Jay Greenberg - Boy Genius

Here is an article about a musical child prodigy named "Blue Jay" Jay Greenberg. At 12, he had written 5 major symphonies, and some compare him to Mozart and others say that his level of musical genius has not been seen in perhaps 200 years.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/11/24/60minutes/main657713.shtml

While reading the story I noted that he said that he hears the whole musical piece intact in his head and then he works it out on paper. That really resonated with me because it has always been that way with me too. I know exactly what he means. And when he says he likes to walk while composing in his head because he can walk in time with the music - again - I have done that since I was very young.
Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that my talent is equal to this rare genius here, I am certain that his talent is stronger than mine, otherwise he would not be famous and be attracting this much attention.
But nevertheless, degree of talent aside, there are a lot of similarities I found in terms of process and methods and how the music just comes all in a piece intact, etc. His description of the internal processes are identical to what happens inside me. A big difference though is that his parents encouraged him to pursue music and sent him to Jullliard and they have developed his talent.
In my case, my parents felt that musicians are merely street beggars with an instrument. Needless to say, they did NOT encourage it as a potential vocation for me. In fact, I did not take music class in school at all. So my formal musical training was non existent. I only learned very little about reading music in standard notation, and that was only as an adult in music theater group. For guitar, well, it's all by ear for me, really. TAB is something I only use to write it out for someone else to play the parts. I do wish I had learned to read and write in standard notation as a child.

I imagine there are many more people that could achieve similar things to Jay if we are encouraged at a young age and given the opportunities to develop the skills to go along with it.

One other comment I would make is that when I see child prodigies like this, it is a combination of extraordinary skill AND experience. Jay knew what a cello was and asked for it at 2 years of age. And he had never seen one or been exposed to the idea yet. But he knew. And when they took him to a music store to let him try it, he immediately sat down and began to play it.
I once saw a special about a young boy who played piano beautifully and had an instant repertoire of hundreds of songs stretching back about 50 years. He was 5 at the time, I think.

To me, this is further evidence supporting the concept of reincarnation. The idea that these kids had lived before and had been musicians in their prior life and had brought those skills and that repertoire along into this life seems plausible. Certainly more plausible than the notion that they would suddenly know how to play 300 songs from the previous 50 years on a piano with no training and no exposure to the songs whatsoever - not even once. There is simply no other logical physical mechanism to explain the abilities and the knowledge. Even the concept of cellular knowledge would require that the biological parents would have had these abilities in THEIR cells in order to pass them on to their offspring - which is not the case.

These gifted kids, like us, are not necessarily bringing conscious memories from a past life into the present life, but rather music is something that sometimes is pushed deeper than conscious memory - into the subconscious. That's why people can play on automatic pilot sometimes - without thinking about it. I am suggesting that these are the memories that may be surviving. This is consistent with those who talk about reincarnation that say that our subconscious survives although our conscious mind does not. In fact, when a therapist does research on past-lives, they hypnotize the subject, which puts the conscious mind to sleep so that they can speak directly to the subconscious. This is because that is where the memories of the past lives are. That is what survives from life to life across the multiple incarnations. At least, this is how it is described by the experts in that field.

But there is also another element I wanted to talk about with this.

Still to this day, I hear music in my head. Every day. All day, mostly. If I didn't push it out to focus on work and other things, it would play LOUD and constant in my head without stopping. Even in my sleep. I wake up clicking my teeth as drums (including the fills) to the music I am hearing. This has always been this way since as early as I can remember.

So I find that I really don't like external noise. Because that interferes and makes a really noise-polluted mess in my head. I don't watch TV very much at all anymore, and so when I hear it on in the next room while I'm working, it's very distracting. The sheer noise and blaring of it is more than annoying. It seems a frantic, high-energy blatant mind-numbing tool of retail commerce. It is over-the-top in every possible way.

Now I know what my mother meant when she used to say that "It's so noisy I can't hear myself think!!!" Now I know. I can't function properly in that kind of noise. I need to have quiet outside my head so I can clearly hear all the stuff going on inside.
Also, from a visual aspect, I can just sit here in silence and 'see' all kinds of images. One after another in quick succession. Some a fraction of a second, some paused for several seconds. That's how my mind is at all times. Most of the time, there is music playing, plus the stream of images.
So when I hear the TV blaring away in the next room, it is conjuring up images to synchronize with the sounds, and that intereferes with both the music in my head, and the images, AND the thoughts as I try to assemble them to write properly. The confusion gets to the point where I cannot even complete a sentence. I cannot articulate any thoughts because everything is so messed up.

Loud sudden noises bother me MUCH more than most people. When I am sitting in the stadium seats watching my daughter's high school band play, there are noisey excited people right behind me who will whistle or scream loudly and it jolts me, jars me, and makes me wince in pain. Like an electric shock to my system.

I am very sensitive to sound.
I have a problem with our little schnauzer. He is a great, well-behaved dog. He does what he is told, and is very playful and good-natured. However, when the doorbell rings he goes nuts. I mean he goes stark-raving INSANE! He leaps into the air, charges at the door and barks like the house is on fire. It frightens whoever is there because he sounds like a big dog that is going to take their head off. It is incredibly, surprisingly LOUD and abrasive, far louder than anyone would think a small dog is capable of, and it jars my nerves and makes me wince and shudder every single time. When people are in the house and they see how he responds when someone else comes to the door they are shocked. They can't believe that volume of sound comes out of a 30 lb little dog. The strange thing about my dog is that he is normally very quiet. Most of the time he is silent, and well behaved - even when he wants to play. It's just the doorbell that makes him explode. The other day, I had a party at my place and my boss, who is also a friend, came over before anyone else. The doorbell rang, the dog went nuts, and she and her little girl both jumped. She looked at me and said, "Oh My God Val!!! There is something seriously wrong with that dog! That's just crazy! He needs to be looked at. That is NOT normal!!"

For my part, I probably look ridiculous because when it happens, it so shocks my system, that I often drop things I am holding, or I might sometimes spill a drink or whatever. I instinctively shut my eyes tight, wince really hard, and all the muscles in my body contract and shake as if 10,000 volts of electricity was just shot through me. In fact, I guess you could relate it to an electric shock for me. That's what it feels like. Other people are surprised, but they don't have quite the same response as I do. I guess they are not as sensitive to sounds as I am. Obviously, anything I was working on is gone for the moment and it may take some time to get back to it.

The other thing I notice is that when I am alone and quiet and deeply concentrating on something, I hate to be interrupted. Okay, that's not strong enough. I mean I really REALLY HATE to be interrupted. It throws me out of a train of thought that I might have spent 45 minutes getting deep down into. Then I have to start all over.

When people do interrupt me like that, I wonder "Do other people not think deep like this? Is that why they don't understand how unnerving and shattering it is to be pulled out of a long train of thought like that?" Or is it that they think through this 45 minute train of thought in a few seconds and so it's nothing to them? Somehow that seems less likely.

This led me to thinking about the current teenagers. My daughter can't study UNLESS she has two or three things going on at the same time. She has the TV going in the corner, plus her IM buddies on her laptop, plus her music playing - sometimes a boombox, but usually her iPOD, AND she's doing her homework. And she can actually function like that!
In fact, she says that if she isn't inundated with a constant wash of sound and images, she can't focus. And she says her friends are the same.

I find this bizarre.

Our Next Gig

Next Saturday, Dec 2, my band is booked to play the Lewisville Christmas festival called "Holiday at the Hall". This is an annual event in the downtown area of Lewisville, Texas, which is one of the cities in the Dallas/Ft.Worth/Denton Metroplex.
This festival has a parade very similar to Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade with 19' to 29' floating floats, marching bands, etc. There will be a bike-toy run that collects toys for under-privileged kids and there will be 10,000 motorcycles there for that. There is an ice-sculpting contest, there are all kinds of vendors and events and yes, Santa Claus will be there for the kids.
Here is a link to the website: http://www.cityoflewisville.com/
Click on the logo for Holidays At The Hall and that will take you to the description.

VSP (The Val Serrie Project) will be there, on the Plaza Stage right in the middle of everything. We will play a one hour set from 1:30 to 2:30pm finishing just before the big parade starts at 3pm.
The crowd shot shown above is a stock photo, but it is fairly representative of the crowds expected, I think. The sound guy who is running sound for our stage said to expect between 10,000 and 15,000 people there when we do our set.

WELL! That's a few more people than I've ever played in front of before! 10,000 to 15,000!

Just to make it trickier, I have added another member to the band this last week. Andrew Robinson has joined as a bass player and alternate guitar player for some parts. Mostly he'll be playing the bass. That allows us to shift Sonny over to keyboards and percussion where he can add in some of the parts that are only provided by backing tracks so far.
Andrew has only been with us for 2 practices but has already learned 7 of the 11 songs we'll be playing in our set there for the festival. And frankly, these were the 7 tougher pieces to play on bass. He is gaining ground fast. But we only now have 3 more practices until Saturday.

The new 5-man lineup is as Follows:
Val Serrie - lead guitar and vocals
Joe Parr - rhythm guitar
Jason Christenson - drums
Sonny Snipes - keyboards, percussion and bass
Andrew Robinson - bass and guitar

The setlist will be as follows:
1. You Make Me Feel Good
2. Best Day of Your Life
3. Under a Texas Sky
4. Diamonds In Her Soul
5. Honeymoon Suite
6. Second Wind
7. Goodbye
8. Just Before The Storm
9. Beyond Words
10.Yavanna Smiled
11.Anthem

This will be a memorable event for me. I'm really looking forward to it. After this one, I hope we may be able to go on to play the Sounds of Lewisville festival in June, and possibly the Denton Jazz Festival in the spring.

What People Believe

"Belief" is an interesting phenomenon in the human paradigm. People may not easily accept new information when they are older, but tend to believe what they are told at a young age, and will fiercely defend it later despite much evidence to the contrary.

A devoutly religious man will need as much concrete, tangible proof as anyone before he will believe that eating frozen yogurt will make him invisible, but he needs no proof to believe anything that is supernatural, mysterious, illogical or completely impossible - as long as it is written in the bible. Because he was told when he was young that the Bible is the word of God - the ultimate authority.

So his logic circuits are not broken, they work in every other aspect of his life and in everything else he comes across. It is only in the matters of the things that are told in the Bible that he must accept on faith where every other tool of analysis says they cannot be true.

But this is not only a phenomenon of religious belief. Our understanding of history is not dissimilar. There is a mechanism of learning at work here. It is connected to the concept of "authority", but also, I suggest, to the effects of time and layered learning.

In that first case, it was the Bible. In this case, we're talking about history books. But in both cases, the issue is that when we learn these things at an early enough time in our lives, we just absorb it, we trust it implicitly because it comes from a trusted source, and it then becomes integral to our world view.

If we were to see something from another trusted source that contradicted it within a few minutes, then we can easily switch to the new belief. If we saw something a few months later, we might be cautious at first, but without too much trouble, we switch over to accepting the new knowledge. Even if it comes a couple of years later, we might switch over from the old knowledge to the new, once we got a few clarifications.

But once we are older, and we've "known" something for many years, we have learned too many other things that have been layered on top of that knowledge, and to undo that underlying knowledge, would mean dismantling a sizeable portion of our world view, and most people are too mentally lazy, or too frightened to do that.
It's much easier to simply be critical and skeptical, and reject any new information that contradicts that which we already think we "know". It works that way with religious faiths AND with our understanding of history AND with our understanding of how the world works in general. It is a fundamental component of prejudice and bias, which is common everywhere.

And thus is human nature. Thus is the source of stubborn ignorance.

In combination with this problem of not being able to "un-learn" something we have become comfortable with since childhood, is the problem that the people who told us what we learned then may have been wrong, or may have been driven by an official agenda, or a self-serving agenda, or it may simply be a perspective that THEY had been carrying since THEIR childhood, that they are now further propagating to us. We get the version of history that THEY teach us, and, once it settles in, that becomes THE version of history. At least as far as we are concerned.

It takes an extremely agile and open mind to be able to re-think, re-evaluate, and re-learn new versions of old accepted "facts" or accepted perspectives.

I want to point out a few examples of some things which most Americans "think" they know but are probably wrong, yet it may seem difficult or impossible to accept a new truth even when it is told and proven.

There was an article on NPR radio this week about a book just released that shows how our versions of history have changed over the past 100 years. Apparently, the government did not want young men to be second-guessing their government's decisions on why they should go to war, so the reasons that wars were started were often deliberately obfuscated in the textbooks that schoolkids read. They simply made it up to suit their purposes, but the kids just believed everything they were told, and for them and their decendents, that became the unalterable "TRUTH". But the "TRUTH" changed over time, depending upon how much the gorvernment was willing to admit.

As an example, the author cited the war between the US and Mexico. In a history textbook written in 1849 just a few years after the war ended, it was said that the war was started by the Mexicans. Then a few decades later, it was described as something both sides started. Then a few more decades passed, and then it was described as having been started by a pre-emptive strike by the Americans to fend off a potential strike by the Mexicans. Then, in the 1990's it was described as more a land-grab and resource acquisition of the US government to take something away from Mexico. These are all history textbooks that people studied and took for truth at those given times. The facts or history did not change. But the interpretations, and perspectives that are presented about them changed completely until the exact opposite perspective was accepted as true.

It's fascinating how we believe whatever we are taught at a young age in school - and yet that is twisted by whatever the politics are at the time. It will be interesting to see what future historians tell about the causes of the current war in Iraq.

Sometimes the truth is simply glossed over when teaching children in school, because either the details are too complicated, or because the details don't support the overall message they are trying to convey (very much like propaganda) Let's look at some classic wrong information taught to us in school.

Who Discovered America?
Who was it from Europe that originally discovered America? Most of us were taught that Christopher Columbus discovered America. That is why we have Columbus Day as a holiday in October.

But that is, of course, quite wrong. Certainly, Columbus did come here as an envoy of Queen Isabella of Spain in 1492, but it was almost 1500 years earlier that Leif Erikson first discovered America.

Originally from Norway, Lief's grandfather had been banished for killing a man, and so went to live in Iceland with his Son, Erik The Red. Lief was born in Iceland, but when he was 12 years old, his father Erik had been banished from Iceland - also for killing a man, and so travelled west toward a land he had heard legends of sightings for. He went there and established a permanent settlement there which grew to more than 3,000 norsemen over the next 400 years. Because there were some green grasses in the summer months, he called it Greenland to encourage settlers. Lief had grown up with a German slave of his father's in Iceland and learned multiple languages, all about plants, and a love of the sea. When he was old enough, he went to visit King Olaf in Norway where he was converted to Christianity by the King, and decided to spread the word of that belief to Iceland, and Greenland where he then went to live with his father.

There was another Norwegian named Bjarni, a merchant from Erik's settlement, who once sighted the Canadian coastline when he had gone far off-track because he lost sight of the North Star in clouds while travelling from Iceland to Greenland. He spoke of seeing a coastline of rolling hills covered in trees, but he did not stop to investigate and instead turned back north to Greenland once he had his bearings.

So, in the year 1000AD, looking for a warmer place, following the story of Bjarni of new lands westward, and borrowing a boat from him, Leif set sail west and southward. He first found Baffin Island, but didn't much like the flat rocks and ice glaciers. He called that Helluland. He took to the sea again, travelled down the coast of Labrador, to Newfoundland and established a settlement there now called L'anse Aux Meadow, just north of present day St. John's on what is now Canada's east coast.

Because of prevailing winds and calm seas in the summer, this was actually only a 4 1/2 day trip. A Viking could do that with their eyes closed. They were used to much longer and more rigorous trips across the north Atlantic from Norway to Iceland and to Greenland. They stayed over the winter until the next spring, then left behind their settlement and lots of rune stones with Norwegian writings on them which were discovered later. Leif called America "Vinland" because he found grape vines there and made wine from it. He returned to Greenland to much acclaim from his father who had broken his ankle and so couldn't join him on the trip. Lief brought back the wine from this southern land to the west, and it and the trip was famous in their community for a long time. Lief went back again for another trip 2 years later.

The original descriptions of the voyages were written by Lars Almvig who accompanied Lief Erikson on the two journeys there to Canada. He created many recountings describing their journeys, the most literate of which was "Val Sturma Vinland," which provided details such as sailing directions, distances and landmarks.
Since the Norwegians did regularly travel back and forth from Greenland, Iceland and Norway and other parts of Europe, these stories made their way back to the European mainland, and Adam of Bremen in Germany translated them and captured them in detail. Those original documents are still on display in Bremen, Germany today.
In the early 12th century, an English cleric named Vincent Beauvois put the stories together with a map now called the "Vinland Map" and created a manuscript called "Spectrum Historial"
In 1250, Pope innocent IV sent a man named Carpini to meet with the Tartars. They recounted in detail Leif Eriksons; journeys and so Carpini's writings on those adventures were brought back and also included in the manuscript "Spectrum Historical" by literary monks.
That manuscript was in Europe showing North America on a detailed map many years before Christopher Columbus sailed to discover the island of Hispaniola (Now Haiti and the Dominican Republic) and that documented the discovery of North America more than 1500 years before, and even named Leif Erikson as the discoverer.

The map in that manuscript is known as "The Vinland Map". That map, possibly the first map showing the New World, is currently housed in Yale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Below is a picture of that map:




Who Was The First President?
Here is another question: Who was the first President of the United States? We are taught it was George Washington. But that turns out to be wrong too. Samuel Huntington was actually the first president of the United States. He was the president for the first one-year term. He later became the Governor of Connecticut. Look it up. Here is one site in the encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Huntington_(statesman)

But there are many places to look it up.

In fact, before he became the first president of the United States, he was the President of the Continental House of Congress and it was he who was largely responsible for combining the states into a country. He pulled them together and solved the problem with Maryland's claim on the Ohio Country, etc. to help form the United States of America, and it was he who built support for the Declaration of Independence and signed it as President of the US, and remained in that role for one year.

The War of 1812
When I was in elementary school in Canada, I learned about the War of 1812. The only time when Canada and the US were at war with each other. In that War, there were a number of battles from Erie to New Orleans. Canada had 5,004 soldiers plus a few militia, the US had 35,000 troops. But they were poorly disciplined, and did not want to fight outside their home states and so performed poorly in those situations. Canada won the war when it burned all the government buildings in Washington D.C.. The British comanders strictly enforced the rule that private residences were not to be touched or torched and they weren't. Only government buildings - since it was a war between governments. And that ended the war and they went back home. John Armstrong was the US Secretary of War and he was fired because of that defeat, and his successor never got a chance to retaliate because by that time the war had finished. So, clearly, from what I was told, Canada had won.

But when I came to the US, I mentioned this in conversation and discovered that most Americans were not taught the same story. First, they were taught it was the British, not the Canadians.
I have to concede that point actually because although it was the soldiers from the population in Upper and Lower Canada, they were technically still colonies of England at that time. Canada was not created as a separate country until later in 1867. Also, I have to now accept that I have learned that a good deal of the war was a naval conflict where the British Royal Navy was blockading the American Ports, and the American Navy was hunting down and sinking British ships (at first - the British them committed themselves to it and trounced the American Navy after the first few months)
The naval battle aspect of the war of 1812 was left out of, or glossed over by, my own education in Canada. We heard much more about the soldiers on land, and the attacks of certain towns across the Canada/US border. We even went on school field trips to see the restored forts and barracks, etc. commemorating the battles of that war. It's an important piece of formative history in Canada's past.

But yet when I came here to the US as an adult, when the subject came up in conversation here, I found that my American friends were mostly not told very much at all about that war in school. It is largely a forgotten war here. Or the few that had heard of it, dimly remember being taught that England attacked in 1812, but it ended in a stalemate or something, and there was nothing in more detail than that.

Clearly, the education system in each country focused more or less on the war and it's details based upon whose purposes were being served.

I think a similar process is in place in Russia when they choose not to tell their school children that tiny Finland beat them in every war they ever had with them.

History is very selective, I find. It is highly subjective and dependent upon the perspectives of those who chronicle it.

In Nazi Germany, one of the things they did was to go around to all the schools and rewrite new textbooks with a new history that glorified Nazis and made it seem as if their urge to take over the world was their clear manifest destiny - they were on a mission from God!

Anyone who read the Dune series of books by Frank Herbert might remember how the Bene Gesserit had taken the trouble of planting a story that became the seed of a legend within the Fremen culture on Arrakis, so that generations later, when they had created the genetic heir they were planning on, there would be an acceptance of him. He would already be a part of their religion, their culture, their racial memory.
It would seem like a prophecy, but it was really just long-term planning ahead.

Time gives a prediction extra credibility. It grows into a legend. It takes on super-normal properties.

Getting Ready for the Party

Well, I'm trying to get everything ready for the party next Saturday night. The picture above shows the band setup for the show. I built the sub-woofer cabinets at the bottom of the PA stacks. We call those stacks TOD1 and TOD2. TOD stands for "Tower Of Death" because if one of them falls on you, you're dead. For an idea of scale, you should know that the ceilings in the upstairs of the house there are 11 feet high. So you can see how tall the speakers are.

There is now 3,000 watts of sound coming out the front end of this PA system (two 1500 watt stereo amps) between the two twin 18 subs, and the four twin 15 main cabinets. Then there is also another 350 watts powering the monitor system.

Considering all this equipment plus the three light stands with PARs and special effects lighting, as well as two fog machines, - maybe this is just a touch over-the-top for a house party? Maybe. But we are going to have a helluva time!!
Unfortunately, not everyone will fit upstairs where the band will be playing, so most people will have to listen from downstairs in the greatroom area. So I am considering having a video camera feed to the big screen TV down on the main floor in the greatroom for the folks who want to see but can't fit in the limited space upstairs, etc.

We are running everything through the PA system. Drums are an electronic Roland VDrum kit, the bass goes through a bass POD, the rhythm guitar goes through a guitar POD, and my lead guitar goes through a Line6 Vetta with the speaker sound basically off. So we all have stereo feeds, and we all have direct feeds into the PA. So it makes a very manageable mix for for monitors on stage and for the mains out front.

Actually the sound seems excellent overall, and it is completely adjustable as low or as loud as we want. And with this kind of power and the frequencies capable with those super-subs, if I wanted to, this system could do structural damage!
Actually, it just gives a BIG sound without it necessarily being LOUD. That is, the sound fills all the air and has high fidelity and precision, without blaring. That's the advantage of using large speakers. Making sound is all about moving air. Big speakers can move air very easily, without effort. A wall of speakers can move a wall of air with the slightest push. But small speakers must just be blasting and blaring to move the same amount of air from such a small point. It propagates differently. Imagine trying to make waves in the surface of a lake with a single small oar. Now imagine a giant flat surface 8 feet long and 4 feet wide moving up and down. That's the difference.

Here you can see the subs after I had just finished building the wood cabinets themselves, but had not yet put the carpet exterior finish, or mounted the speakers and hardware. You can see how they are constructed and braced internally, etc. They are extremely sturdy. You can also see the size compared to a normal garage door opening. Then, below is a picture of one of them finished. These are HEAVY. I actually weighed one empty. With just the empty wood cabinet alone and no hardware, it weighed 65 lbs. The speakers themselves are 28 lbs each and there are 2 in each cabinet, so the total with all hardware and coverings, and loaded with the speakers is over 120 lbs. These are HEAVY to lift. Definitely a two man job to move these. Just moving them around getting them set up by myself I could see how hard it would be when we have to play someplace. Two men and a dolly are needed here!

These cabinets do sound great as subs, though. I found a design tool that allowed me to calculate the exact dimensions for the cabinet and the port width and dept of the port tube, etc. based on half a dozen specifications about the speakers themselves. These speaker handle 1000 watts each, so that's 2,000 watts per cabinet. And even with 6 inch ports, they push enough air through them to blow out a match, even at moderate volumes. These cabinets move a lot of air. And they have a natural resonant frequency of 24.5 hz.
I decided that, rather than using a simple crossover to get the subs running on just lows, I would have a separate stereo amp and it's own stereo dual 31-band eq, so that I can choose exactly which frequencies to put through the subs, and which to put through the other mains. This setup works very well and should allow me to be very flexible in shifting the mix point as I need to match different rooms and spaces we might play in.

Here, also, you can see some of my guitars. Most of them on the wall are showing, but there are another 5 out of sight of this particular shot. There are 21 in all if you count the professional ukelele and the mandolin. Obviously, I won't have all those so handy to play elsewhere. I use 6 guitars for this show. Different sounds, different tunings, etc.

Last week we were recording some film footage for a music video. In fact, four music videos. One for each of four songs. Some of the footage was good, but some was not. I had technical problems recording the sound tracks, and also we were making mistakes, etc. so we had our challenges. This will be something to work more on after this week, once we are fully prepared for the performance at the party.

Once we get the practices out of the way - then I'll have to start detailed planning for the food! I'VE GOT A BUNCH OF PEOPLE TO FEED!

The Art of Photography

Most of us drive a car. And, ironically, most of us consider ourselves above average drivers. Statistically, that's impossible of course, but neverthess, the delusion endures in many of us that we could really be professional race car drivers. After all - we know how to press the gas when we need to, and we can certainly press the brake to avoid hitting something. And we've been driving in traffic every day for years and years - some of us for decades. So we convince ourselves that the only difference between us and a pro racecar driver is the car we drive. "Hey, if I had a 700 hp Ferarri I coulda won that race too! pfffft!"

Well, not so fast there, Speed Racer.

There is a whole lot of difference between driving at 70 miles per hour and driving at 150 mph. I know because I have tried driving at 150 mph. It was a rush to be sure, but you really need to know what you're doing behind the wheel when you're travelling at those kinds of speeds. Every subtle move you make is exaggerated by your speed and can get you into trouble faster than you realize. The slightest mistake and you are off the road and into the ditch in a flash. Your brakes will superheat at that speed and they suffer from brake fading and stop working properly. What do you do at that speed with no brakes? Also, if you are going 150 mph and you come up on a flock of other cars running at say 60 mph, it's like driving into a parking lot at 90 mph. Your normal driving skills are not going to be able to handle that. Then there is the fear factor. What if you are in a race on the track and there is a crash up ahead and an impenetrable wall of smoke stretching across the whole track? Do you stop and inch your way through to avoid hitting the cars that may or may not be sprawled across the track there, and take the chance that another driver will plow into the back of you in the smoke field? Or do you grip the wheel, clench your teeth drive through at full speed to keep your place in the race, and just hope for the best of luck not to hit anything?

Driving a car in traffic every day gives us some basic skills for manipulating a vehicle through normal traffic, but it does not make us a pro. Also, having a fast car doesn't immediately make you a pro driver either - unless you practice enough at high speeds under racing conditions.

Similarly, I think most all of us have owned cameras and can take pictures. And I believe most people consider themselves to be above-average photographers. After all, it's all in the camera, right? It's all just about pointing that amazing piece of photographic technology at the subject and pressing a button, right?

Again, not so fast there, sunshine.

A friend of mine who happens to be a professional photographer told me recently that he once was talking about this to a corporate manager and he made the comparison that saying anyone can take the picture if they have the camera is like saying that anyone could do his job if they could just have access to his computer.
The camera is just the tool. But the photographer is the artist that creates the art. Having access to Leonardo DaVinci's brushes and paints would not necessarily allow you to paint the Mona Lisa. You must have talent as well. So it is with photography.

Sure, there is a large element of technology in the mix. In fact, that knowledge is part of the technical skill needed. But it's also about composition, and mood, and color, and lighting. Lighting is HUGE in photography.

The average person might take their little Kodak digital camera and switch it to portrait mode, and point it at their friend and press the button, and voila! a perfectly exposed, perfectly focused, and perfectly composed picture might come out. But that would be a combination of automation and luck. Can you look into the photo and tell what mood the person was in? Could you tell what they were thinking at that moment? Did it capture them? Or did it just simply record the fact that someone was standing there?

The chances are that certain elements were NOT so perfect. Maybe there is red-eye from the reflection of the flash off the retina in the back of the eye. Maybe there is some blur because of motion of the subject or the camera. Maybe they are not centered, or maybe they are but should not have been. Maybe part of the subject is cut off, or maybe an important element is missing or severed. Maybe the foreground is in focus, but the background is not. Maybe it should have been that way but wasn't. Maybe it was too light, or too dark, or too green, or too pale, or the color was too saturated.

Sure you know about light and dark, but what do you know about shadows? What about how to eliminate them? WHEN to eliminate them? Do you know about the color temperature of the light? Do you know how to use backlighting? Side-lighting? light diffusers? Do you know the difference between how incandescent lights affect the exposure vs flourescent light, vs ultraviolet light? Do you know how different kinds of lighting can present a mood? Do you know what an 18% gray card is and how to use it? Do you know how and why to use a light meter? Do you know what depth-of-field means, and how to adjust it using the f-stops on your camera lens? Do you know what an f-stop is? Do you know how shutter speed affects a picture, and how to use it to get the effect you want? Do you know what the trade-off is as you make it faster? Do you understand why? Do you know what the ISO rating is on film, or how that affects film speed on a digital camera that has no film? Do you know what film speed means? If a higher ISO rating means a higher sensitivity to light, then why don't we just always use the highest possible ISO setting or film? What is the trade off in granularity? Why? Does that affect color as well as resolution?
Do you know when to use a flash and when to use natural light? Do you know when to use a tripod? Do you know what colors transfer well to print, and which don't? Do you know anything about colored filters on your lenses and why you might use them? Do you know the effects of certain lenses on pictures of dark tree branches against a light sky? Where the purple shadowing comes from? Do you know what lens flare is and how to avoid it, or how to use it well?

And then there is composition. The artistic aspect of photography. How and when do you use silhouettes? How do you handle checkerboards of light and shadow and still retain some detail on the shaded areas? Why would you even do this? How do you make a woman look sexier? And a man look stronger? How do you create tension in a scene? How do you use props to suggest ideas? Is a photograph always just a stolen moment of time, or are there ways to imply a longer term to the photo? Can you put a whole lifetime into one picture? Can a person be summed up that way? Can you show love? Sex? Caring? Fear? Hatred? Poverty? Wealth? Starvation? Disease? Discomfort? Arrogance? How can you paint a picture of loneliness with a camera? Can you show a comfortable good feeling on a quiet Saturday morning with the whole weekend of opportunities stretching out before you? Can you show the naivety of youth? Can you show the wisdom and cleverness of age?

Can you show life?

Can you make the audience for your work feel any of these emotions themselves? If so, then you are far beyond the average person taking pictures. You are an artist in the photographic medium.

I'd like to point out two friends of mine who are excellent photographers. One is a professional and one is a gifted amateur. The professional is Park Street and his work can be seen here: http://www.parkstreets.com The gifted amateur is Kathy and her beautiful work on sunrises and sunsets in Colorado are on her blog here: http://pajamalibrary.blogspot.com. I encourage you to do yourself a favor and visit these artists' work.

Recently, Park and I were talking about his latest artistic interest he calls, "Time Capsules". Think of what a time capsule is. You take a number of objects that you care about, that you have invested some of yourself in, and things that are very indicative and representative of this moment in time, and then you bury them for some future time when someone digs them up and finds a treasure trove of memorabilia about this point in history. Imagine what it would be like to open up a old time capsule from Roman times and find samples of their daily lives then!

Well Park is doing something like that with photography. It's all about the composition. His subject is usually a child. He surrounds the child with all their favorite toys and interests. If they love astronomy, maybe there is a telescope and an astronomy book, or maybe it's toy cars. Often, there is a favorite family pet. And the entire corner of a room is 'propped' such that all the things that capture the life and interests of the child are captured in a perfect moment in time. A Time Capsule, if you will. These are more than wallet photos for the Dad to carry around with him - these are full-scale portraits suitable for art galleries, and you may see some there soon. But for now, you can see some of these as well as other excellent pieces on his website.

Kathy is a scientist at work during the day, but her deep passion is her photography of sunrises in Colorado. The photo at the top of this article is one she took just yesterday. To show how dedicated she is, you must realize that she gets up at ungodly hours every day so that she can get out to her favorite parks in the mountain areas just around Denver in time to witness the sunrise. Her goal is to capture every single sunrise every single day without break, for a year. That is quite a goal, considering we all get sick or busy or tired. There are also weather concerns, etc. But she has managed to capture the most amazing scenes of sky and cloud ever, between her sunrises and sunsets. Even her daytime pictures show insight and a great feel for light, color, composition, etc. Check out her blog and see what notions you can. I have taken copies of over 150 of these photos for my screensaver on my PC, and they are all beautiful, and some of them are even breathtaking. And it's worth visiting regularly because she is always adding more.

So there is a lot more to the art of photography than just buying a good camera. But a good camera is a start. And we all have to start somewhere.

The Secret to Corporate Selling

It's always difficult to sell anything to a corporation for various reasons. First, it's hard to find the right person to talk to. Then it's hard to get them to listen to your story. Most of the time the people you are talking to don't really care if your product saves the company money because they themselves don't personally benefit from that. They will continue to make the exact same salary whether or not the company buys your product, spends the money, saves the money, wastes the money, or whatever. So they don't care. The fact that it might make or save a great deal of money is only a line item in an internal proposal document that helps outline the cost justification for the item.

But on the other hand, to change suppliers from the current supplier over to your company usually requires all kinds of work and trouble. They have to build a business case to make the change. They have to sell the idea personally to management and to all the stakeholders within the organization that might be affected by the change. They have to negotiate terms - or convince the procurement department to spend the time and effort negotiating terms, - and they have to sell them on the benefit of spending even THAT time and effort and money to do that. Then, once they recognize the need, and the business advantage of buying whatever it is you're selling, then they have to push it to legal, and then the lawyers have their work to do to again negotiate, but this time it's contract negotiations with your lawyers. This can last from weeks to years. It usually take several weeks to several months just for this phase alone. Then, if your deal survives THAT punishment, then they have to push you through the purchasing/procurement departments to be registered as a valid vendor to the organization. THEN, finally, you have the mechanism in place to allow normal business dealings and goods, services, and money to flow.

So, with all this work to do and trouble to go through, and yet no personal gain for the company employee you are trying to sell to, you can see why they might not be interested in taking your call. If they must, they will, but they will avoid it if at all possible. But most people are motivated by their personal interests and agendas rather than their corporation's best interests, and this is nothing but headaches for them, and with no real upside.

It IS difficult. And it's unavoidable. The system is there to protect the company from all kinds of abuse and misuse, fraud, and potential litigation, by putting all the management, legal, and procedural checks and balances in place. To you, the salesman trying to penetrate that wall of obstacles, it seems daunting or even impossible most of the time.

The key to selling into a corporate environment is to find a champion for your solution inside the company, and then just support him as he fights the politics and waves of resistance internally.

To get him to do this, you either have to find someone who already drank the Kool-Aid, and has the religion, and you are just the supplier to his dream and vision, OR, you must spend some time crafting that dream and vision for him.

Sell him on how it makes him the hero. Make him the agent for change in a company that needs a new miracle. Point out that when the company is looking to layoff the staff, they will leave alone the movers and shakers that are trying to further the cause of the company's well-being and are trying to push the envelope to greater profits, better competitiveness, better products, better ROI, etc.

You need someone with a strong ego that you can pander to and build up - because that ego is the necessary driving force that will motivate him to fight the fight and evangelize the change that is needed to get you in there.

One thing that often works with someone like that is to hint that you might want to get him set up to speak at some national or global conference as an expert and a visionary in the field. This puts stars in his eyes and makes him see himself as bigger than his company. Now he is suddenly an industry expert. Talk about him starting an industry advice column based on his observations and experiences - make
him a star.

That's how I used to do it at the software company I used to work at, and it worked great. I would get them a speaking role at the next relevant conference that we put on several times per year.

Then you tie it all together for him. HE is the guy whose vision it is to go in this direction. So HE will lead the company to a greater future. HE will get the greater profits. HE has the vision. HE sees ever so clearly. HE leads not only the company but the whole industry.

YOU are just the supplier that helps him put HIS plan into effect. (even though it's actually your plan) You do this by working out the vision for him ahead of time, then in your discussions, lead him 95% of the way there and then let the momentum of the thought process take him the extra 5% on his own. Make it all but obvious what he needs to do. Let him think HE thought of it.

Let him come to the epiphany on his own. Don't "sell" him anything, ever. Just shine the light into the darkness and onto the things you want him to see, then supply his needs. When he sees the treasure chest - you be the guy standing there selling him the tools to open it, and the rope to bring it out of the cave and back to the ship....

Key phrases:
"If only there were some way to..."
"Can you think of a way to fix that?"
"I wish the industry already had a company that could..."
"I see so many companies suffering from.... I wish there was someone who
could help them..."
"What the world needs now is..."
"I wonder how this business will work 10 years from now. And I wonder
who the companies will be that will get us there...."
"Company A is planning to get into .... Unless someone else gets in
there first."
"I wonder who in your company will come up with an idea first to do
this?"
"If you were guy that does that, I know of some people who would want to
hear you talk about your experiences and would want to hear your advice
on this."
"There is probably a book in that for you if you are the guy who does
it."
"What the industry needs now is a leader. A leader with a vision."

...and so on.

This is what really works in the corporate sales world.

Air Guitar - A Rant

It's been a while since I've written a Dennis Miller/Andy Rooney style rant, but I felt this one bubbling up so I thought I'd write it down and get it out.

US Air Guitar is a group that organizes regional, state, and national competitions for people who 'perform' air guitar. Once they pick a national 'champion', they then send this person to the worldwide championship competition in Ouhu, Finland. The current reigning top US air guitar champ is a guy named "Hot Lixx Hulahan". Cashing on the movement, there is even a new movie coming out called "Air Guitar Nation." What is it with these people who do air guitar? Why is this popular? In fact, why is it a thing to do at all?

Now I don't want to get off on a rant here, but have we really sunk so low on the scale of cultural excellence that we now have to applaud and encourage people who FAKE an ability? Is THIS what it's come to? I suppose it is one of the inevitable products of a society that is totally focused on appearance without substance, and instant gratification without earning it.

On the website for US Air Guitar, they actually say that since we Americans have screwed up everything from our war with Iraq to our abominable foreign policy, isn't it great to know that there is at least SOMETHING that we can still do better than everybody else. What's even more embarrassing is that we CAN'T. Apparently we didn't win at last years competition in Finland. But it's bigger than America. This folly is international in scope now. In fact, as in many other areas, we are falling behind! What exactly does it mean to fall behind in a FAKE skill?

Let's get this straight, folks. These people are not actually PLAYING anything. There is no skill. There is no ability. They are PRETENDING. Just like most 12 year old boys do when they are alone in their bedroom. Are we now going to start setting up national competitions for all the OTHER things that 12 year old boys do in their bedrooms when no one is watching? "And here we have Jimmy 'Hands' Miller, showing his mastery of masturbation using his patented two-handed-overdrive method. Nobody does it like Jimmy!"

Seriously now folks - what's next here? I mean if we are having national competitions about this stuff, that implies that there is some sort of learned skill involved, doesn't it? Does this mean that, in true American capitalist style, there will soon be professional air guitar players? People making a living doing this? teachers for this? Will there be schools set up specifically to teach little Johnny to PRETEND to play guitar??
When his mother and father discuss his extra-curricular options with him, does the conversation sound like the following: "Well Johnny, We were thinking that we might send you to guitar lessons, but since you have displayed that you have the attention span of a rabid weasel, we decided not to waste the money on something you clearly have no aptitude for, so instead, we've signed you up for air guitar lessons. That way, you'll look just as cool as those real guitar players, but you don't have to put in all the time and effort to actually learn to play. Also, you'll get through this course a lot quicker since the entire curriculum is covered in about 7 minutes. ...or 21 minutes if you opt for the Prog Rock Extension for extra credit."

Hey listen, if we have air guitar, why not Air Singing? Sure! Why not have some people stand on stage and mouth the words to songs into a pretend microphone! Maybe they can also fake some sincerity as they really put some thought into their sensitive emoting. Actually, I once saw Rowan Atkinson playing air piano, with the tux and the white gloves and the whole bit. It was on the tape of the live performance "Her Majesty's Secret Ball" and it was hilarious. But then it was intended to be funny. It wasn't intended as a serious musical performance!

There are lots of people trying to legitimize this by raising it to the level of an art form. There is even a woman in England who is working on a PhD in Air Guitar. I suppose it's a form of dance, since they are using their bodies, but I think this just goes too far. There has to be a line in the sand somewhere. If we treat this seriously, then how could anyone else in the world take US seriously? Doesn't this make us a laughing stock around the world? Imagine what future historians will think looking back on this period. Or will they just look back on this as the humble beginnings of what has become an established art form by their time?

Some Finnish researchers have even now created a software-and-camera-driven computer system to answer the dreams of air guitarists everywhere. The 'performer' wears special colorful gloves, and then does his thing in front of the camera. The software sees the finger movements captured by the camera and translates that into synthesized guitar sounds. So he wiggles his fingers and out comes the sound of Steve Vai or Eddie Van Halen and hey! - no guitar - or talent - required!

But hold on there Zippy.... What if they play a wrong note? Who is to blame there? The kid who was just wiggling his fingers in the air? The software? The computer? The programmer? Whose talent sucks? Maybe they DO have to teach the kids how to wiggle their fingers in the air to get the right notes to come out. But hey - if that's the case, if they actually have to teach them to do this with any care or precision, then why not just learn to actually PLAY THE GUITAR!!!

Of course that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Val