Let me quantify this title above. Musicians have empathy and compassion. They feel, they put mind, body, hands, skills to task, and more often than not, they learn to play music composed by others, so they carry out an intention. Perhaps from another time. Or from Yesterday. A classical musician might learn & play a Bach piece or Beethoven, a bluegrass guitarist might learn and play a Bill Monroe piece, or a pop singer might learn and play a Laura Nyro composition and a jazz musician might learn & play a Duke Ellington piece. All these musicians understood leadership. They left their legacy. Others step in their footsteps. They will decide and determine as they walk or run or skip their paths and find their way, whether the music will be able to provide and sustain a living, the income they desire, the emotional support they need, or whether the music becomes a hobby or they drop it completely. I have known musicians to do all 3. When they decide to move to another field, another way to embrace life and sustain a living, they enter the field with a passion and a drive that creates competition within themselves to succeed “here” if not “there.” They come into the workplace with the same empathy and compassion they had when they played the guitar, the piano, the sax, the banjo, the voice. And these people, these wide-minded, charismatically expressive individuals, make great leaders. I see on LinkedIn many musicians have moved to other industries and they are CFOs, CEOs, heads of marketing, company owners, tech masters, and this is perhaps why and how I quantify my title, my thoughts today. I wish a few world leaders, right about now, had the empathy and compassion needed to be truly great leaders. Destruction, chaos, threats, diminishing & dismissing others, can only lead to tyranny. What would a composition sound like, if it were titled, Tyranny? What musician would learn it & play it and continue to give it life? Not I.
We have all witnessed, either in person or through social media, the recent devastation brought about by Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. I was moved on many levels: as an American, as a citizen of the world and as a musician. With dramatic climate changes bringing about ever-more catastrophic weather events, I know we all agree nature must at last be soothed and celebrated, not exploited.
DENISE MARSA 