Last night, my wife and I went to see the band Los Lobos in concert at a small outdoor arena in our town of Northampton, Massachusetts. They were energetic, playful and brimming with great musical ideas.
What struck me is this — The opening band was The Mammals and they pulled up a few band members from another band called The Ducks on the stage to join them for a few songs (and playfully referred to themselves as The Platypus — get it? Duck-billed mammals?). Then, when Los Lobos hit the stage, they pulled up the violin player from The Mammals for the opening song. And this is common for many bands to do — grab an up and coming musician and give them the experience of a larger stage.
So, I was thinking, that as Susan B. and I work on our NWP Monograph Project about the site structure of the Western Massachusetts Writing Project, one theme that keeps coming up is how one program leader will ask someone new to partner with them on a project, and then pass the baton to the new person, who them repeats the process. Just like Los Lobos and The Mammals did on stage last night.
The power of that system is that it works like an expert-apprentice relationship and creates strong bonds for someone new to experiment in a safe environment. Kind of cool to think of WMWP along the same lines as Los Lobos.
Rock on!
Kevin