The Triumph of Will over Want.

We should all get to know Evelyn Glennie.

If you think the name sounds like your Grade 6 Scottish music teacher, you’d be partly right. About the sound & the Scottish part.

For Evelyn is one of the most famous percussionists in the world today. And yes, she’s a Scot.

At the age of 19 she became an Honors graduate of the Royal Academy of Music in London. She is a three-time Grammy award winner. And she is indeed Dame Evelyn Glennie, having been awarded the Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, UK Knighthood’s sister version. You may recall the phenom production titled Pandemonium, capsuling the Industrial Revolution for the Opening Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics. As the giant Olympic Rings were being forged, the visual spectacle was being forged in our minds forever. Playing an able foil was the reverberating music of 1000 drummers, led by Evelyn Glennie. Her level of skill over her art, as a percussionist, is riveting. The fervor of her hands, as much as the dexterity of her touch combine to produce music that resonates within. Her study of music and sound is so nuanced and sophisticated that it evokes awe.

And, she is profoundly deaf.

Not totally deaf, but profoundly, as she’d like to qualify. To comprehend the challenge she faces, in her own words: “In my case the amount of volume is reduced compared with normal hearing but more importantly the quality of the sound is very poor. For instance when a phone rings I hear a kind of crackle. However, it is a distinctive type of crackle that I associate with a phone so I know when the phone rings.” Her mastery of music, considering the circumstance, is starting to sound profound, isn’t it?

When she plays, she tends to go barefoot because she LISTENS to music through every pore… as she says, her whole body is a giant ear. In her TED talk, [I have the link for you at the end], she recalls how at the age of 12 when she wanted to learn music, she and her teacher would prop her hands on to the wall of the music room and listen to the vibration of the drum through her finger tips on the wall!

A few years later, she narrates, when she was hoping to study music at the Royal Academy of Music in London, they refused to accept her. Because they did not quite perceive what would be the future of a deaf musician. But she would not accept that.

Persist she did and after two auditions, she did get accepted. And it forever changed the way music institutions in the UK looked at acceptance of anyone who had any kind of handicap whatsoever. Then on, nobody, just nobody could be denied a listening, a professional evaluation of their musical ability or refused entry if they show promise.

We all have challenges in life – in every hue and color, at every twist and turn of our personal and professional lives. Often times you mindlessly & erratically get tossed around like the ball in a mighty pinball game of life. Being played, by an unseen hand.

To overcome the challenge, we need to first understand where the problem lies- the problem is not the challenge but our ‘want’.

Economics & Marketing teaches us the difference between a need and a want. You NEED a need, but a want is a wish.

The problem lies in the fact that we just ‘want’ to overcome the challenge we face. ‘Want’, I believe, is a very weak, surface-level human emotion. It does not push you to really thirst for it. That undying thirst to pursue our dream comes from deep inside, from our “will”. Which is why Evelyn’s life, I believe, is a Triumph of “Will over Want”. And that, is the sum of all that we need to know- our will can make it happen. Whether it is that two extra laps during your morning jog or the marathon of realizing your lifetime’s purpose.

Evelyn’s will power did not just help her rise above the hurdle but I would hazard that it ignited and fuelled her skills as a musician. Just as Big Data can be the fuel for Innovation.

I know that you are doing a double take there… but that apparent mixed metaphor comes from an Evelyn’s recent composition for a film titled Percussion, aired, as-we-speak & sponsored by Oracle & Intel.

The film's concept is brilliant, lateral. Its parallel interpretations of Evelyn’s study of sound and Paul Sonderegger, Oracle's Big Data Strategist’s take on the role of Big Data is great storytelling. Her music for the film, which comes together from the 10 minute or so, is absolutely awesome. Called to ‘write the music for Big Data’, her music makes your senses tremble…she makes you listen and feeeeel the music. It truly makes you forget ‘who’ she is and just be fascinated by the music she creates.

It is, seriously, a triumph of sound, music, her will, her talent, the undying human spirit. And a celebration of saying NO to "no", a celebration of “will over want”.

Note: You ought to actually see this film to truly understand…. to really get what I mean about her music. I hope you’d find the time.

Her TED Talk.

[I would not have known Evelyn at all, had it not been for Susan Macaulay’s Blog Amazing Women Rock and her newsletter. Her piece on Evelyn sparked my curiosity to know more. Thank you Susan. www.amazingwomenrock.com is itself an amazing piece of work. Man, woman or child, you’d find great stories…. of countless amazing lives and women that Susan discovers]

Getting to know more about Evelyn Glennie: Courtesy her website www.evelyn.co.uk

Her picture, photographer: James Wilson/?Evelyn Glennie