z^! Skills 'N' Thrills !^z

So here we are at week 3.

This week I want to have a little look into a few of the skills, listed in last weeks post, in action. Not only are these skills key to being successful in a job but a lot of them apply to other aspects of life.

Firstly lets take a look at communication.

Communication is something people do from the moment they wake up until the moment they go to sleep these days, particularly now with the ever increasing popularity of social networking sites and mobile technology such as calls, texts, Blackberry IM, etc. I'm sure if you were to take away phones or internet access the majority of people would be lost without it. They wouldn't know what to do because of the lack of communication with friends, relatives or colleagues. It almost seems like the convenience of being constantly connected to one another makes a lot of people feel closer. Everyone is just a call/txt/IM away!
 I personally find that sometimes this can have a negative effect. I'm sure everyone has had one of those days where they just wish they didn't have a phone, right? Surely we could just switch the phone off, yeah?! But we as humans seem to have grown dependant on this permanent connection to each other. Facebook is a prime example as you have a status box where you can tell your whole network of friends exactly what you're thinking as soon as you've thought it. I think that being able to share my thoughts is great...but others use it to express idiotic ramblings about how they hate someone, or so and so has been upto this behind my back, etc. are the days of privacy over? I guess what I'm trying to express is that communication is a powerful tool when used correctly. You can have good and BAD communication. From a teaching point of view tools like the internet are a joy! There you can access unlimited numbers of sources and materials, a lot of them free, which you can use and share or even add to yourself! This is great, it can save a lot of time writing out notation or TAB for guitarists/bassists when someone else has already done it. You can provide your own social network page or website for your students so that they can contact you with any queries, you can post homework assignments, keep them informed with current musical events, anything! Look at all the online learning that you can undergo today. This is the true beauty of communication. It just depends on how you choose to use it.


Secondly lets take a look into team work.

Team work is an essential in life. If one part of the machine fails to operate correctly then the whole machine fails to operate correctly. Looking into the work that I've done so far within bands at college the overall team work that I have experienced has been very positive! Various tasks have been set including learning covers, writing original material and covering stagecraft. One of the hardest tasks was simply agreeing on which songs to play as everyone had varied taste in music. This ties back in to communication in a sense as we used our communication skills to narrow down our choices without one person being left unhappy. For some people the genre that had been set was not to their liking or perhaps not the best suited to their abilities. They may have found some aspects of writing a song difficult, for example a 'Blues' song, simply because they knew very little about 'Blues' or don't have much experience in composing, whereas another band member may have found that composing is an area where their strengths lie. One situation that occurred when looking into stagecraft was that some band members feel more at home on the stage performing than others do. It wasn't until looking back at the video footage of the performance that we realised how noticeable this was to the audience and it doesn't reflect well on the band, especially if you play well but stand around like a bunch of stiffs! All it took to help our situation was a little coaxing, a little more practise at movements on stage and 'voila' after the next performance we looked back and thought 'yes, that's more like it!'.
 Essentially in band work you may not be good at everything and if you can see that someone has difficulty within an area i.e drummers writing a song, then lend a hand. Even a little reassurance from you can be enough to boost confidence in an individuals abilities and a lot of time it is confidence that is lacking.


And lastly lets have a quick look at flexibility and adaptability.

As you are already aware I have had experience as a guitar/bass instructor already. Being flexible and the ability to adapt are certainly beneficial to everyone. I would have students in for lessons that would last only 30 minutes so every half an hour you would have to adapt to the next student and their needs. For example I could have been teaching a young, beginner bass player followed by a 60 year old with an acoustic guitar that wanted to do nothing more than play songs by The Eagles, followed on by an advanced electric guitarist that was working on improvisational skills. It was very demanding! In order for everything to run smoothly you had to be very organised and there were days where things didn't run so smoothly!
 Every students lesson was based on a weekly basis and eventually I worked my way up to a full schedule of nearly 40 students at one point. The difficulty came more than once when somebody took up a new hobby or some form of extra-curricular activity and suddenly their allocated time slot was no longer any good to them. Trying to find another suitable time slot involved juggling around a few other bodies so that everyone was happy but it was easier said than done most of the time. There are a lot of people, especially the ones still at school, that have a LOT of hobbies.



So there we have it. One thing that I try to keep in mind when thinking about these skills and others is that a lot of them can be closely linked to one another i.e. bad communication skills could have a negative effect on team work so it is important to improve in all your skills whether it be work related or not.

Remember there is no I in TEAM...u may be thinking yes but there is a ME. Well if that's how you think just make sure that the ME counts and that the ME is a team player.



Until next time...
YOU STAY CLASSY SAN DIEGO!!!


Bob