Example
Life is a journey
A journey that starts unconsciously – and sometimes also ends unconsciously… After you are born you literally learn everything. Breathing, recognising sounds, gaining the ability to see, accepting the fact that your mother isn’t always with you anymore… Discovering the existence of light and dark, the people around you, the fact that you get food at certain times. The world around you will form into something that’s trustworthy, slowly but surely, with lots of experiences – good and bad ones.
We know that many babies and children learn the most between the age of four and eight. These years are crucial for the development of character and emotions. Everyone is born with their own character and DNA. These are the fundamentals on how we complete our lives: our taste, preferences and emotional balance originate from these fundamentals. Upbringing is an important part of our first 16+ life years.
We might not think enough about this, but the lion’s share of upbringing consists of examples. Examples of parents, siblings, family and later on friends. Character determines a lot: intelligence, open vision, sociability, humor and stress resistance. But examples form the way we deal with situations. If your mother panics every time you fall, you’ll learn that falling is something that requires panic. When she picks you up and gives you a kiss to let you play again, you’ll learn that falling and getting up is also part of life. The way your parents treat each other becomes your example for your own behavior in a relationship, all of this happens unconsciously. Friends and their parents are a mirror for a lot of children, in order to learn that there are many different ways to grow up.
Examples are terribly important, also in our professional life. We learn from colleagues, widen our horizon by evaluating, by integrating all kinds of surprising examples in our own way of thinking. Sometimes the good examples slip by – we miss the important educational parts by a lack of attention or time. But we are never too old to learn, to pick up good examples. These examples are everywhere around us, at work, in relationships or other essential parts of your life.
I have discovered recently that I have missed a lot of valuable examples – reason being: business, comfortability or maybe fear. I was a professional piano-player in my “past life”: educated classically and played hundreds of concerts through many years, always classical music. Later on, working in the audioworld, I discovered an enormous amount of different music genres – in listening tests, events and shows. Also at home – with five kids growing up – we heard our fair share of different music styles. I was discovering different music, slowly but surely, to play as well. As a trained classical musician, I still find it unusual to improvise – something completely normal in jazz or pop. When you are playing Chopin, Mozart or Debussy, you follow the music of the great maestros – that was my belief.
I have now discovered that it’s also possible to combine this and do it together, by taking examples from other musical genres. I got the opportunity to play with a famous pop/jazz singer, her band and an allround jazz musician – in different music parts. This was my first time playing “light music” at a live show. Norah Jones, RadioHead, but also Debussy – solely classical. And as a complete surprise, Chopin with an improvising saxophone was added.
It was a magical night. On a Saturday evening in the middle of an audio show a live performance as an example for the mission of audio. The mission that might be a “mission impossible” forever: Bringing a live performance to the living rooms of music lovers. It was magical to notice how our composed performance touched the listeners. An example to be followed. Something to learn from, to make a new habit of.
To give music lovers new examples.
