Did you know that 29th March is World Piano Day? The date was chosen as it is the 88th day of the year (a standard piano has 88 keys.)
Playing the piano can look deceptively easy – who hasn’t been tempted to bash out Chopsticks when they see a piano keyboard? But organizing the music to produce a pleasing melody is a taller order. As Eric Morecambe famously said when attempting to perform Greig’s Piano Concerto: “I’m playing all the right notes but not necessarily in the right order!”
Have you ever wondered what the point was of a conductor standing in front of an orchestra waving his baton? Surely those talented musicians are perfectly capable of performing without him.
There is of course more to conducting that turning up in a fancy tailcoat. Here are just some of the duties the conductor may undertake:
- Recruiting the musicians
- Selecting the pieces to be performed
- Interpreting the music – deciding on tempo and volume
- Rehearsing the orchestra, ironing out tricky passages and getting the musicians to work as a single unit
- Working with the leader of the orchestra (1st violinist) and any soloists to agree the approach to the piece.
- Setting the pace in the performance – using the baton of course
- Bringing in musicians when it is their turn to play – particularly helpful for instruments which have a long wait between notes – triangles, anyone?
- Directing the applause to the soloists – getting musicians to stand in turn to accept the plaudits.
- Having something up their sleeve should an encore be required!
Just as a conductor’s role is not immediately obvious, the same can be said about your IT support provider:
- You have bought top-notch computers – surely they can look after themselves?
- But what software do you need to manage the business and protect you from hackers?
- Are the PCs set up correctly to work at their optimum performance?
- Are backups, updates and security scans scheduled?
- Do you get attention from your managed service provider when you want to raise an issue?
- Is the support ticket directed to the appropriate technician (musician)?
- Is the tempo (of issue resolution) at the right pace?
- Do you have a trusted IT adviser (conductor) with whom you can discuss future developments (the musical programme)?
The conductor takes a Beethoven symphony from a page of black notes on a manuscript and produces a harmonious performance, allowing the melody to shine without neglecting the important supporting harmonies.
Your trusted IT adviser takes your computing equipment and introduces monitoring, support and protection to produce a harmonious performance with the co-operation of you and your team!
If you would like your business to perform as well as Beethoven’s 9th Symphony, hand the baton over to Computer Troubleshooters!