Carl, thanks for having me on the show!

You got me to thinking, I wish during the show we could have continued the A/Aflat discussion. You hit on a very important topic, how does the team/band work through a fundamental problem, a team member playing in another key/coding in another place? Are the notes of the player playing in A the wrong notes? Or are all others playing in A flat in the wrong place? How does one determine the proper key for the tune, or is the A flat player trying to lure the others to new ground? Or is he simply misinformed? Does the group chastise and shame him/her. Does the group make an effort to discover the minority player’s thinking. Or is it so close to ship/performance time, that compliance to the thinking and direction of the majority is more important than synthesizing the thinking of the minority member into the behavior of the group overall?

To my thinking, keeping the music/code cool and meaningful while being able to accommodate and learn from mistakes/unexpected behavior is the sign of well adjusted, creative musicians/coders.

I do remember my sax teacher, Duncan Martin telling me not to worry about playing wrong notes. The trick he said is having the ability to turn the wrong note into the right notes.

Then once, I asked Leroy Jenkins of the avante garde jazz group, the Revolutionary Ensemble, if he ever played any wrong notes. The Ensembles music was way out there. He looked at me and said, “Boy, there are no wrong notes!” I was a young college student at the time. Leroy was in his mid-life by then. I think that he was on to something worth thinking about.

Again, thanks for having me on the show. You guys are doing important work! It was a privilege to be part of it for a few hours.

I know you already know that I enjoyed the show, but I wanted to drop you a note here. If you are just some developer reading this in 2 years please download the show and listen to it. It will still be relevent and thought provoking. Developers need some big picture now and then.