In a previous post I mentioned the KISS Principle and strength coach Dan John. I have never actually known the origin of the principle until now.
The principle has nothing to do with this KISS but in many ways the band uses the "KISS principle" to influence their music. I remember once hearing an interview with Gene Simmons, the bass player, and he talked about the importance of him playing extremely simple in order to make the music work. There are many other examples like this from the music world and please do not confuse simple with easy.
Many musicians if not all will tell you that sometimes the most difficult pieces of music to play are actually theoretically very simple. One example would be 12 bar blues; theoretically very simple to play and easily understood and is usually something a beginner learns in the first few months of picking up an instrument but ...
... there is a big difference between a well seasoned pro and a beginner, even if they are playing the same music. Most people, including non-musicians will be able to tell the difference between the two even though they may not be able to explain why.
The origin of the KISS Principle: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KISS_principle
The acronym was first coined by Kelly Johnson, lead engineer at the Lockheed Skunk Works (creators of the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes, among many others).
While popular usage translates is as 'Keep it simple, stupid', Mr. Johnson translated it as 'Keep it simple and stupid'. There was no implicit meaning that an engineer was stupid; just the opposite.
The principle is best exemplified by the story of Mr. Johnson handing a team of design engineers a handful of tools, with the challenge that the jet aircraft they were designing must be repairable by an average mechanic in the field under combat conditions with only these tools. Hence, the 'stupid' refers to the relationship between the way things break and the sophistication available to fix them.
The principle most likely finds its origins in similar concepts, such as Occam's razor, and Albert Einstein's maxim that "everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler".[3] Leonardo Da Vinci's "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication", or Antoine de Saint Exupéry's "It seems that perfection is reached not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away".
Very interesting.
Be Well,
Mike Reid
