Power of simulation

Musical journey

Almost a quarter of a century ago music was introduced as a subject at the government high school I went to- Msengezi High (famous for the "Ngaisangane Africa/ Let Africa unite" song). I recall learning about Treble and Bass Clef's, time signatures, tonic solfa, quavers, minims, semi-quavers as part of the music theory. We had an air of sophistication moving around using fancy terms such as octaves, stacatto, allegro con motto, diminuendo etc in oue conversations as we walked to our dormitories or to the dining hall (dinso).

We had a teacher who was truly passionate about the subject (Mr Maxwell Rafamoyo) and he would make it a point to make us fully engage with the subject. Our stream had 3 classes and on average we were 35 per class. This took us to just over 100 students who were studying music. Despite the passion Mr Rafamoyo (Raf [Rough] Mix as he was nicknamed- in keeping with the musical connotation) had, the lack of adequate musical resources constrained us.

Lack of resources

Had we had adequate equipment and resources...who knows, maybe I or my peers would have emerged as maestros along the lines of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt etc. The school had one keyboard which was preserved for the choir. One of Zim's top music producers who was 2 streams ahead of me actually cut his teeth in the choir- he got an early start in working towards his "10,000 hours".

The school did manage to get a Marimba set- although access to it was again mainly a preserve of those in the choir. As part of the requirement to pass music as a subject, we had to do two practicals i) singing a traditional folksong and ii) performing a rendition of a song on the marimba. For the song I remember singing "Dzinomwa munaSave" while I was about to come down with the flu.

Power of simulation

Earlier I mentioned how we had just over 100 students who were doing music, yet we were all expected to learn, practice and finally perform the song on the marimba. If I recall correctly it was titled "Chimedza." We were all given a print out of the notes for the song and part of the exercise was to figure out/translate the notation to the actual song.

Someone came up with the idea of 'replicating' the CDEFGABC of the Marimba on their desk in order to practice the song- without needing to access the actual marimba. This was then adopted to include some planks which people had found. A number of people therefore ended up learning the song using these planks/desks without ever playing the real marimba. In fact, a lot of people only interfaced with the marimba we were to use, on the day of the assessment.

Despite relying on the simulated marimba, the bulk of the class passed the assessment- even if they had not managed to practice on the actual marimba adequately- if at all. The Cambridge dictionary defines simulation as "a model of of a set of problems or events that can be used to teach someone how to do something, or the process of making such a model."

From this episode in my life's journey I learnt the power of stimulation and visualisation. There are no limits to imagination- you can go way beyond the limits which your current circumstances place on you. This lesson is applicable in any area of our lives- moreso in the business context.

...to be continued...