1
00:00:15,370 --> 00:00:26,010
Speaker 1: Pushkin. As the night draws in and the fire blazes

2
00:00:26,050 --> 00:00:30,050
Speaker 1: on the hearth. We warn the children by telling them stories.

3
00:00:31,090 --> 00:00:33,970
Speaker 1: The juniper tree teaches them, Oh, I don't know what

4
00:00:34,130 --> 00:00:39,970
Speaker 1: it's just horrendous. Don't google it. But my stories are

5
00:00:40,010 --> 00:00:43,770
Speaker 1: for the education of the grown ups, and my stories

6
00:00:43,890 --> 00:00:49,850
Speaker 1: are all true. I'm Tim Harford. Gather close and listen

7
00:00:50,130 --> 00:01:09,290
Speaker 1: to my cautionary tales. Late in January nineteen seventy five,

8
00:01:09,730 --> 00:01:14,330
Speaker 1: a German teenager named Vera Brandes walked out onto the

9
00:01:14,370 --> 00:01:19,050
Speaker 1: stage of the Cologne Opera House. The auditorium was empty,

10
00:01:19,850 --> 00:01:23,130
Speaker 1: lit only by the dim green glow of the emergency

11
00:01:23,210 --> 00:01:27,970
Speaker 1: exit sign. This was the most exciting day of Vera's life.

12
00:01:28,650 --> 00:01:32,570
Speaker 1: Vera loved jazz and was frustrated that there just wasn't

13
00:01:32,690 --> 00:01:37,290
Speaker 1: enough good jazz in Cologne, so, at the age of sixteen,

14
00:01:37,770 --> 00:01:42,490
Speaker 1: she had started to arrange concerts herself. Tonight would be

15
00:01:42,490 --> 00:01:46,850
Speaker 1: the fifth and by far the biggest. Vera Brandes had

16
00:01:46,850 --> 00:01:50,210
Speaker 1: persuaded the Cologne Opera House to host a late night

17
00:01:50,290 --> 00:01:55,250
Speaker 1: concert of jazz from the American pianist Keith Jarrett, a

18
00:01:55,330 --> 00:01:59,330
Speaker 1: remarkable venue for a remarkable twenty nine year old musician.

19
00:02:00,050 --> 00:02:03,410
Speaker 1: Jarrett had already played with greats such as Art Blakey

20
00:02:03,410 --> 00:02:06,570
Speaker 1: and Miles Davis, but now he was on his own.

21
00:02:08,050 --> 00:02:12,610
Speaker 1: The vast auditor was sold out. Fourteen hundred people were coming,

22
00:02:12,850 --> 00:02:17,650
Speaker 1: easily the largest audience for Jarrett's tour of improvised piano performances.

23
00:02:18,250 --> 00:02:21,490
Speaker 1: In just a few hours, Keith Jarrett would walk out

24
00:02:21,530 --> 00:02:24,850
Speaker 1: alone on that stage. He'd sit down at the piano,

25
00:02:25,490 --> 00:02:29,090
Speaker 1: and without rehearsal or sheet music, he'd begin to play.

26
00:02:30,290 --> 00:02:34,450
Speaker 1: But right now Vera was introducing Keith to the piano

27
00:02:34,530 --> 00:02:38,810
Speaker 1: in question, and it wasn't going well. Jarrett looked at

28
00:02:38,810 --> 00:02:43,130
Speaker 1: the instrument a little warily, played a few notes, walked

29
00:02:43,130 --> 00:02:47,010
Speaker 1: around it, tried a few more. His producer, Manfred Eicher,

30
00:02:47,210 --> 00:02:51,650
Speaker 1: joined in. Neither of them spoke to Vera. Instead, they

31
00:02:51,650 --> 00:02:56,850
Speaker 1: were huddled together. Then Manfred Eicher came over to Vera,

32
00:02:57,050 --> 00:03:00,850
Speaker 1: if you don't give another piano, Keith can't play tonight.

33
00:03:01,930 --> 00:03:06,610
Speaker 1: There'd been a mistake. Jarrett was and is an exacting musician.

34
00:03:06,890 --> 00:03:10,330
Speaker 1: He likes things to be perfect, absolutely the way he

35
00:03:10,410 --> 00:03:16,730
Speaker 1: wants them, and he'd requested a specific piano, a Bursendorfer Imperial.

36
00:03:17,650 --> 00:03:20,570
Speaker 1: The opera house had told Vera brands they had just

37
00:03:20,650 --> 00:03:24,570
Speaker 1: the thing, but somehow the piano on stage was nothing

38
00:03:24,690 --> 00:03:28,610
Speaker 1: like what had been promised. As Vera Brands remembered, they

39
00:03:28,730 --> 00:03:33,130
Speaker 1: found this tiny little Burstendorfer that was completely out of tune.

40
00:03:33,410 --> 00:03:36,370
Speaker 1: The upper and the lower octave was wrecked. The black

41
00:03:36,410 --> 00:03:39,410
Speaker 1: notes in the middle didn't work, the pedal stuck. It

42
00:03:39,530 --> 00:03:48,090
Speaker 1: was unplayable, absolutely unplayable, and quite understandably, Jarrett didn't want

43
00:03:48,130 --> 00:03:50,730
Speaker 1: to play it. And when it became clear there was

44
00:03:50,810 --> 00:03:53,770
Speaker 1: no way to get a replacement piano on stage. When

45
00:03:53,770 --> 00:03:57,970
Speaker 1: it became clear that it was the unplayable piano or nothing,

46
00:03:58,930 --> 00:04:03,330
Speaker 1: Keith Jarrett opted for nothing. He walked out into the rain,

47
00:04:03,810 --> 00:04:07,970
Speaker 1: leaving a bedraggled Vera Brands trailing behind him, begging him

48
00:04:08,010 --> 00:04:13,570
Speaker 1: not to cancel. When fourteen hundred people showed up for

49
00:04:13,610 --> 00:04:17,370
Speaker 1: their late night concert, Vera Brandas was going to find

50
00:04:17,370 --> 00:04:40,850
Speaker 1: herself facing a riot. You're listening to another cautionary tale

51
00:04:46,170 --> 00:04:49,370
Speaker 1: about the same time as Keith Jarrett's encounter with the

52
00:04:49,610 --> 00:04:53,330
Speaker 1: unplayable piano. On the other side of Germany, a very

53
00:04:53,410 --> 00:04:57,570
Speaker 1: different musician was scrambling over his own musical obstacle. Course

54
00:04:58,170 --> 00:05:03,170
Speaker 1: David Bowie, the unearthly ambisexual rock icon had moved to Berlin.

55
00:05:04,050 --> 00:05:07,810
Speaker 1: Bowie had had a grim, alienating period living in Los Angeles.

56
00:05:08,130 --> 00:05:11,650
Speaker 1: He was beset by legal troubles, his marriage alternated between

57
00:05:11,650 --> 00:05:15,130
Speaker 1: indifference and contempt, and he was taking far too many

58
00:05:15,170 --> 00:05:19,810
Speaker 1: hard drugs. It was a dangerous period for me, Bowie reflected.

59
00:05:20,530 --> 00:05:23,450
Speaker 1: But Bowie had a very different attitude to his music

60
00:05:23,650 --> 00:05:28,610
Speaker 1: than Jarrett. While Jarrett was a purist, Bowie actually enjoyed

61
00:05:28,690 --> 00:05:33,570
Speaker 1: self imposed obstacles. Bowie believed that accidents were to be treasured,

62
00:05:33,890 --> 00:05:38,810
Speaker 1: even planned, rather than avoided. That's why he asked Brian

63
00:05:39,090 --> 00:05:42,650
Speaker 1: Eno to join him and his producer Tony Visconti in Berlin.

64
00:05:43,770 --> 00:05:47,730
Speaker 1: They'd meet regularly in Hansa Studio too, the Big Hall

65
00:05:47,890 --> 00:05:51,410
Speaker 1: by the Wall, as Bowie called it. It was a beautiful,

66
00:05:51,530 --> 00:05:56,170
Speaker 1: parquet flawed concert hall, popular for recording chamber music, and

67
00:05:56,330 --> 00:05:58,770
Speaker 1: a few hundred feet away from the shadow of the

68
00:05:58,810 --> 00:06:02,450
Speaker 1: Berlin Wall. Eno took to showing up at the Hansa

69
00:06:02,490 --> 00:06:06,090
Speaker 1: studio with a soft black box containing a selection of

70
00:06:06,210 --> 00:06:10,890
Speaker 1: curious cards he called oblique strategy is. They're quite simple,

71
00:06:10,970 --> 00:06:15,730
Speaker 1: these cards, small black text on a white background, curved corners.

72
00:06:16,010 --> 00:06:18,850
Speaker 1: They're about the size of playing cards, Although there are

73
00:06:18,890 --> 00:06:21,250
Speaker 1: more than a hundred of them, making a thick deck

74
00:06:21,490 --> 00:06:26,170
Speaker 1: to be shuffled and consulted. Each card has a different instruction,

75
00:06:26,770 --> 00:06:28,610
Speaker 1: and you never know which one you're going to get.

76
00:06:29,450 --> 00:06:32,570
Speaker 1: Eno once told me, you have to pick one if

77
00:06:32,570 --> 00:06:38,210
Speaker 1: you don't like it. Tough. Whenever the studio sessions were

78
00:06:38,290 --> 00:06:41,850
Speaker 1: running aground, Eno would draw a card at random and

79
00:06:41,970 --> 00:06:45,730
Speaker 1: relay its strange orders. Be the first not to do

80
00:06:45,850 --> 00:06:49,370
Speaker 1: what has never not been done before. Look at the

81
00:06:49,530 --> 00:06:55,330
Speaker 1: order in which you do things. Emphasize the floors, change

82
00:06:55,450 --> 00:07:00,130
Speaker 1: instrument roles. Sure enough, during the recording of David Bowie's

83
00:07:00,210 --> 00:07:04,850
Speaker 1: Lodger album, Carlos Alamar, one of the world's greatest guitarists,

84
00:07:05,050 --> 00:07:09,170
Speaker 1: was told to play the drums instead another guitarist, and

85
00:07:09,290 --> 00:07:12,530
Speaker 1: Balu was asked to improvise a solo in response to

86
00:07:12,570 --> 00:07:16,570
Speaker 1: a recording that would eventually become the single boys Keep Swinging,

87
00:07:18,690 --> 00:07:23,770
Speaker 1: So don't worry about the key, just play. Bellu described

88
00:07:23,810 --> 00:07:26,530
Speaker 1: the experience. It was like a like a freight train

89
00:07:26,690 --> 00:07:36,450
Speaker 1: coming through my mind. It's an amazing solo, though, and

90
00:07:36,570 --> 00:07:41,250
Speaker 1: that astonishing wailing guitar at the beginning of Heroes, that's

91
00:07:41,450 --> 00:07:49,610
Speaker 1: Robert Fripp. Fripp was just playing around with guitar feedback,

92
00:07:49,770 --> 00:07:53,570
Speaker 1: but when Visconti patched together the random noises, the effect

93
00:07:54,250 --> 00:07:58,650
Speaker 1: was beautiful. The poet Simon Armitage describes the cards as

94
00:07:58,650 --> 00:08:02,050
Speaker 1: if you're asking the blood in your brain to flow

95
00:08:02,090 --> 00:08:08,490
Speaker 1: in another direction that doesn't sound fun. Yet the strange,

96
00:08:08,730 --> 00:08:12,730
Speaker 1: chaos working process produced some of the decade's most critically

97
00:08:12,810 --> 00:08:18,530
Speaker 1: acclaimed albums, Low Heroes and Lodger. You can't argue with

98
00:08:18,570 --> 00:08:22,930
Speaker 1: the results. I sought out Brian Eno to discuss this

99
00:08:23,130 --> 00:08:27,730
Speaker 1: strange approach of deliberately adding obstacles. Eno is to me

100
00:08:28,250 --> 00:08:31,810
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting musicians alive. He began his

101
00:08:31,930 --> 00:08:35,290
Speaker 1: musical career in the nineteen seventies with Roxy Music, where

102
00:08:35,330 --> 00:08:38,730
Speaker 1: he'd create strange sound effects and play synthesizer with a

103
00:08:38,770 --> 00:08:43,450
Speaker 1: giant plastic knife and fork. He created music for Airports,

104
00:08:43,690 --> 00:08:48,090
Speaker 1: a simple, beautiful landmark in ambient music, My Life in

105
00:08:48,130 --> 00:08:51,930
Speaker 1: the Bush of Ghosts, an influential sample rich collaboration with

106
00:08:52,050 --> 00:08:56,690
Speaker 1: David Byrne, and Another Green World, the record that Prince

107
00:08:56,810 --> 00:09:01,290
Speaker 1: once named as his biggest inspiration. Eno has collaborated with

108
00:09:01,410 --> 00:09:05,890
Speaker 1: Talking Heads, You Two, Twilight, Tharpe, Cold Play, Laurie Anderson,

109
00:09:05,970 --> 00:09:09,810
Speaker 1: Gavin Bryars, Paul Simon and the Cult direct to David Lynch.

110
00:09:10,610 --> 00:09:14,490
Speaker 1: When the music magazine Pitchfork listed its top hundred albums

111
00:09:14,530 --> 00:09:17,810
Speaker 1: of the nineteen seventies, Brian Eno had a hand in

112
00:09:17,930 --> 00:09:20,970
Speaker 1: more than a quarter of them. And of course there's

113
00:09:21,010 --> 00:09:25,210
Speaker 1: his remarkable collaboration with David Bowie. But I wanted to

114
00:09:25,250 --> 00:09:28,650
Speaker 1: talk to Brian not just because he's produced beautiful music

115
00:09:28,770 --> 00:09:33,370
Speaker 1: with remarkable people using very strange methods, but also because

116
00:09:33,530 --> 00:09:38,530
Speaker 1: Brian Eno is, like me, a nerd. He thinks hard

117
00:09:38,570 --> 00:09:43,450
Speaker 1: about why obstacles are so often helpful. Listen on and

118
00:09:43,570 --> 00:10:04,010
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what I learned. You know, that feeling

119
00:10:04,050 --> 00:10:08,130
Speaker 1: of being a tourist in a totally foreign land, how

120
00:10:08,250 --> 00:10:12,050
Speaker 1: rich all the tiny details are, how densely layered the memories.

121
00:10:12,890 --> 00:10:14,850
Speaker 1: You can look back on a day and marvel at

122
00:10:14,890 --> 00:10:17,410
Speaker 1: just how much you manage to pack in, whereas a

123
00:10:17,450 --> 00:10:19,810
Speaker 1: day of your normal routines can be hard to remember

124
00:10:19,850 --> 00:10:23,170
Speaker 1: at all. One of the things that Brian Eno is

125
00:10:23,170 --> 00:10:26,650
Speaker 1: trying to achieve with his strange cards is that same

126
00:10:26,770 --> 00:10:31,330
Speaker 1: sense of attention of being alert. The enemy of creative

127
00:10:31,370 --> 00:10:36,570
Speaker 1: work is boredom, actually, and the friend is alertness. Now,

128
00:10:36,610 --> 00:10:39,450
Speaker 1: I think what makes you alert is to be faced

129
00:10:39,450 --> 00:10:42,290
Speaker 1: with a situation that is beyond your control, so you

130
00:10:42,370 --> 00:10:44,890
Speaker 1: have to be watching it very carefully to see how

131
00:10:44,890 --> 00:10:47,450
Speaker 1: it unfolds, to be able to stay on top of it.

132
00:10:48,370 --> 00:10:53,410
Speaker 1: That kind of alertness is exciting. There's nothing like an

133
00:10:53,490 --> 00:10:57,610
Speaker 1: unfamiliar problem to make you start focusing. If things feel

134
00:10:57,610 --> 00:11:01,250
Speaker 1: out of your control, maybe even a little dangerous, that

135
00:11:01,410 --> 00:11:05,050
Speaker 1: gets the adrenaline flowing, and, in the right circumstances, the

136
00:11:05,170 --> 00:11:10,210
Speaker 1: creative juices too. This attention grabbing at applies whether we're

137
00:11:10,210 --> 00:11:13,570
Speaker 1: talking about trying to play a strange instrument, navigate a

138
00:11:13,650 --> 00:11:17,490
Speaker 1: strange place, or work together with a strange person. And

139
00:11:17,610 --> 00:11:20,610
Speaker 1: while it sounds dramatic, it can work its magic at

140
00:11:20,650 --> 00:11:24,090
Speaker 1: a subliminal level. It can be something as subtle as

141
00:11:24,090 --> 00:11:27,290
Speaker 1: whether the words we're reading on a page look familiar

142
00:11:27,490 --> 00:11:34,290
Speaker 1: or odd. Consider a study by the psychologists Connor Diamond Yeoman,

143
00:11:34,730 --> 00:11:38,890
Speaker 1: Daniel Oppenheimer, and Erica Vaughan. They teamed up with high

144
00:11:38,890 --> 00:11:42,610
Speaker 1: school teachers getting them to reformat the teaching handouts they used.

145
00:11:43,210 --> 00:11:46,890
Speaker 1: Half their classes, chosen at random, got the original materials

146
00:11:46,890 --> 00:11:51,010
Speaker 1: in standard fonts such as Times New Roman. The other

147
00:11:51,090 --> 00:11:54,690
Speaker 1: half got the same documents reformatted into one of three

148
00:11:55,050 --> 00:12:00,690
Speaker 1: challenging fonts, the dense text of Haddensfeiler, the cursive flourishes

149
00:12:00,730 --> 00:12:04,930
Speaker 1: of Monotype Corceiver, or the zesty bounce of comic sans

150
00:12:04,930 --> 00:12:09,450
Speaker 1: It talicized. These fonts are, let's be honest, distres acting

151
00:12:09,730 --> 00:12:13,330
Speaker 1: and hard to read. But the ugly fonts didn't hamper

152
00:12:13,370 --> 00:12:16,610
Speaker 1: the students at all. Students who had been taught using

153
00:12:16,610 --> 00:12:19,890
Speaker 1: them ended up scoring higher on their exams. We don't

154
00:12:19,930 --> 00:12:23,290
Speaker 1: know exactly why, but it seems that the strange fonts

155
00:12:23,330 --> 00:12:26,930
Speaker 1: prompted them to pay attention, to slow down, and to

156
00:12:27,050 --> 00:12:30,850
Speaker 1: think about what they were reading. If such obstacles make

157
00:12:30,970 --> 00:12:34,370
Speaker 1: us focus and think harder, they may end up not

158
00:12:34,490 --> 00:12:46,250
Speaker 1: being obstacles at all, but secret weapons. There's a second

159
00:12:46,290 --> 00:12:49,530
Speaker 1: reason that the oblique strategies may have helped David Bowie.

160
00:12:50,450 --> 00:12:54,730
Speaker 1: They pushed him to try something fresh. Brianino described to

161
00:12:54,770 --> 00:12:58,130
Speaker 1: me the tendency of highly skilled musicians to end up

162
00:12:58,210 --> 00:13:01,650
Speaker 1: exploring a narrow territory because it's the only place they

163
00:13:01,650 --> 00:13:05,050
Speaker 1: feel completely comfortable. You get more and more competent at

164
00:13:05,130 --> 00:13:12,210
Speaker 1: dealing with that place, and your cliches become increasingly clichde.

165
00:13:12,770 --> 00:13:15,690
Speaker 1: But when you're forced to start from somewhere new the

166
00:13:15,770 --> 00:13:20,370
Speaker 1: cliches can be replaced with moments of magic. This effect

167
00:13:20,490 --> 00:13:24,410
Speaker 1: is well understood far outside the realm of music. Computer

168
00:13:24,490 --> 00:13:29,210
Speaker 1: scientists use algorithms to look for solutions to complex problems,

169
00:13:29,250 --> 00:13:32,690
Speaker 1: and those algorithms often use the tactic of stepping back

170
00:13:33,090 --> 00:13:37,130
Speaker 1: and adding some randomness part way through their search. What

171
00:13:37,170 --> 00:13:39,930
Speaker 1: sort of complex problems do I have in mind? Are

172
00:13:39,930 --> 00:13:43,570
Speaker 1: there are plenty? Planning efficient roots for a fleet of

173
00:13:43,610 --> 00:13:46,890
Speaker 1: parcel delivery trucks, figuring out the best layout for a

174
00:13:46,890 --> 00:13:50,930
Speaker 1: silicon chip. Such problems have so many possible solutions that

175
00:13:51,010 --> 00:13:54,130
Speaker 1: it's impossible even for a computer to check them all.

176
00:13:54,810 --> 00:13:58,410
Speaker 1: So computer scientists have developed algorithms that try to find

177
00:13:58,450 --> 00:14:01,690
Speaker 1: a solution that may not be perfect but is good enough.

178
00:14:03,010 --> 00:14:06,610
Speaker 1: You'd be surprised at how many of these algorithms add

179
00:14:06,850 --> 00:14:10,770
Speaker 1: random shocks and remixes. Those shocks are there to prevent

180
00:14:10,770 --> 00:14:14,450
Speaker 1: the algorithm getting stuck on a bad solution. In the jargon,

181
00:14:14,650 --> 00:14:18,170
Speaker 1: that's called a local optimum, but you or I would

182
00:14:18,210 --> 00:14:21,570
Speaker 1: simply call it a dead end. The random shocks offer

183
00:14:21,610 --> 00:14:24,050
Speaker 1: a way of backing out of the dead end and

184
00:14:24,210 --> 00:14:27,970
Speaker 1: trying something else. This might seem a long way from

185
00:14:27,970 --> 00:14:32,530
Speaker 1: our everyday concerns. We're not musical geniuses and we're not

186
00:14:32,650 --> 00:14:36,290
Speaker 1: computer algorithms, but the same logic is at play in

187
00:14:36,330 --> 00:14:41,610
Speaker 1: the most humdrum circumstances, such as our daily commute. For example,

188
00:14:41,850 --> 00:14:45,050
Speaker 1: in my own long standing commute across the London Underground,

189
00:14:45,290 --> 00:14:47,730
Speaker 1: I know exactly where on the platform I should stand

190
00:14:47,770 --> 00:14:50,130
Speaker 1: when I get on the first tube train to ensure

191
00:14:50,170 --> 00:14:53,050
Speaker 1: that after riding nine stops, including a change of lines,

192
00:14:53,330 --> 00:14:55,770
Speaker 1: I'm in the perfect position to be first on the

193
00:14:55,890 --> 00:14:58,770
Speaker 1: escalator out of London Bridge Station and thus at the

194
00:14:58,850 --> 00:15:02,410
Speaker 1: front of the line for coffee the Monmouth Coffeehouse near

195
00:15:02,450 --> 00:15:06,130
Speaker 1: the tube exit. Fine differences in where I stand on

196
00:15:06,170 --> 00:15:09,050
Speaker 1: a train platform on one side of the city determine

197
00:15:09,170 --> 00:15:12,570
Speaker 1: how quickly I get my coffee half an hour later

198
00:15:12,650 --> 00:15:16,090
Speaker 1: on the other side. Yes, I promise myself I'd never

199
00:15:16,090 --> 00:15:20,810
Speaker 1: become that person. Happened anyway, And however you commute, you

200
00:15:21,090 --> 00:15:24,450
Speaker 1: likely have your own little shortcuts and time saving habits.

201
00:15:25,090 --> 00:15:30,130
Speaker 1: Assuming that is, those habits really do save you time, because,

202
00:15:30,370 --> 00:15:33,770
Speaker 1: according to the logic I've been outlining, if you commute

203
00:15:34,170 --> 00:15:37,690
Speaker 1: being forced to change your plans, they actually help you

204
00:15:37,770 --> 00:15:41,090
Speaker 1: in the long run. It's the obstacle in your path

205
00:15:41,450 --> 00:15:46,010
Speaker 1: that forces you to find a better path. But in

206
00:15:46,050 --> 00:15:49,850
Speaker 1: what circumstances might the London underground possibly be disrupted? I

207
00:15:49,890 --> 00:15:54,490
Speaker 1: hear you ask well. In February twenty fourteen, two trade

208
00:15:54,570 --> 00:15:58,290
Speaker 1: unions representing workers on the subway launched a forty eight

209
00:15:58,330 --> 00:16:01,970
Speaker 1: hour strike which closed well over half the stations on

210
00:16:02,010 --> 00:16:05,410
Speaker 1: the system. The first day of the strike was wet,

211
00:16:05,650 --> 00:16:08,330
Speaker 1: as well as being cold and dark, which will have

212
00:16:08,370 --> 00:16:11,170
Speaker 1: discouraged people from simply walking or getting on a bike.

213
00:16:11,890 --> 00:16:15,010
Speaker 1: The trains and buses that day were rammed full of

214
00:16:15,130 --> 00:16:18,010
Speaker 1: grumpy commuters trying to figure out how to get around

215
00:16:18,010 --> 00:16:22,970
Speaker 1: the disruption. After the strike, the economists Ferdinand roush Seawan

216
00:16:23,090 --> 00:16:27,210
Speaker 1: Larcom and Tim Williams looked at data from London's electronic

217
00:16:27,290 --> 00:16:31,130
Speaker 1: farecard system. Those fair cards work on the subway, the buses,

218
00:16:31,210 --> 00:16:35,370
Speaker 1: and the overground trains too. Rausch and his colleagues identified

219
00:16:35,410 --> 00:16:38,210
Speaker 1: people who had to change from their regular route during

220
00:16:38,210 --> 00:16:41,450
Speaker 1: the strike. Most changed back again when the strike was over,

221
00:16:41,530 --> 00:16:45,890
Speaker 1: of course, but many did not. They realized that they'd

222
00:16:45,930 --> 00:16:50,250
Speaker 1: been getting their own commute wrong all their lives, and

223
00:16:50,370 --> 00:16:52,450
Speaker 1: all it took to prod them into finding a better

224
00:16:52,490 --> 00:16:59,690
Speaker 1: way was two days of disruption. So there are two

225
00:16:59,770 --> 00:17:04,450
Speaker 1: reasons why an obstacle might actually help us solve a problem. First,

226
00:17:04,490 --> 00:17:08,850
Speaker 1: the ugly font effect, the strange and familiar or even threatening,

227
00:17:09,930 --> 00:17:13,690
Speaker 1: grabs your attention and holds it. You're not checking your phone,

228
00:17:13,970 --> 00:17:17,090
Speaker 1: you're not daydreaming, you can't afford to miss a second.

229
00:17:17,490 --> 00:17:20,570
Speaker 1: And then there's the tube strike effect, the way a

230
00:17:20,690 --> 00:17:24,890
Speaker 1: random disruption forces you to try something totally new, whether

231
00:17:24,930 --> 00:17:27,370
Speaker 1: by forcing us to pay attention or by prodding us

232
00:17:27,370 --> 00:17:30,930
Speaker 1: to try something different. These obstacles can actually help us

233
00:17:30,970 --> 00:17:35,290
Speaker 1: find better solutions to the problems we face. But this

234
00:17:35,410 --> 00:17:39,530
Speaker 1: is still a cautionary tale because it's a story of danger.

235
00:17:40,330 --> 00:17:44,290
Speaker 1: The danger is that we shun these obstacles, avoid difficulties,

236
00:17:44,490 --> 00:17:48,370
Speaker 1: flee from problems, when in fact we might flourish from

237
00:17:48,370 --> 00:17:52,970
Speaker 1: facing them head on. Keith Jarrett, after all, didn't celebrate

238
00:17:53,010 --> 00:17:55,730
Speaker 1: the appearance of a bad piano on stage at his

239
00:17:55,850 --> 00:17:58,930
Speaker 1: largest ever concert, rubbing his hands in glee at the

240
00:17:58,930 --> 00:18:03,170
Speaker 1: opportunity to have his creativity supercharged by the challenge. Of

241
00:18:03,210 --> 00:18:09,410
Speaker 1: course he didn't. He walked away. Who wouldn't when faced

242
00:18:09,410 --> 00:18:28,090
Speaker 1: with the unplayable piano? We resist. We resist all sorts

243
00:18:28,090 --> 00:18:31,370
Speaker 1: of obstacles, but the most obvious example of this resistance

244
00:18:31,610 --> 00:18:34,850
Speaker 1: comes when the obstacle is a strange or unfamiliar person.

245
00:18:35,890 --> 00:18:38,970
Speaker 1: There's a large body of research that suggests a diverse

246
00:18:39,050 --> 00:18:44,090
Speaker 1: group of people I mean people of different ages, genders, nationalities, professions,

247
00:18:44,090 --> 00:18:47,850
Speaker 1: and political views. That diverse group of people is more

248
00:18:47,890 --> 00:18:51,090
Speaker 1: likely to find solutions or make better judgments than a

249
00:18:51,130 --> 00:18:55,810
Speaker 1: group full of lookalikes, everyone echoing everyone else. When pulling

250
00:18:55,810 --> 00:18:58,530
Speaker 1: together a team, our instinct is to go for quality,

251
00:18:58,730 --> 00:19:01,970
Speaker 1: the best people we can find, but perhaps instead we

252
00:19:02,010 --> 00:19:07,610
Speaker 1: should be going for variety. One analogy is that different perspectives, skills,

253
00:19:07,650 --> 00:19:12,050
Speaker 1: and experiences are different tools and the toolbox. A well

254
00:19:12,130 --> 00:19:15,810
Speaker 1: stocked toolbox is more useful than a case full of hammers,

255
00:19:15,850 --> 00:19:19,250
Speaker 1: even if they're really good hammers. But while we should

256
00:19:19,250 --> 00:19:22,570
Speaker 1: be looking for a diverse group, we tend to gravitate

257
00:19:22,690 --> 00:19:26,690
Speaker 1: to the familiar friends rather than strangers, people who look

258
00:19:26,730 --> 00:19:30,050
Speaker 1: and sound like us, who reflect our own views and

259
00:19:30,170 --> 00:19:33,570
Speaker 1: make us feel comfortable. We are hammers looking to get

260
00:19:33,570 --> 00:19:37,450
Speaker 1: cozy with other hammers, and we view wrenches and screwdrivers

261
00:19:37,450 --> 00:19:43,170
Speaker 1: and saws as awkward misfits. There's an elegant experiment that

262
00:19:43,370 --> 00:19:48,490
Speaker 1: underlines this point, conducted by the psychologists Katherine Phillips, Katie Lillianquist,

263
00:19:48,610 --> 00:19:52,810
Speaker 1: and Margaret Neil. They gave murder mystery problems to students.

264
00:19:53,290 --> 00:19:57,650
Speaker 1: These problems consisted of dossiers of information with alibis and evidence,

265
00:19:57,890 --> 00:20:02,250
Speaker 1: witness statements, and a choice of three possible suspects, so

266
00:20:02,890 --> 00:20:07,130
Speaker 1: who committed the crime. The researchers divided the groups into

267
00:20:07,250 --> 00:20:10,930
Speaker 1: two sets at random. In one set, the murder mysteries

268
00:20:10,970 --> 00:20:13,570
Speaker 1: would be solved by four people who knew each other

269
00:20:13,650 --> 00:20:16,690
Speaker 1: four friends. In the other set, the dossiers would be

270
00:20:16,690 --> 00:20:21,290
Speaker 1: given to three friends and one stranger for maximum awkwardness.

271
00:20:22,050 --> 00:20:24,890
Speaker 1: You can see where I'm going with this. Obviously, I'm

272
00:20:24,890 --> 00:20:27,170
Speaker 1: going to say that the groups with the stranger solved

273
00:20:27,210 --> 00:20:31,210
Speaker 1: the problem more effectively, which they did, but the scale

274
00:20:31,210 --> 00:20:34,650
Speaker 1: of the improvement may surprise you. The groups of friends

275
00:20:34,730 --> 00:20:37,330
Speaker 1: did better than a random guess between the three options,

276
00:20:37,730 --> 00:20:40,410
Speaker 1: but the groups with a stranger did much better yet,

277
00:20:40,890 --> 00:20:44,690
Speaker 1: with a success rate of seventy five percent. In fact,

278
00:20:44,850 --> 00:20:47,330
Speaker 1: the groups with the stranger were as far ahead of

279
00:20:47,370 --> 00:20:49,770
Speaker 1: the groups of friends as the groups of friends were

280
00:20:49,810 --> 00:20:54,250
Speaker 1: ahead of pure random guesswork. But what's really interesting is

281
00:20:54,330 --> 00:20:56,930
Speaker 1: not just that the groups with the stranger made smarter

282
00:20:57,050 --> 00:21:01,330
Speaker 1: decisions than how they felt about it. When the scientists

283
00:21:01,450 --> 00:21:04,330
Speaker 1: interviewed the groups of four friends, they had a nice time,

284
00:21:04,370 --> 00:21:06,770
Speaker 1: and they also thought they'd done a good job. They

285
00:21:06,770 --> 00:21:10,290
Speaker 1: were complaisant when they spoke to thee friends and the stranger,

286
00:21:10,530 --> 00:21:13,410
Speaker 1: they hadn't enjoyed themselves, and they were full of doubts

287
00:21:13,450 --> 00:21:17,050
Speaker 1: about whether they'd chosen the guilty man. I think that

288
00:21:17,130 --> 00:21:21,250
Speaker 1: really exemplifies the challenge. Here's what seems like an obstacle,

289
00:21:21,290 --> 00:21:25,050
Speaker 1: this awkward stranger sitting in the group and spoiling everyone's fun.

290
00:21:25,690 --> 00:21:29,090
Speaker 1: But the obstacle is actually a secret weapon. The stranger

291
00:21:29,210 --> 00:21:32,730
Speaker 1: dramatically improves the performance of the group, yet the people

292
00:21:32,810 --> 00:21:36,650
Speaker 1: in the group don't realize it. The same thing happened

293
00:21:36,690 --> 00:21:43,130
Speaker 1: with Brian Eno and his Curious Cards. The musicians hated them.

294
00:21:43,250 --> 00:21:46,370
Speaker 1: That can't have been a surprise to Eno. On that

295
00:21:46,530 --> 00:21:50,490
Speaker 1: earlier Eno album that Prince loved so much, Another Green World,

296
00:21:50,970 --> 00:21:54,610
Speaker 1: Eno asked Phil Collins, the superstar drummer from Genesis, to

297
00:21:54,690 --> 00:21:59,970
Speaker 1: play the instructions from the cards. So infuriated Collins he

298
00:22:00,090 --> 00:22:03,970
Speaker 1: was reduced to hurling beer cans across the studio in frustration.

299
00:22:06,370 --> 00:22:10,370
Speaker 1: Faced with one piece of card inspired foolish. The guitarist

300
00:22:10,410 --> 00:22:14,370
Speaker 1: Carlos Alomar told, you know this experiment is stool did

301
00:22:14,410 --> 00:22:19,090
Speaker 1: The violinist Simon House commented the sessions often sounded terrible.

302
00:22:19,730 --> 00:22:22,410
Speaker 1: Carlos did have a problem simply because he's very gifted

303
00:22:22,450 --> 00:22:25,410
Speaker 1: and professional. He can't bring himself to play stuff that

304
00:22:25,490 --> 00:22:29,690
Speaker 1: sounds like crap. How do we persuade ourselves to engage

305
00:22:29,770 --> 00:22:34,330
Speaker 1: with broken tools, to impossible deadlines or awkward people, when

306
00:22:34,410 --> 00:22:37,850
Speaker 1: really all we want to do is her beer? Carris

307
00:22:41,930 --> 00:22:46,570
Speaker 1: back in dark, rainy Cologne in nineteen seventy five, young

308
00:22:46,810 --> 00:22:51,490
Speaker 1: Vera Brands was in big trouble, an opera house full

309
00:22:51,530 --> 00:22:56,930
Speaker 1: of paying customers, an unplayable piano, and an understandably reluctant

310
00:22:57,050 --> 00:23:00,690
Speaker 1: Keith Jarrett. So she did the only thing she could.

311
00:23:01,130 --> 00:23:03,650
Speaker 1: She ran after Jarrett found him waiting in his car,

312
00:23:04,010 --> 00:23:07,410
Speaker 1: flung open the door and begged him not to cancel,

313
00:23:08,130 --> 00:23:12,170
Speaker 1: and Keith Jarrett, looking out at this rain drenched teenage girl,

314
00:23:13,050 --> 00:23:17,690
Speaker 1: took pity on her. Never forget, just for you, Keith

315
00:23:17,810 --> 00:23:22,970
Speaker 1: Jarrett would play after all, while a tuner worked to

316
00:23:23,090 --> 00:23:26,050
Speaker 1: straighten out some of the kinks in the unplayable piano.

317
00:23:26,570 --> 00:23:29,850
Speaker 1: Vera Brands took Jarrett and Manfred Ikea to an Italian

318
00:23:29,890 --> 00:23:33,330
Speaker 1: restaurant to get some food before the show. Jarrett barely

319
00:23:33,370 --> 00:23:35,890
Speaker 1: had time to bolt down a few mouthfuls of pastor

320
00:23:36,090 --> 00:23:39,290
Speaker 1: before rushing back to the opera House to face the piano.

321
00:23:39,970 --> 00:23:43,250
Speaker 1: The instrument was now in tune, but still had some

322
00:23:43,330 --> 00:23:47,010
Speaker 1: silent keys, a malfunctioning sustain pedal, and was harsh and

323
00:23:47,090 --> 00:23:50,210
Speaker 1: tinny in the upper register. But, of course, not being

324
00:23:50,250 --> 00:23:53,650
Speaker 1: a full sized concert grand, it was simply too quiet.

325
00:23:54,170 --> 00:23:57,050
Speaker 1: If played in the conventional style, it would never fill

326
00:23:57,090 --> 00:24:00,770
Speaker 1: the vast auditorium with music. But it was too late

327
00:24:00,810 --> 00:24:04,530
Speaker 1: to back out. Now utterly alone in front of fourteen

328
00:24:04,650 --> 00:24:08,490
Speaker 1: hundred people, Jarrett walked back out onto the stage of

329
00:24:08,490 --> 00:24:12,250
Speaker 1: the opera House. He sat down at the unplayable piano

330
00:24:13,170 --> 00:24:20,450
Speaker 1: and began. The minute he played the first note, everybody

331
00:24:20,650 --> 00:24:27,490
Speaker 1: knew this was magic. That's something I will never forget.

332
00:24:28,250 --> 00:24:36,530
Speaker 1: A first tone, and everybody was totally mesmerized. Jarrett was

333
00:24:36,690 --> 00:24:40,250
Speaker 1: avoiding those tinny upper registers. He was sticking to the

334
00:24:40,290 --> 00:24:42,810
Speaker 1: middle tones of the keyboard, which gave the piece a

335
00:24:43,050 --> 00:24:56,010
Speaker 1: soothing ambient quality. His left hand produced rumbling, repetitive bass

336
00:24:56,090 --> 00:24:58,850
Speaker 1: riffs as a way of covering up the piano's lack

337
00:24:58,890 --> 00:25:02,770
Speaker 1: of resonance. The music had a trance like quality as

338
00:25:02,770 --> 00:25:07,690
Speaker 1: a result. But Jarrett couldn't simply relax into that easy

339
00:25:07,730 --> 00:25:11,490
Speaker 1: listening zone because the tiny piano simply wasn't loud enough.

340
00:25:11,890 --> 00:25:16,010
Speaker 1: He stood up, twisting, pounding down on the keys, desperately

341
00:25:16,050 --> 00:25:18,530
Speaker 1: trying to create enough volume to reach the people in

342
00:25:18,570 --> 00:25:23,210
Speaker 1: the back row. Jarrett really had to play that piano

343
00:25:23,490 --> 00:25:26,730
Speaker 1: very hard to get enough volume to get to the balconies.

344
00:25:26,930 --> 00:25:31,730
Speaker 1: He was really pachoo pushing the hoods down, standing up,

345
00:25:31,970 --> 00:25:37,010
Speaker 1: sitting down, moaning, writhing. Jarrett didn't hold back in any

346
00:25:37,050 --> 00:25:43,010
Speaker 1: way as he pummeled the unplayable piano to produce something unique.

347
00:25:43,530 --> 00:25:48,930
Speaker 1: That night became legendary, the performance that made Keith Jarrett's reputation.

348
00:25:49,650 --> 00:25:52,770
Speaker 1: It wasn't the music that he ever imagined playing, but

349
00:25:53,210 --> 00:25:58,410
Speaker 1: handed an impossible mess. Jarrett soared, I never before or

350
00:25:58,450 --> 00:26:01,850
Speaker 1: after saw anybody so immersed in his music. You could

351
00:26:01,850 --> 00:26:06,570
Speaker 1: see it. He was absolutely there. That was how one

352
00:26:06,690 --> 00:26:10,010
Speaker 1: member of the audience remembers it. It's just as Brian

353
00:26:10,210 --> 00:26:14,090
Speaker 1: Eno said, what makes you alert is to be faced

354
00:26:14,130 --> 00:26:19,250
Speaker 1: with a situation that is beyond your control. Jarrett was

355
00:26:19,490 --> 00:26:22,010
Speaker 1: having to play the piano in a different style, from

356
00:26:22,050 --> 00:26:26,250
Speaker 1: a different stance, remembering to avoid certain faulty keys, and

357
00:26:26,410 --> 00:26:29,290
Speaker 1: all in front of the largest audience he'd ever faced.

358
00:26:29,890 --> 00:26:33,130
Speaker 1: You can bet that he was alert, and you can

359
00:26:33,170 --> 00:26:36,690
Speaker 1: bet also that he was trying something new, like a

360
00:26:36,770 --> 00:26:40,130
Speaker 1: commuter dealing with a transport strike who suddenly discovers a

361
00:26:40,210 --> 00:26:43,730
Speaker 1: fresh way to the office. Keith Jarrett could have played

362
00:26:43,730 --> 00:26:46,890
Speaker 1: the music he played at Cologne on any piano, but

363
00:26:46,930 --> 00:26:48,650
Speaker 1: it was only when he was forced to deal with

364
00:26:48,690 --> 00:26:51,490
Speaker 1: the limitations of a bad piano that had occurred to

365
00:26:51,570 --> 00:26:58,650
Speaker 1: him to try. Usually, we don't try unless something forces

366
00:26:58,730 --> 00:27:02,530
Speaker 1: us to. Maybe it's a subway strike, maybe it's the

367
00:27:02,610 --> 00:27:06,250
Speaker 1: turn of an oblique strategist card, or maybe it's a

368
00:27:06,290 --> 00:27:18,450
Speaker 1: guilt trip from a German teenager. You might wonder why

369
00:27:18,530 --> 00:27:21,490
Speaker 1: Keith Jarrett and Manfred Iker even bothered to record the

370
00:27:21,530 --> 00:27:25,450
Speaker 1: concert when they expected it to be an embarrassment. It's

371
00:27:25,450 --> 00:27:28,250
Speaker 1: a fair question. Jarrett had told Ika to send the

372
00:27:28,290 --> 00:27:32,130
Speaker 1: recording engineers home, what was the point, but Ika argued

373
00:27:32,170 --> 00:27:34,210
Speaker 1: that since they were there, they might as well press

374
00:27:34,290 --> 00:27:37,850
Speaker 1: record on the tape machine. Jarrett later admitted the logic,

375
00:27:38,330 --> 00:27:41,690
Speaker 1: we know what we went through. We've paid for the

376
00:27:41,770 --> 00:27:43,890
Speaker 1: sound guys to come here, so why don't we just

377
00:27:43,970 --> 00:27:46,130
Speaker 1: let him record it and we'll have a tape of it.

378
00:27:46,570 --> 00:27:50,250
Speaker 1: That way, at least Iker would have documentary evidence of

379
00:27:50,250 --> 00:27:54,690
Speaker 1: what a musical catastrophe sounds like. But he didn't get

380
00:27:54,850 --> 00:27:59,930
Speaker 1: a catastrophe. He got a masterpiece. The recording was released

381
00:27:59,970 --> 00:28:03,570
Speaker 1: as The Coln Concert. It's the best selling piano album

382
00:28:03,570 --> 00:28:06,610
Speaker 1: in history, and the best selling solo jazz album too.

383
00:28:07,050 --> 00:28:10,330
Speaker 1: There's something very special about it. My wife asked me

384
00:28:10,370 --> 00:28:12,210
Speaker 1: to put the music on while she was in labor,

385
00:28:12,930 --> 00:28:16,450
Speaker 1: not once, but twice, and it's so good that, even

386
00:28:16,490 --> 00:28:20,610
Speaker 1: after that rather painful association, we both still love listening.

387
00:28:21,490 --> 00:28:27,010
Speaker 1: Yet it's so nearly never happened. If Vera Branders hadn't begged,

388
00:28:27,210 --> 00:28:30,850
Speaker 1: if Keith Jarrett hadn't felt pity for that bedraggled teenage girl,

389
00:28:31,250 --> 00:28:33,570
Speaker 1: he certainly would never have chosen to play on a

390
00:28:33,570 --> 00:28:39,850
Speaker 1: piano like that. Vera Branders wasn't credited on that blockbuster album,

391
00:28:40,330 --> 00:28:43,010
Speaker 1: she never got a penny of royalties, and in a

392
00:28:43,050 --> 00:28:48,010
Speaker 1: way that's fair enough. Concert promoters aren't artists. And yet

393
00:28:48,290 --> 00:28:51,530
Speaker 1: I have no doubt that the Colman Concert would never

394
00:28:51,610 --> 00:28:54,930
Speaker 1: have been such a special piece of music. Without Vera

395
00:28:55,050 --> 00:28:59,890
Speaker 1: Branders and her unplayable piano, all of us from time

396
00:28:59,890 --> 00:29:03,570
Speaker 1: to time have to deal with our own unplayable pianos.

397
00:29:04,570 --> 00:29:08,450
Speaker 1: When that happens, we need to sit down and try

398
00:29:08,490 --> 00:29:20,170
Speaker 1: to play. You've been listening to Cautionary Tales, and if

399
00:29:20,170 --> 00:29:23,090
Speaker 1: you liked this particular episode, I wrote a book about

400
00:29:23,090 --> 00:29:28,530
Speaker 1: these ideas. It's called MESSI you might like it. Cautionary

401
00:29:28,570 --> 00:29:32,090
Speaker 1: Tales is written and presented by me Tim Harford. Our

402
00:29:32,170 --> 00:29:36,370
Speaker 1: producers are Ryan Dilley and Marilyn Rust. The sound designer

403
00:29:36,410 --> 00:29:40,890
Speaker 1: and mixer was Pascal Wise, who also composed the amazing music.

404
00:29:42,930 --> 00:29:47,810
Speaker 1: This season stars Alan Cumming, Archie Panjabi, Toby Stephens and

405
00:29:48,010 --> 00:29:52,890
Speaker 1: Russell Tovey, with enso Celenti, Ed Gochen, Melanie Gutteridge, mass

406
00:29:52,890 --> 00:29:59,210
Speaker 1: Siam Unroe, Rufus Wright and introducing Malcolm Gladwell. Thanks to

407
00:29:59,250 --> 00:30:04,130
Speaker 1: the team at Pushkin Industries, Julia Barton, Heather Faine, Mia LaBelle,

408
00:30:04,330 --> 00:30:08,730
Speaker 1: Carlie Milliori, Jacob Weisberg and of course the mighty Malcolm

409
00:30:08,730 --> 00:30:12,170
Speaker 1: gladwe And thanks to my colleagues at the Financial Times