A BrownWhörnet Surprise

How a life on the fringes of the music industry made me the freelance software developer that I am.

Lessons for the business world from the world of broken dreams.








A BrownWhörnet Surprise

Here's a little practice space game a member of Brown Whörnet taught me that ought to keep those creative juices flowing just when you think the well is running dry.

Supplies:

• Four Hats



• Scrap Paper



• Pens



• Musical Instruments



• Musicians



• Recording equipment (optional)

To Begin:

Give each musician four pieces of scrap paper and a pen. Each musician then writes down the name of her instrument (e.g. guitar, Imzad, humanatone) on one piece of paper; his name on another piece of paper; a musical genre (nomadic blues, contemporary gospel, new wave of British heavy metal) on another piece of paper; and finally a theme (big money , loose women, the current state of live theater) on the fourth piece of paper.

These scraps of paper are then put into their respective hats. Each musician then draws from the instrument hat to find her instrument for the first round. Then a musician's name is drawn from the musicians' name hat. That musician becomes the conductor/producer of the first round. He then draws one paper from the genre hat and one from the theme hat.

Voila!

The game begins and the band now has fifteen minutes to organize and play/record a piece.

The conductor can choose to quickly write a song or otherwise dictate how the piece will come about. It's really up to her. (I've seen everything from quickly scribbled musical notation to telling the players what color they are to play).

It's a lot of fun! You'll be surprised what you take away from this experience. You might even learn how to play an Imzad!

Now how will you incorporate this fun creative game into your freelance software development teamwork? How do you apply this experience to your job!?

You tell me! I have no clue!!!

Damn I wish I was playing the Brownwhornet Practice Space Game right now instead of writing this SQL script. (Life really does sucks all the fun out of life)