{"id":4543,"date":"2016-06-29T02:00:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-29T06:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/?p=4543"},"modified":"2016-06-27T15:49:31","modified_gmt":"2016-06-27T19:49:31","slug":"what-can-be-left-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/2016\/06\/what-can-be-left-out\/","title":{"rendered":"What Can Be Left Out"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JazzPianoHands\"Last time I commented on an experience I’d had at the Charlotte Jazz Festival. (What You Can Leave Out<\/a>) I observed a pianist doubling on harmonica who on one occasion had considerable difficulty getting the harmonica out of his hand so he could get both hands on 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. Nevertheless, he made it work seamlessly for the ensemble and the audience.<\/p>\n

My point last week was about planning and about understanding the essential work of your organization. This time I’m focusing on my call for arts organizations to become indispensable. From the perspective of individuals who are not true believers in the arts or communities faced with competing needs and interests coupled with limited resources, we cannot afford to be “what can be left out.”<\/p>\n

I always acknowledge that the arts are <\/em>indispensable. However, in practical terms, if that indispensability is not apparent to those for whom it is important for us to be<\/em> indispensable, we are not, in any way that matters, indispensable.<\/p>\n

Now that sentence was intentionally convoluted. Here’s the point: if we have to tell people that we are important, that we are essential, to them\u2013again by any practical measure\u2013we’re really not.<\/p>\n

To avoid the fate of dispensability, we must do things that make us matter to people. And to do that<\/em> we have to know them well enough to know what’s important to them. That comes from relationship building, from engaging<\/em> with them.<\/p>\n

Engage!<\/p>\n

Doug<\/p>\n

Photo:\"Attribution\"\"Noncommercial\"<\/a><\/span> Some rights reserved by Bsivad<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Engaging Matters will be taking the week of July 4 off. Happy Holiday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What Can Be Left Out: Making the arts non-dispensable<\/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_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"What Can Be Left Out: Making the arts non-dispensable","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},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,13,39],"class_list":["post-4543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-principles","tag-arts","tag-community-engagement","tag-relationships","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1G6h9-1bh","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/JazzPianoHands.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543","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=4543"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4593,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4543\/revisions\/4593"}],"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=4543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/engage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}