My colleague Paul Barrett, Nimbus Product Manager, is a serious musician. So when I wrote recently that
'...swimlanes can have value in certain circumstances, especially in IT systems configuration. Ultimately, the orchestra does need a score showing the notes that each instrument is playing, even if most people are only interested in the complete musical effect (or just tapping a foot to the melody).'
Paul came back with a response that takes this idea further, and links it neatly to the value of the Storyboards used in Nimbus Control to deliver process to end-users.
Insights which, with Paul's permission, I'm pleased to be able to share here...
If you liken the conductor’s score to the swim-lane view of the process you get a good analogy, as long as the components are laid down in a strict timeline. The conductor needs this overall detailed view so he knows when to expect each player to come in, what they will do and when they will exit. Prior to rehearsal this score is pored over by the conductor so is he completely familiar with it and can point out nuances that he wants. In rehearsal the conductor will make constant reference to it, calling out bar numbers to players. In performance the need for the detailed score falls away, and the conductor may not even take it on to the podium.
The orchestral players do NOT have a full score. They play to a single stave that shows only their part. If they play no part for 48 bars they will have a single bar that says ‘48’ with a ‘bar rest’ symbol. This tells them how many intervening bars to count before they play again. Sometimes, to give them an assist the orchestral part will show a few bars of another part – to give them a crucial lead in. The part player’s individual score can be likened to a storyboard – a view for each players that almost ignores everything else going on around them. As long as they play their part at the right time, they don’t need to care about what other people are doing.
So why can’t we provide every orchestra member with a full score and be done with the orchestral parts? It’s not efficient. No orchestral player will know a part so well that they can perform without a score but if they all had a full score then the performance would be one massive rustle of page turns as, in my example above, a 48 bar rest could span a dozen pages in the score. Also since many instruments are scored on the same clef and in the same transposition key, it’d be all too easy for a player to do something that belonged to another (similar sounding resource in an adjacent lane). It’s just the same as using swim-lanes to illustrate process for end users – why on earth would they want to keep paging past all that white space to get to the bits they need? And run the risk of doing something that was actually not their responsibility?
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