When I stepped out of the rather extreme cultural silo of playing in a professional orchestra, and started to interact as a guest speaker with people in the mysterious world of nine to five jobs, one of the first things I ran into was a managerial concept referred to as “Toyota Lean.”
This struck me as rather exotic and mysterious at first, but when I actually read up on the subject, well, it was déjà vu all over again. It did not strike me as anything new. Toyota Lean efficiency techniques are old hat in Symphony Hall.
Just to give you an example, in practicing any instrument, one of the primary goals is to develop as much speed and accuracy as is humanly possible. To achieve this, one does not simply “practice.” One must go through something called “the priesthood of fundamentals.” Basically, no matter how much talent you have, and no matter what your technical capability was previously, if you are serious about being the absolute best you can be, you go sit in a practice room all by yourself for hours on end, and you slowly (and I do mean slowly) analyze every single motion and movement you are making for each and every single note you play, and you systematically eliminate all extraneous motion. If you ever find yourself making a mistake, you don’t do a “quick patch” and get back to the fun of playing. You recognize this as an indication of a systemic flaw, and back to the practice room you go, ripping everything apart down to its most fundamental motions. And you repeat and repeat and repeat the new motion until the old habit is eradicated, and the new efficient motion is second nature.
This is a huge up front investment of time and effort (typically, a minimum of 700 hours), but once you do it, it provides a foundation for the rest of your life. I actually did a double version of this, over 1500 hours of it, and once I put myself through that, other than keeping my calluses in shape, I never had to practice again. You should’ve seen me play, my left hand was like one of those old IBM typewriter balls, faster than the eye could follow it. In tune, too.
A lot of people think that musicians can play at high speed because they have “talent.” Talent is helpful, but I know of no professional player who did not, at some point or another, delve deeply into the priesthood of fundamentals and eliminate excess motion.
Now this next element has to do with efficiency of energy management. I say energy, but it is done via management of time.
In Boston Pops rehearsals, we never rehearsed in “program order.” Different pieces of music required different numbers of players, so we always started with the piece that involve the most people. Once that piece was over and done with, anyone who was not involved in the rest of the program was excused. They were getting paid the same as everyone who stayed, but there was no reason to keep them there. Doing so would just burn up their energy, taking it away from their energy level at the show, plus their boredom would lead to their causing trouble. Go home.
For those who stayed, well, it was a study in efficiency. Professional musicians spend their entire lives measuring time in microscopic increments, so wasting time, even a few seconds, immediately breeds contempt in this culture. This is because wasting time inevitably wastes energy, and this means the performance will not be as good.
In Symphony Hall, there is a big clock on the stage, to remind the conductor of just how much time was left in a rehearsal. Going overtime, in either a rehearsal or a show, was so expensive that it was viewed as a crime against humanity. No mercy was shown any guest conductor who did not manage their time well. In rehearsals, no matter how much more needed to be done, at one o’clock, the personnel manager waved his arms and everyone just walked out. This kind of heartless enforcement quickly indoctrinated all concerned to the importance of not wasting time.
And I haven’t even touched on the management of the sheet music . . .
Toyota Lean efficiency? Yeah, been there, done that. On steroids.
© Justin Locke
