Mr. M
My husband's new nickname is Mr. M . . .While Jonathan's degrees are primarily in music composition, he has also been a conductor for most of his adult life. One of the skills that aids him immensely in conducting is his ability to recruit people to play, sing, or otherwise help out. His axiom in achieving this is to find out what a particular person would want to do anyway and then ask them to do that.
When he started the orchestra at Concordia, he worked with players both from Concordia and from the community. He structured the orchestra experience in a way that would attract them. He needed cellists, and one community woman didn't have a car. For several years, he gave her a ride home after rehearsals. For another example, he knows how excited college players get about performing concertos (when a soloist is accompanied by orchestra). So fairly soon after the orchestra was founded, he set up a concerto contest and offered the winners a place on the spring orchestra concert. The audiences were often the largest for this particular concert, since friends and relatives of the soloists were all wanting to attend.
Jonathan's ability to motivate people has helped us immensely with the children. He spends a lot of his free time thinking about how to structure things so that discipline is automatic rather than forced. This is especially criticial with Ruslan, who is now a teenager. As the former head of the family, it has been difficult for Ruslan to give up the parenting role with his younger siblings. We've been advised by counselors to give him face-saving options when he is disciplined. So Jonathan will often set up a situation with choices for Ruslan, rather than the one option available to the younger children. The trick is to make the choices palatable, rather than obviously favorable and unfavorable, which Ruslan sees through in an instant.
When Jonathan succeeds with Ruslan, he'll often glance at me in triumph, and I'll compliment him later as Mr. M[achiavelli].
posted by Stahlkes @ 11:29 AM
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