General Session -- Ideas aren't that hard
What does one of the most revered classical composers in the 18th century have in common with an obscure (at least to most mainstream music fans) blues musician from Vicksburg, Mississippi?
As today’s Great Ideas opening general session speaker Bruce Turkel says, they used the same seven notes in their compositions—the only seven notes.
He was referring to Johann Sebastian Bach and Sonny Boy Williamson. The point of the comparison, and the point of his whole presentation, really, is that ideas aren’t hard and they aren’t new.
People think coming up with an idea is hard because they think it’s coming up with something entirely from scratch. The point of the musicians is, it’s not about coming up with something entirely new, it’s taking old stuff (seven notes) and combining them in new ways to create something new.
His session, aside from making me think of a bad Bruce Willis concert (sorry, you had to be there, then you would have been part of the first ever Great Ideas Great Harmonica Rock Band), made me think back to a whole bunch of articles I’ve been a part of through the years. Tonight I hope to have time to go back and find some do a post on these articles that have formed my ideas about, well, ideas.
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