12/22/2010 7:46

The Band Concert

I was only making small moves last night in the actual reality game, but I did want to connect in a more visible way with a bit of actual reality. So I went over to West High School to see the band and hear actual music being played by real people.

Good music, teenagers, and - as it happened - exactly the right length concert to hold my attention and yet satisfy my sense of completeness. I couldn't have asked for much more in a concert.

The conductor (the band teacher) was persistent in finding many ways to praise his students to the audience and to elicit applause from the audience for the students, both for their actual performance before us and for his reports of their performance in other situations. This seems to me to be an odd method of motivating people, because it is not one which draws out the best from me. I could see, however, that it was a good play in terms of rewarding and influencing many of the band members on the stage. I can't say whether or not this play proved effective at making the students into better musicians, but it appeared to make many of them feel good about their performing, something which similar plays have never done for me.

The better play of the game last night, all puns intended, was found in people in making music together. I am quite sure that some of the band were aware of the fact that they were, by playing together, making music.

When I was at Franklin Junior High School I made a year's foray into being a musician. That is, I took one year of junior high band and played the trombone. I wasn't very good. I don't think the band was very good, either. Although it might be that I wasn't equipped to hear whatever music we were creating, it never seemed to me that the junior high band, students and teacher, really made music together.

Many, many years later, but still perhaps before the members of last night's band were born, I sat on a hill in the woods and played with a semi-professional musician. We made music together. It was an entirely different experience from junior high. I wasn't very good, that much was the same. The difference was that we played together and by doing so created a different music than playing alone.

I like to hope that band students will learn to play well. All puns intended: I hope they play music well and with music add to the pleasure of actual reality for themselves and for others. I hope also that they learn to play the actual reality game well, that they learn to harness the synergy of playing together. But if they don't, at least they help to teach the rest of us.