Music

Courage and vulnerability

March 2, 2013

Artists perform. They live for their art, whatever that may be. I’m learning more and more about my art – connecting people and ideas aka facilitating – from other artists. This week I offered a workshop on Creative Facilitation. There were people in the room who had known me a long time, others who I met […]

February 3, 2013

I’d like to include more music in my workshops, and after learning from Rich Allen, I probably will. In fact, the very next day after attending his workshop, I was presenting a workshop and managed to use music throughout – maybe not as effectively as I would have liked, but hey, I’m just learning. Here’s […]

Pick up your ordinary

July 12, 2011

“Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary” is how David Robinson describes the improv principle, Be Obvious. Keith Johnstone describes it like this in his book Impro. “The improviser has to realize that the more obvious he is, the more original he appears. I constantly point out how much the audience like someone who […]

The road to improvisation

December 23, 2010

I really liked this article about the improvisational brain, based on research of musical improvisation. A couple of things stood out: we learn words, then phrases and then grammar that eventually enables us to recombine them all to communicate our thoughts. That’s language. And we can learn notes, cords, and progressions that eventually enables us […]

What’s possible?

September 19, 2010

At a workshop recently, Andrew Campbell said that ‘the only barriers are in your mind’. Yesterday I watched Chris Anderson of TED fame talking about the future of TED talks – of taking the one to many format, which has provided so many of us with access to amazing people and great talks, into a […]

Being prepared

March 14, 2010

My friend Geoff Brown is a talented facilitator, father of three energetic boys and a sometimes musician. In his spare (!) time he helps organise the excellent Airey’s Inlet Open Mic Music Festival. This year the festival in the small coastal community of Airey’s Inlet was held over three days, with seven stages and more […]

Touring with the band

March 8, 2010

While watching this excellent trio of talented Quebecois musicians known as Genticorum I was musing the nature of collaboration. Each of these musicians is no doubt talented in his own right, yet together they can do so much more. I saw this time and again over the last few days watching various bands perform. I […]

Just ask. The answer might be ‘yes!’

January 22, 2009

Check out this photo. It announces some tour dates for Eric Bibb in Australia. Nothing strange about that. Now take a closer look. There’s a gig in Melbourne, capital of Victoria. Population 3.8 million. And another one in Hobart, capital of Tasmania. Population 205,000. And Meeniyan. Population 1006. Meeniyan. Where the […]