At a recent rehearsal of the Columbus City Band I found myself reminding our French horn section about the importance of achieving a good unison sound.  We were playing a piece of music (American Overture for Band by Joseph Willcox Jenkins) which features the horn section in a lot of unison playing, some of it loud and fast moving.  It is easy, in those kinds of passages,  to think that you have to play as loud as you can but the secret to being heard as a section is to achieve a good unison sound which involves listening to the other players in your section and matching tone and articulation.  Most musicians will attest to the fact that in playing and singing, achieving a good unison sound is one of the most difficult things to accomplish.

As I think about the work that I do on a daily basis I realize that this is true with most groups I work with as well.  Many times in committee and team work individual voices stick out rather than trying to listen and meld into a unified direction and mission.  When we pull in many directions we are not likely to get much done.  It is in the pulling together that we really accomplish more than we can as a group of individual workers.  It seems simple but it is often hard to convince people to give up their pet project for the good of the  overall cause just as it is hard to convince a musician to give up their individual need to be heard to become part of a unified voice.  This is why entire books have been written about the dysfunctions of teams and how a leader can help people work together.

The wisdom writer puts it this way:  “Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their toil.   For if they fall, one will lift up the other; but woe to one who is alone and falls and does not have another to help.  Again, if two lie together, they keep warm; but how can one keep warm alone?  And though one might prevail against another, two will withstand one.  A threefold cord is not quickly broken.”  (Ecclesiastes 4:9-12)

It is a mysterious reality that working together doesn’t just multiply our efforts, they increase exponentially.  It is equally mysterious that it is so often difficult to convince people of this reality, to get them to see another viewpoint long enough to share a common vision, to work together in unison.  Lest I seem to be looking down my nose at folks who can’t achieve this let me confess that I am just as guilty of promoting my own viewpoint as the next person.  I have, however, experienced the magic of a perfect unison just often enough to give me hope and to give me pause to reflect in those moments when I need to sublimate my desires to the good of a cause or the playing of a perfect melody. Because I have learned that the interweaving of sounds and the interweaving of effort has the potential to achieve something beautiful!