Human Ventures

Filed under: music

A Little Jazz Inspiration

Kurt Elling is an amazing jazz vocalist out of Chicago (schooled right here in MN).  "Never Never Land" is definitely one of his lighter pieces, but has a fantastic message. Particularly this bit at minute 3:25...
 
"My friends,
everyday we sit in our everyday chairs
and go to our everday work
and drink from our everyday cup. 
But we never allow ourselves
to go into the extraordinary places
in our minds, in our hearts.
I ask you my friends,
how do you think a book is written,
how do you think a song is sung?
How do you think a picture's painted,
how do you think a race is won? 
How do you think the world gets started? 
If a little daydreaming is dangerous, 
the cure is not to dream less,
but to dream more,
to dream all the time."
 
 
Enjoy!
 

What Did You Hire That Guitar for Anyway?

I have been mostly bed-stricken today with something I'd rather not talk about. However, I've had about two periods of consciousness, right now being one, in which I've tried to read a bit of "Seeing What's Next" by Clayton Christensen, Scott Anthony, and Erik Roth.

Reading just now, I looked over at my guitar, which has been sitting idly for many moons, begging for someone to strum it. It made me think, what the hell did I hire that guitar for, anyway.

I didn't so much hire it to look pretty or make an amaingly rich sound. Nor was I really worried about durability at the time of purchase. 

I mostly just wanted a decent quality guitar that I could use for practice. It's quite possible that the millions of idle guitars sitting in people's closets were hired for the same reason. So why do these lower-end guitars still do such a shoddy job of just that?

Seems to me there is a great opportunity for a disruptive innovation here.

Here are some ideas:
  • Guitars with built-in metronomes and/or mp3 players, so you can challenge yourself to play at normal speeds and/or play along to favorite songs
  • LED--lit electronic fretboards that light up in sync with pre-packaged guitar tunes, showing you how to play which chords and when. (This can't be much more complicated than those damn Christmas tree lights that play along to awful sounding carols.)
  • Guitars that can accommodate multiple classes of strings, going from "softer" to "normal" to allow players to work into more advanced songs/chords (e.g., bar chords) while they are still developing their hand muscles and dexterity
Any advances here could then apply to other stringed instruments - violins, violas, cellos, basses, etc.

So, when do we get started?
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo