
What Software Can Learn from Bluegrass - mtmosestn
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/309530
======
geebee
Bluegrass is a music style originating in Appalachia from the Irish, Scottish,
and English influences of the area...

Also, heavy African American influences - a lot of music historians source the
banjo to Africa, and African American string bands were very common and were a
big influence on bluegrass and what we call "old time". If you're into
bluegrass and old time, check out the Mississippi Sheiks. For something more
current, the Carolina Chocolate Drops are pretty awesome.

Oh one other thing (man, really don't mean to seem too critical here),
imperfection is _very_ tolerated in a bluegrass group ;) You don't have to
pass on a solo if you're worried you'll make a mistake, go for it. Better to
go for it than hold back too much.

Just don't play over other people, be cool, listen a bit. You should have a
basic competence, if not, probably practice a bit more and join a beginner or
slow jam for a bit. But especially in a casual jam, seriously, take your
break, it's cool.

~~~
stcredzero
_(man, really don 't mean to seem too critical here)_

I don't think we should give this article a complete pass. I think the author
is using something the target audience thinks is cool but knows little about
to make assertions for his favored development ideology. Also, I think a more
detailed and nuanced analysis is instructive.

From the article: _Studies show teams in which members have an equal voice and
a chance to be heard perform far better._

That's not the complete story of how Bluegrass and Old-Time sessions work, in
my understanding, at least not all of them. There is often a leader, ranking
highest in some combination of talent and age, agreed upon tacitly, who gets
to tell people when to take a solo. Irish sessions often work somewhat like
this, with the leader telling people to start a tune instead of take a solo.
Such leaders can establish a feeling or a culture for the group.

 _As in jazz, bluegrass music often contains unplanned elements. Because the
musicians are experts at their discipline, they can quickly make alterations
to the song while it is being played._

This can even happen in Irish music. However, most often there is a corpus of
well known tunes and a structure worked out ahead of time. This also goes for
Bluegrass and Jazz. In my experience, whether or not unplanned elements work
has more to do with the expertise of the players and their relationships with
each other than anything else. I think that is the most valuable takeaway from
this analogy. It's not enough that everyone has a chance to be heard. There
needs to be a culture of people who are collectively motivated to create
something great together who are tuned into a mutual give and take. Sessions
can also break down into unproductive competition.

~~~
geebee
Irish music is tough that way. I play a bit of bluegrass and Irish, but I find
it easier to join a bluegrass jam. You do need to learn to improvise for
bluegrass, but once you can (and you can follow the chord changes), you can
improvise during a break and, especially, play backup. Jazz musicians can also
do this with chord charts, as long as someone knows the lead.

Irish music is both easier and harder in this regard. You can get away with
not improvising at all, but I find the tunes are complex, played in unison,
and often at high speeds. There's no moment where all eyes are on you and you
have to improvise, but there's nowhere to hide if you don't know the tune,
either. Adding additional challenge is the minor variances in tunes that occur
between regions and jam sessions. You really do need to build up a very
substantial repertoire of music to be able to drop into an Irish jam and be
able to play along for most of the session.

(Yeah, I know, I'm responding to a minor point, and going off on a tangent, I
just like the subject).

~~~
stcredzero
_Jazz musicians can also do this with chord charts, as long as someone knows
the lead._

In one session I used to play in, there was a player who could play any Irish
tune after listening to it just one time through, so long as someone else kept
playing it.

There's an Irish flute player in the Bay Area who I love playing with and
listening to. He's 100% variations all of the time, all the way through, but
he does it right and everything fits.

 _Adding additional challenge is the minor variances in tunes that occur
between regions and jam sessions._

TBH, many North American players just fluff those. Often, it falls to more
capable players to match up to the others.

------
the_cat_kittles
this is an analogy that is worthy of discussion, but i dont think this
discussion really touches on some key things. the first is that in bluegrass,
like gypsy jazz, the idea of jams are central. jams are informal gatherings
where people come and go and play tunes together. they are often damn fun,
which is really the reason they exist. some jams are more novice, others are
more advanced, but in general you are expected to be welcoming, or at the very
least not mean. and this is how people are able to start to learn the style.
they are able to sit right next to people who are much better than them and
learn. this is the best way to learn this kind of music, to be right next to
someone who is doing the things you want to do.

the jams also serve a second purpose which is that they are a pretty good way
of communicating everyone's musical skills to each other. it doesn't tell you
everything about a musician, but its a good gauge of overall maturity,
interests, and sound. this means that likeminded musicians find each other
quickly. festivals are interesting to watch, because you see that by the end
of 4 days or so, people have often created informal jam groups that are quasi
bands at that point.

tech meetups seem to be a really shitty quasi jam. open source projects seem
to be a better format, and though i havent really been part of it, demoscene,
defcon, chiptunes, infosec... strike me as communities that are a little more
mature about the whole thing. i dont know them well enough, but i get the vibe
anyway. they seem to have stronger sense of community.

i think that really good software teams are almost certainly the product of
something resembling a jamming environment. the key is that all the members of
the team have independently decided that they respect all the other members
and want to be on the team with them. i think this is not fully understood and
institutionalized in software management practices. i think that now the focus
is too much on "here is the problem we want to solve, lets find the people
that are skilled in this area". i guess im saying that good teams will create
themselves and management is kind of a crutch. i get that there are real world
constraints etc blah blah. but sometimes i wonder about this: money does not
help creating good music, and i kind of think that might be more true of
software than we think too.

~~~
geebee
<money does not help creating good music, and i kind of think that might be
more true of software than we think too.>

Wow, yeah, I agree. I think this is such a misunderstood aspect of software. A
lot of institutions seem to think it's like biotech, where a huge investment
in gleaming buildings and dedicated lab space will make all the difference.

I'm old enough (and grew up in SF) to remember when software development was
not the monied, gentrifying cultural enemy it's often made out to be nowadays,
but a creative pursuit that naturally took place in funky, artistic
neighborhoods, for the same reasons everyone else was there. It was the right
environment for this sort of activity.

Money does of course help for software development in that you do need to
live, and it takes a lot of time. I read this interesting quote about the
Galapagos project (an arts collective moving from NY to Detroit)[1]: "You
can’t paint at night in your kitchen and hope to be a good artist. It doesn’t
work that way."

Now, counter examples abound, I am sure of that. And most creative folks do
need to do something to make ends meet. But in the end, if paying the rent
means you have to be drained from a corporate job by the end of the day, it
does make it harder to create good music, art, and yeah, software. This is one
reason I have to wonder if SF can continue to be the locale where this sort of
creativity, including even software, will come from in the future.

[1] [https://www.galapagosdetroit.com](https://www.galapagosdetroit.com)

~~~
the_cat_kittles
yes, i think its a good point you bring up. having some money affords you more
time to work on art. but i think that it doesnt work beyond that- i.e.
offering big monetary rewards does not improve the music. at some point, the
incentives of money and music will always misalign, and so the person who
cares more about music will create something better. i kind of think of money
as a constraining force, not an inspiring one- the less you have to think
about it the better.

------
zwieback
_Bluegrass is played swiftly and to perfection._

Not sure I agree. Lots of Bluegrass players, even the some of the best ones,
favor speed over clean execution. Maybe another commonality with SW
development.

~~~
stcredzero
_Lots of Bluegrass players, even the some of the best ones, favor speed over
clean execution._

I don't know if it's still a thing, but I've met lots of Bay Area
20-somethings who seem to try and impress you with how many keystrokes a
minute they can pull off in front of you, regardless of how it helps or hurts
communication about what they are doing. It's as if they're enacting a TV
drama image of what a hacker is supposed to be like.

------
wizardforhire
There's a great film that came out last year about the Japanese bluegrass
scene. If you're like me and have had no interest in bluegrass this is an
endearing introduction which really illustrates some of the deeper points of
the culture from an unlikely source.

[http://www.farwesternmovie.com](http://www.farwesternmovie.com)

------
gnat
For all the reasons listed by the other commenters, this is not a great
article about bluegrass or software development.

There are some parallels, though. Bluegrass music was primarily a male-
dominated genre, but that is changing. Early pioneers like Lynn Morris, Hazel
Dickens, etc. opened the door, Rhonda Vincent and Alison Krauss pushed it
open, and Molly Tuttle, Sierra Hull, and Sarah Jarosz have come through.
There's little doubt in mainstream bluegrass now that women can be spectacular
(Molly just won IBMA Guitar Player of the Year), though there are plenty of
conservative pockets left and even prominent successful women still encounter
sexist attitudes and behaviour.

Another is the presence of a thriving indie subculture. There are thousands of
small bands achieving modest regional amounts of success. Two examples from
tech: Clive Thompson plays in the Brooklyn 80s covers band The Delorean
Sisters [http://www.deloreansisters.com/](http://www.deloreansisters.com/) and
I play in the New Zealand progressive bluegrass band The Pipi Pickers
[http://pipipickers.com](http://pipipickers.com) . There are plenty of side
projects of software developers, small pet projects that will never be "the
next Linux" but which achieve a modest following and serve the purpose of
being intellectual stimulation for the developer. The jump from hobbyist to
professional is a big one, though bluegrass lacks the paychecks in tech. "Get
good at it, and you can make literally tens of dollars playing bluegrass."

My favourite comparison though is the headspace of developers and musicians.
Both struggle to explain their inner processes, both crave flow state, both
need a lot of practice and competence to reach that stage. Part of me suspects
that a 10x developer, if such a beast exists, is mostly a function of having
absorbed the language/framework/os so deeply that they aren't constantly
losing flow state by hitting StackOverflow. Similarly, to play in the pocket
and improvise fluidly requires hours of practice and the internalising of the
physical actions required to make a given sound. Anyone trying to figure out
on the fly where a D note is, is not in that flow state.

Neither seems at risk of being automated away. Deep Learning is making inroads
into styles and genres (e.g.,
[https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00887](https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.00887)) but
little sounds like it could replace musicians and composers any time soon. And
while deep learning systems are being used to tune deep learning systems,
we're still far away from software being generated from problem descriptions
or specifications. (Please throw links at me if I'm wrong!)

~~~
gnat
re $$$, I recently spoke to a musician in a nationally-known touring bluegrass
band, winner of IBMA awards. He's making $20k/y, $30k on a good year. He's
homeless, couchsurfing with friends and playing gigs outside the band when the
band isn't touring. I was surprised and shocked, as I suspect many of the
band's fans would be to hear that.

