Years ago, shortly after I bought my first audible.com subscription, I ended up listening to a book by Leil Lowndes. It was one of those art-of-conversation books that had a lot of common sense advice for the reader. Out of all of the points in the book, however, what I still remember to this day is her advice about how to break the ice with people whose jobs or hobbies you know nothing about.

In order for your conversational partner to develop an interest in you, you need to ask intelligent questions about their job or hobby that ideally show there’s been some thought put into the question or even that you’ve had some experience in the field yourself.

Examples from Lowndes’ book, How to Talk to Anybody About Anything: You meet an artist? Ask, “What medium do you work in?” A plastic surgeon? Ask, “Is your practice more cosmetic or reconstructive?” A model? Ask, “Do you do mostly print or runway?”

These questions will develop more of a rapport than the banal first-to-mind questions like, “Have you sold lots of stuff?”, “How do you stand the blood?”, “Do you get hit on a lot?”.

So I’ve been thinking that it might be educational on a couple of different levels to start a recurring post to the blog along these lines. If you’re really, really interested in this sort of thing, check out Lowndes’ website for her books. I’m hoping that doing that sort of thing on this blog will be more interactive and informative…

Let’s start with professional flute-players.

Ask:

• How does one deal with nerves?
• How does one begin learning a new piece of music?
• Is there a routine one goes through on concert days?
• Is there a certain passage in some piece of music which just reminds one of why one performs?
• What piece they’re working on now and then ask their opinion of it?

Do Not ask:

• Do you have a favourite composer?
• How much did your instrument cost?
• Is it fun to perform on stage?
• How much do you get paid?
• Do you like quick music or slow music?
• Did your parents force you to practise?

Thanks to Christopher Lee for the information.