By | David Klaasen | Helping You Create Clarity, Inspire Your People & Drive Performance Retain your best people Changing Management Mindsets and Behaviour Practical Behaviour Analytics
When it comes to developing a skill there is an aspect that is often neglected because it is usually invisible to observers of a successful result. It is the one thing that all experts have in common.
As well as being a chartered statistician, my wife Dr. Pamela Campanelli is also a musician. She plays Jazz Saxophone and many years ago she played her first shared solo concert in the Cramphorn Theatre in Chelmsford, UK. She was rather nervous about it, but on the day she was pleased to have played her best yet and in particular, she was delighted with her improvisation in the classic Dave Brubeck number Take Five. This is a deceptively complex piece and most people have high expectations about the way it ‘should’ sound especially with regard to the improvisations that the giants of jazz have recorded and popularised.
To me improvisation always sounded like a musician ‘doing their own thing’, I used to think that was the easy bit – they could just let go and play whatever they wanted. It was only when I first met Pam and she began to explain what it takes to be able to improvise in Jazz that I realised just how phenomenally complex it was. Having been classically trained she needed to learn by heart a radically new set of rules, chord structures and rhythms.
