{"id":4540,"date":"2016-06-22T02:00:51","date_gmt":"2016-06-22T06:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=4540"},"modified":"2016-06-20T13:32:28","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T17:32:28","slug":"what-you-can-leave-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/06\/what-you-can-leave-out\/","title":{"rendered":"What You Can Leave Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JazzPianoHands\"In April I attended the Charlotte Jazz Festival (a new festival with a considerable amount of promise). On the first evening I heard an ensemble performance in which the pianist doubled on harmonica. In a particularly lively number he would frequently have to move back and forth between the two instruments. On one occasion he had considerable difficulty getting the harmonica out of his hand so he could attend, with both hands, to the demands of the piano part. While extricating himself from the harmonica he did what all good jazz pianists do, played the essential notes with his other hand until both were available. This is not particularly unusual, especially in jazz piano. What made it stand out in my mind was that he was clearly not prepared for the extra difficulty he was having. Nevertheless, he made it work for the ensemble and I doubt if many who could not see his hands knew what was going on.<\/p>\n

Knowing what’s essential as opposed to valuable or even “nice” is a critical skill in jazz. While I am a deep lover of jazz, lack of this ability is one of the things that kept me from being a better than marginally adequate trumpeter all those years ago. I was hopelessly glued to the score in front of me.<\/p>\n

Organizational function often demands spontaneous improvisation in the face of change or unforeseen emergencies. At such moments, an awareness of what’s essential\u2013what the fundamental priorities are\u2013will guide decisions about what to keep after and what to let go (temporarily) and keep things afloat. Doing so demands planning ahead of time to identify what must<\/em> be done. The to-do list is not an undifferentiated whole. All planning should include identification of the one, two, or three things that are non-optional. Moments of crisis also demand the ability to let things slide temporarily while keeping the music going. And, of course, if the temporary becomes the long-term, it’s time to go back to the planning drawing board.<\/p>\n

Engage!<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n

Photo:\"Attribution\"\"Noncommercial\"<\/a><\/span> Some rights reserved<\/a> by Bsivad<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What You Can Leave Out: Identifying the essential<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"What You Can Leave Out: Identifying the essential","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[38],"class_list":{"0":"post-4540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-overview","8":"tag-management","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/JazzPianoHands.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-1be","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4543,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/06\/what-can-be-left-out\/","url_meta":{"origin":4540,"position":0},"title":"What Can Be Left Out","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"June 29, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"What Can Be Left Out: Making the arts non-dispensable","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"JazzPianoHands","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/JazzPianoHands.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4918,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/05\/connecting\/","url_meta":{"origin":4540,"position":1},"title":"Connecting","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"There are only a few people who would be \"all in\" for 40 minutes of jazz based on 1920's idioms. A composer's oral program notes provided the rest access to appreciating the music.","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/CharlotteJazzFest2017Logo-e1493139613891.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3106,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/08\/why-we-do-it\/","url_meta":{"origin":4540,"position":2},"title":"Why We Do It","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"August 28, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I love Chicago. I love jazz. I love jazz clubs in Chicago; and one of my favorites is Andy's, a place my wife and I discovered because it has a show that begins before my bedtime. (Being a jazz lover and not being a night owl creates some real challenges\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"JimmyEllisAtAndys-Seated","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/08\/JimmyEllisAtAndys-Seated-184x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4921,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2017\/05\/totally-irresistibly-captivating\/","url_meta":{"origin":4540,"position":3},"title":"Totally, Irresistibly Captivating","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"May 17, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Are we willing to do what it takes to allow people to come to love our work as much as we do by expending the energy required to make what we do irresistible?","rel":"","context":"In "The Practice of Engagement"","block_context":{"text":"The Practice of Engagement","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/the-practice-of-engagement\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/SammyMillerCongregation.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2433,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2013\/01\/ttrash-project\/","url_meta":{"origin":4540,"position":4},"title":"The Trash Project","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"January 19, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=h6ZBlYdyoeQ One of the joys of all the traveling and speaking I am undertaking is the opportunity to find out about cool examples of engagement work going on around the country. I am going to Austin for the Texas Commission on the Arts & Texans for the Arts conference, Strategies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Examples"","block_context":{"text":"Examples","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/examples\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/img.youtube.com\/vi\/h6ZBlYdyoeQ\/0.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1318,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2012\/03\/not-el-sistema\/","url_meta":{"origin":4540,"position":5},"title":"Not (Exactly) about El Sistema","author":"Doug Borwick","date":"March 10, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"El Sistema seems to be everywhere these days. The Venezuelan musical and music education phenomenon has recently been featured in at least three NY Times articles plus a video feature. I am guilty of fanning the flames (in my very small way) by having written about the group several times.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Principles"","block_context":{"text":"Principles","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/category\/principles\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4540"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4542,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4540\/revisions\/4542"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}