Several years ago, from 2011-2013, I started a program to help musicians learn from each other called Resonate.
Resonate provided enhanced learning through “musical conversation” which is based off of Victor Wooten’s “Music as a Language”
So how did Resonate help musicians “talk” music?
Being a live musician, one thing that was crucial to our songwriting and performances was being able to play together. A group of us were especially passionate about improvised jamming (we all studied Jazz and Blues to some extent). This involved us getting into a room full of instruments and playing until something made sense.
When we improvised, I discovered something interesting: when I started to play, I sometimes felt awkward or out of place in the band, but 100% of the time, towards the end, I felt like I was playing in ways I have never played before. I felt my own skills expanding by the second, and there was no explicit teaching or practicing. It was like we all were absorbing musical knowledge from the air. That’s pretty cool right?
It was around that time I decided to bring this feeling and sense of growth to other musicians, so Resonate was born.
Resonate started small: we set up jam sessions in garages, and sometimes in studio lock outs. As a few more people came, we created a meetup group and started to add a little bit of structure to our sessions. At one point, we were running sessions weekly in the South of Market district of San Francisco and we even held fully-improvised live shows.
One of the most rewarding experiences to see was how musicians were transformed by these sessions. Many of them who arrived had not played with another musician for years, and they were not comfortable at first. But without fail, they all locked in and started feeling at home and giving their absolute best.
Looking back at this, I think that this transformative experience came from setting up a specific environment, with some really simple guidelines:
- There are no mistakes that are wrong
- Celebrate and encourage mistakes, turn them into ‘purpose’
- Surround yourself with others of all levels of musicianship. Teaching and learning are one and the same.
- Listen to yourself through the band.
- Points 1-4 could be wrong, and thats all right!
Now, these core concepts of Resonate live on in the fabric of my current and future work, and I believe it is my purpose to support teams doing anything (not just music) by helping to create environments like this.