The Concert Band
Eight years before AI entered the picture, I was already playing out of position — asked to conduct an ensemble I had no credential to lead. This is the baseline: figuring it out the old way, with human consultants, so you can see exactly what AI later added — and the limit, the domain where adaptive expertise still has to happen in the room.
What I was asked
A "short-term bandaid" that became permanent
When a conductor moved into a higher administrative role, I was asked to take the concert band — framed as a temporary fix until a long-term replacement was found. I did it well enough that the search never happened. I became it.
The expertise I brought & the gap
A musician, not a conductor
- Expertise present: three decades of musicianship, ensemble instinct, and a trained ear — I know what the music should sound like.
- The gap: the craft of conducting and the wind-band repertoire — no credential, no formal training in either.
How I figured it out
The same method — with human consultants
I said yes, then ran the loop: I consulted friends and colleagues around the country for honest assessment of my conducting and for literature recommendations, audited myself against what they told me, and iterated by doing — rehearsal after rehearsal. No machine in the loop; the consultants were people.
This is the method that predates AI. The capability was always mine to build — AI didn’t create it. It just gave me a faster, always-available consultant later on.
Where it lives now
The dossier exemplar
The “bandaid that became permanent” is the conducting exemplar in my promotion-to-Full case — earned validation that the figuring-it-out method works long before AI made it faster.