get into the swing of contribution.

Aligning all those factors will generate excellence in performance in any field, not only for yourself, but also for all those within your circles of influence. The results will delight everyone.

Brian Fraser is the Lead Provocateur of Jazzthink. He is a professional speaker, author, and leadership coach who uses the wit and workings of jazz to help people and organizations improve their performance. Find out more at http://www.jazzthink.com

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