Caught a bit of a story on National Public Radio this morning about a
Lebanese flute player. He mentioned that traditional Western musicians
measure the music by counting beats, but that the Arabic way is to
remember the pattern. He then "spoke" the patte rn of a song and said,
"that's a four/four beat". I wonder if the difference is substantive?
What can the 'counters' learn from their pattern-minded colleagues and
vice versa? Might it be easier for some children to learn music if they
were exposed to the pattern way? Or offered both to see which engaged
their minds and stirred their hearts? As a former rock vocalist, I recall
that our best drummer learned to play by simply listening to his favorite
albums, and repeating the patterns on his own instrument. I'm not sure
that he even knew what a four/four was. In fact, that's how I learned to s
ing. I still don't read music. It also occurs to me that after 6 years of
studying French in school, I still cannot speak the language...and I was
an "A" student (among the best in the class). However, my Greek professor
used what he called the audio-lingual method and after only one s emester
of Greek I read it almost as well as I read French. As we help our
organizations make the learning transformation, are we connecting with the
'counters' as well as the 'pattern-minded'?