Are you tired of it all? Are you increasingly annoyed hearing our elected lawmakers bickering, whining, and yelling at each other? Have they forgotten that to make a democracy work? The governing body must cooperate and collaborate to craft laws that we can all live with.
Each year we hope Congress will come to its senses and work together with respect and dignity. Instead, the American public is again embarrassed by the name calling and immature bullying of our elected officials.
What can be done to make things better? Should we plan some kind of intervention to teach everyone to behave and “act their age”?
Like most of you, I have thought long and hard about this problem. But recently I came up with the silver bullet – the perfect way to get those obstinate, stubborn, and self-centered people to work together.
The flash of revelation came to me while attending two concerts recently – one was a classical chamber group and the other was a seven-piece jazz band.
Neither group had a leader, but they both shared a mission - to play the best and most beautiful music they could.
The players were dedicated to one goal: the success of the overall performance of the music rather than drawing attention to how great they were playing individually.
You get a better understanding of how this works with a small group rather than a 100-piece band or orchestra. Watching a small group perform allows you to see how they interact and communicate. The flashing of eyes, the glancing around, and the satisfied looks when someone else in the ensemble just played something wonderful.
The role of a musician is to first understand how the group wants to interpret (a shared decision) the music; the style, the feeling, the blend, etc.
Then the communication begins. Each person must listen intently to what everyone else is doing and how they can merge seamlessly. Sometimes an individual will take a solo for a few moments, and it is then when the musician can really display his personal interpretation of the music. It’s more obvious in a jazz band than in chamber music.
And here’s the good part. All the other musicians become the humble servants to the soloist’s music making. They are there for the express purpose of making the soloist sound good. Their total goal is to make the music of the entire group sound great. The personal ego goes through a transformation.
There is great nuance to this activity. The listener will hear the musical lines of each instrument flowing back and forth and in and around each other like the waves of water swishing around your legs when walking in the lake. The intensity of the communication between the musicians is palpable and they are all concentrating on making this difficult music-making work.
So, let’s get back to that flash of revelation I had. Watching these two groups perform I was reminded of the constant flow of musical communication and how the personal ego of the musicians was there only for creation of this music.
Why not use that concept in any format for of people working together toward a larger goal? Can’t congress understand that they are working in service towards helping the country, just as musicians are working together the service of music?
The way to achieve that, of course, is to train the Congress as we would train a junior high school band.
Here it goes: Let’s organize a band made up of senators and members of congress. I am sure most lawmakers play some kind of musical instrument. I remember President Clinton donning sunglasses and playing his tenor saxophone on The Late Show.
If the politicians don’t know much about music, no problem. Purchase some instruments (and have group classes teaching them to play together.
The name of group will be The US Congress Community Concert Band. I’ll even volunteer to conduct them for free, but I am sure there are many others far more qualified. The blowhards you hear bellowing in the halls of Congress could find a tuba to better direct their hot air.
When people get together to play music, politics and other sources of discord usually melt away. People are concentrating so much on getting the notes right and blending together, that petty opinions get lost in the shuffle.
I play in an 80-piece community band and I have no idea what the politics are of my fellow musicians.
I guarantee you that if the Congress played music together for one hour per day and played concerts for the public four times a year, we’d live in a happier country with a better set of laws. If the Congressional band is too large, break it into the Senate Chamber Winds, and the House Symphonic Band.
Comedian (and musician) Seve Martin once said that when you played banjo, you had to smile. It was smiling music. When the town officials were chasing Harold Hill in the “The Music Man”, he simply turned them into a barbershop quartet, and they forgot about the chase and were always singing together.
If the US Congress Community Concert Band played concerts, I would fly to Washington to see them perform or, even better, have them set up a concert tour throughout America. It would be standing room only.
