Hi Don,
Interesting!
Perhaps further efficiencies might be gained from some Crowd
Sourcing. Also not invented when Ken did his pioneering work.
Sourcing the orchestral players, in this case.
As a one time French Horn player I know that the sight
transposing (transposing in real-time), asked for in much of
the classical repertoire, significantly increases the error
rate. Dropping this would increase dissonance some, but
reduce the number of mistakes.
Probably asking the players of other instruments would
identify further useful hazard reducing performance
techniques, leading to further efficiency gains.
We mustn't let the Time and Motion study people in though!
They'd say that the single largest cause of time consuming
mistakes is attempting to plays any notes at all. That'd turn
all music in to works like John Cage's "Four minutes,
thirty-three seconds."
I once heard a live performance of this. It was impressively
efficient but singularly in-effective. (And I don't think
this was down to the performer, in this case.)
The design research conclusion here thus seems to be that in
music design (composition) efficiency and effectiveness lie on
opposite sides of a trade-off relation. I'm already on draft
four of the paper I'm writing to publish this important
result. I'm just worried that with your much broader and
deeper knowledge and experience of designing, particularly of
things like Apple products, you'll publish a more general
result before I get draft six done.
Best regards,
Tim
=============
On Sep 1, 2012, at 15:53 , Don Norman wrote:
> Re efficiency in music.
>
> Ken did his study before the Toyota Production System was well known. We
> can get greater savings by adopting TPS.
>
> Basically, we speed up the production line until we get an error, then stop
> the line, figure out what caused the error, and mistake-proof it so that it
> can never happen again. Then we speed up the line again until the next
> error. Through this method, Toyota has dramatically increased the speed of
> production while enhancing quality. (People think Toyota is generous
> because if a person on the production line makes a mistake or notices one,
> that person is authorized to stop the line. How nice of Toyota, people
> think.Nonsense: it is how they can make the line go faster and faster.)
>
> Now, apply this to music. After minimizing waste, as Ken specified, we have
> the conductor speed up the tempo until the first player makes a mistake.
> Then we stop and review the score. We figure out a way to eliminate that
> mistake: perhaps that player had an awkward sequence -- if so, we rearrange
> the sequencing. After a few years, the piece can probably be played much
> faster: i suspect saving ranging from 50 to 80%. Adding in Ken's Fluxus
> enhancement, and we might get a piece down to 10% of its normal playing
> time.
>
> Ken neglected practice time in his calculations. This method will simplify
> the note transitions and pacing requirements, thus reducing the amount of
> time orchestra members must practice.
>
>
> Don (From inside my can)
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