Unlock the “virtuosity” in your innovative thinking!

John Cramer is a new client that is now a certified Innovation Styles® practitioner. During the certification process we ask candidates to share a story that would exemplify each of the 4 styles (Visioning, Modifying, Experimenting and Exploring). We encourage them to develop stories that relate to their unique strengths as a consultant and stories they would enjoy sharing with their clients.

As we read John’s stories, we were mesmerized by the depth and breath of his understanding of the 4 styles and most importantly, his ability to tell exquisite stories that relate to his specialty. John is a unique and talented consultant who enables clients to “Unlock Virtuosity.”

John began his professional life as a musician in Germany performing as a concertmaster with the Giessener Stadttheater. After returning to the USA and starting his business career decades ago, John learned that to deliver a virtuoso performance requires structure, spontaneity, and discipline. He understood that virtuosity calls for us to work in the space between honoring rules and traditions, taking novel and acceptable risks, and executing with a high degree of skill. 

Notice how beautifully John uses musical composition examples from classical music to describe each of the 4 styles. Despite our years of experience with the styles, we learned something new as we immersed ourselves in each of John’s stories!

VISIONING STYLE (Envisioning an ideal future)

Richard Wagner’s four opera cycle, “The Ring of the Nibelungen” is an example of the Visioning style. Wagner created a world that had not existed before. This required a new art form he called “Gesamtkunstwerk” (“Total Artwork”) which was a combination of music, art, and theater. In order to perform his Ring cycle, he needed a theater he designed and built himself featuring new innovations that did not exist before (larger stage, a recessed orchestra pit which was positioned lower, deeper in the ground and halfway under the stage so that a larger orchestra with specialized wind and percussion instruments could perform at full volume without overpowering the singers on stage).

Although the storyline was based on ancient Norse mythology, Wagner needed to create new musical forms and compositional techniques to create the otherworldly, atmospheric mood and support the characters and plot line. He invented the “Leitmotiv,” (“leading motive”) a signature short musical phrase or chord progression used to symbolize characters and events. Wagner also wrote the libretto himself instead of following the more customary tradition of collaborating with a librettist, who was specialized in writing the words and storyline for an opera.

Wagner stretched the scale of the typical duration of an opera performance, which is typically 3-4 hours. The fourth opera in the cycle, “Die Goetterdaemmerung” (Twilight of the Gods) is over 5 hours long. The elongated musical score and deliberately slower pace of the storyline created an experience never before realized by audience goers. The total effect of the experience was intoxicating, as if drug inducing.  All of the musical, artistic, theatrical, architectural, and aesthetic innovations Wagner created were the steppingstones needed to realize his grand vision. His Ring cycle forever changed the world of opera. 

MODIFYING (Refining and optimizing what has come before)

A favorite music compositional form in classical music is Theme and Variations. Many composers stretching from the Baroque period to the Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods have used this musical form to show off their innovative skill and artistry. The typical formula starts with the statement of the theme, usually in a simple, plain, and unadorned manner. Then the variations follow. Each variation plays with an aspect of the theme.

For example, the melodic line could be modified by inverting it (switching the direction of the notes in a sequence by going up or down in the opposite direction), or stating the melody backwards starting with the ending note and ending with the beginning note (retrograde), or by interpolating other notes or phrases in between the thematic melody to create an altered, more elaborated melody, sometimes so altered the melody is barely recognizable.

Other variations might focus on changing the harmonies and the chordal progression supporting the melody. Still other innovations could be made by making the tempo faster or slower and changing the pulse from every 4 beats to every 3 beats or vice versa. Still other variations could play on changing the mood of the melody from light, airy, and happy to slow, dark, and sinister.

An extraordinary example of a theme and variations can be found in the 1954 opera, “Turn of the Screw” written by the English composer Benjamin Britten. The opera is structured with a prologue followed by 15 short scenes and interludes. The interludes are specifically orchestral and are variations of a twelve-note theme heard in the prologue. 

EXPERIMENTING (Combining and testing many variables and options)

When I was studying music in college, I had the opportunity to perform in a concert featuring the distinguished composer and conductor, Gunther Schuller. He coined the term “Third Stream” to describe music that attempts to mix jazz with classical concert hall music. Jazz caught the ear of many composers in the early 20^th century, and soon Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky and others began to put elements of American ragtime and jazz into their music.

Third Stream music was an experiment which survived several decades in the late 20^th century before losing its appeal. A vital component of third stream was improvisation. Schuller was the main proponent of third stream. Critics from both sides of third stream objected to tainting their favorite music. Jazz musicians were especially vocal in their objections who felt such efforts were an assault to their traditions. The fusion of the two musical genres was argued by many as diluting the power of each style in combining them. Fans of third stream, however, rejected such notions and considered third stream an interesting musical development.  Because third stream draws on classical as much as jazz, it is usually required that composers and performers be proficient in both genres.

EXPLORING (Discovering new and novel possibilities)

John Cage (1912-1992) was an American experimental composer. One of his most well-known contrarian pieces is called, 4’33” (“Four Minutes and 33 Seconds”), a three-movement composition, for any instrument or combination of instruments. Cage’s score calls for the musicians to refrain from playing their instruments for the entire 4’33”. The entire performance is focused on the sounds of the environment that the listeners hear during that time (ambient noises in the room, such as people breathing, coughing or sneezing, feet shuffling, throats clearing, air blowing out of air vents, etc.).

Cage was exploring the concept that any sound may constitute music. Because the performers do not actually play their instruments, each performance is unique in that the music one hears comes from the ambient noises of the environment. The piece is controversial, because it challenges the most deeply held paradigms of classical music performance. It breaks away from structure, by focusing on uninterrupted silence instead of sound production. But, the irony Cage was attempting to demonstrate with 4’33” was that total silence does not really exist. The performance comes alive through the “music” of the environment and the sounds of one’s own breath and heartbeat. And since these ambient sounds are produced spontaneously in real time, each performance is uniquely different. No two are ever the same.

Cage’s exploring innovative style asks many questions, challenging our assumptions about music, performance, and creative, artistic expression. I can’t think of a more suitable example of the exploring innovation style than John Cage and his composition, 4’33”.   

Learn more about John Cramer and his unique ability to unlock virtuosity in organizations.