Creativity - The Bike Piano

Seeing things the way everyone else sees them is boring. True creativity requires breaking out of the "mold" of ordinary thinking.

by Pete Ferguson

I love attending street fairs, farmer's markets, and other community free-for-alls.

The food creations are always intriguing, the crafts a variety of old and boring (knitted hot pads?!?) - new and exciting, and the musical talents always interesting.

This past Saturday at the Farmer's Market in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, I saw something I hadn't seen before, a piano attached to a bicycle. It was out-of-tune but in a saloon kind of way. Twangy, but enchanting.

The pianist's talent was great and his ability to play on a slant, in the park, with an ever-changing audience earned my respect instantly.

It also inspired me. In my family, all of my children and my wife play piano better than I do (with the exception of Miles, but he is only two years old). And so on Sunday I sat down to a very frustrating two hours of remembering scales and then attacking a piece in a simplified piano book.

Flashbacks of lessons in Elementary School and then again as a teenager came flowing over the frustration of having forgotten something so worth while ... continue reading ...