Jazz Piano Art - found at Detroit River Days

Back in April, I started talking about creativity, innovation, improvisation … and how it relates to jazz and the blues… meditating on the mysteries of musical creativity  … compared to creativity , innovation, and risk taking in other domains (like art, architecture, design, entrepreneurship, computer programming, product design, web design, etc.) … pondering the amazing results that often happen when a skilled musician begins  to improvise with a good idea and the right attitude.

Surprising success and fantastic results can happen in your life (or your business) when you understand how it all works.  Innovation – It’s not a new idea, and I’m not the only one talking about this. I’m just improvising on a great theme.

Nick Sieger (no relation to the Detroit rocker Bob Seger) wrote a great article in July called Jazzers and Programmers. I found Nick’s article while researching some things about Ruby on Rails, and JRuby.  NIck describes the history and styles of jazz and compares it to the history and styles of programming. He talks about jazz fundamentals, and compares the rhythm section (piano, bass, and drums)  to programming libraries, frameworks, and patterns. He compares Bass-Drums-Piano to Model-View-Controller. It’s really great stuff — and even includes a musical score from one of the jazz standards, Blue Monk.

Nick spiced up the article with nifty quotes from famous jazz musicians like: “It’s taken me my whole life to know what not to play” – Dizzy Gillespie … “Anyone can make the simple complicated. Creativity is making the complicated simple” – Charles Mingus  …  I won’t steal anymore of Nick’s thunder. Go read the whole article.

Are you catching my drift? We’re not done with this jam session yet. I’m just taking a breather in between songs.

Blues harmonica done right! It’s fun to listen to. I love music with an aggressive attitude; played by a musician with an opinion of how it should sound. Bluesy music sounds better played by people with a ‘bad attitude’. What am I trying to say? What does that mean? It’s more than just bending a few notes, or adding more cowbell. At the heart of grooveology is improvisation; taking a risk.

I’ve been pondering the mysteries of musical creativity (innovation, improvisation) as it relates to creativity, and risk taking in other domains. This is a huge topic; it won’t fit in one article — but let’s get started and see where it leads.

“Musical improvisers often understand the idiom of one or more musical styles — e.g. blues, rock, folk, jazz — and work within the idiom to express ideas with creativity and originality. When done well, it often elicits gratifying emotional responses from the audience.” – from Improvisation, Wikipedia

When a skilled musician begins to improvise, the results can be amazing. Take a guitar drifting lesson from Andy McKee.

What do you think of Andy McKee’s style? Would you say Andy has an unconventional style? People are fascinated by his musical style because his methodology is new, unique, and innovative. He takes risks. He innovates. He improvises. He abuses the classical guitar methodology so badly, that one can barely recognize it. Andy has an amazing attitude, and a unique opinion about how the guitar should be played.