Curiosity

2021-01-02

Riding my bike humming Better Off Here by Glen Phillips

I was recently humming a song I love and it occurred to me that the reason I love it, other than the general beat and recording quality, is a tiny part of the chorus. There is a major 2 chord. The verses use a minor 2 repeatedly. Aside from the chord choice, the artist layers an interesting harmony over it. Over the holidays I was playing the song on my guitar and enjoying figuring out this little detail.

It made me think about the fact that the only difference between a musician and a regular person is that a musician is curious why that sounds interesting. A good musician can then turn that into a decent recording or use it as inspiration for some other creative work. But at the center of a musician's desire is to find the right sound to produce a feeling in the listener.

When I think about how to find and motivate engineers, I usually come back to curiosity. A sufficiently curious person will stop at nothing to figure out a problem. They'll get supplies, education, other people---whatever is necessary---to satisfy that curiosity.