A Couple Of Things – Irish Beat and Birthday Feat
From Celtic percussion to corporate birthdays - finding relevance in reinvention.
‘A Couple Of Things’ is a short write-up of literally a couple of things that catch my attention and get me into a reflective mode. It could be a well-written essay, a deep research into something outside the routine, a music discovery, a podcast find, a page-turner, or for that matter any evolving thought formats that show up on my digital scroll.
Tradition and Innovation
Whenever I think of ‘tradition’, I try to find an apt section in my dictionary to place the word. I feel that way because of the sheer pace of innovation springing up in every imaginable area of our lives today. But then when I pause to think of the underlying thing that got disrupted, changed, or underwent an unrecognizable makeover, I find the place for ‘tradition’. Innovation succeeds tradition, but both co-exist and compete in reality, and in our perspectives. Today’s couple of things touches upon tradition and innovation across music, technology and human milestones.
· The Bodhran Boys from Ireland
· Microsoft's 50th birthday celebration
Drumming the Bodhrán Beat
While scrolling through my Facebook feed, I came across a video of ‘The Bodhran Boys’ posted by Drum Talk TV. ‘Bodhrán’ is an Irish frame drum that’s believed to have evolved from the Tambourine, without the jingling sound. It has references to its usage in the medieval times, but gained more prominence in the 19th century. The Bodhran Boys are part of the Sean Nós ar an tSionann club in the West of Ireland. The group has fused the traditional roots of playing the Bodhrán with Irish step dancing, thereby evolving the conventional art with a modern touch. Keeping the beat, shaping the chorus with multiple Bodhráns playing together, yet allowing for individual improvisations to show through, is a performance to behold by itself. Add the Irish step dance to it, and we have a different personification of grace. Imagine one’s brain working through the coordination of not just one’s hands and feet, but of their fellow performers on stage. Management books would call this navigating a matrix organization.
Birthdays and Evolution
I had a couple of birthday celebrations in the first week of April, 2025. The first was of my mother-in-law, and the second was of Microsoft (turning 50). We could call ‘a birthday’ as the OG (original) milestone in one’s life that stays on for the longest. Everything else is an add-on. I was reading this fascinating piece on the 15 milestones shaping Microsoft’s vision for AI, and it got me thinking on how some of the largest feats are a series of builds. Zooming out, I looked at the concept of a human birthday from an organization lens—how we can think of our birthdays and birthday milestones.
· It’s an opportunity to reflect on the growth seen in the year gone by, the decades passed, or the bigger anniversaries in the blocks of 25, 50, 75 and 100.
· It’s an opportunity to reflect on one’s purpose, and validate it against one’s internal and external context; which in turn shapes our years to come.
The trick is always to find a fine balance between nostalgia and newness. ‘How relevant’ vs ‘how long’—A frame out of Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella’s thinking is a great way of validating one’s existence, and putting one’s past, present and future in perspective. It’s not about how many years we’ve added on, but how do we continue to be relevant in our inner and outer circle of influence, and what can we do to hone it further.
Listen In
Keeping with the Irish theme, today’s tune comes from The Rumjacks, a band formed in 2008 in Sydney, Australia. One of the genres their music is tagged with, is ‘celtic punk’. This is ‘An Irish Pub Song’ from their first album ‘Gangs Of New Holland’ released in 2010. It’s an observational commentary on the commercialization of Irish pubs across the world, and how they’re being robbed of their original charm.
You can check out my expanding Trove Of Tunes that I’m curating in a Spotify playlist.
Cheers,
Shri