(averill) to learn music is to do something akin to learning a language (pagano) that's it. now try it. (averill) and very often as kids learn music, they're taught the grammar the rules, the syntax of the musical language. they learn this by rote. [drumbeats] do it slowly. (averill) eventually, the idea is that they can then bring something of their own style something of their own spirit to the music and transform it-- make it something personal. take the example of jazz musicians who study solos of previous jazz greats who learn to reproduce those solos note by note. then they're able to take their own solos to begin to do something brilliant and creative and imaginative. (redman) i usually say that i'm self-taught because i never had a real private instructor as a saxophonist. but my teachers i consider to be the great musicians from the past and the great musicians from the present. i've learned from listening to the records. i consider sonny rollins one of my greatest teachers even though i've never met the man. so the way i've learned is by listening and by playing wi

its meaning, and i've always liked to write about real people who are in a situation whether it be averill hairman after world war ii and you have a create a new world ordinary like nato and the world bank and the marshall plan 0 steve jobs who says we're now in a digital revolution, we have to make it personal. these are people who -- to use steve jobs' words, were able to think different, think out of the box. i want to try to explore the creative mind and how it works. >> host: one of them themes -- themes in your book seems to be a connect to spirituality. >> guest: everybody believed they were part of something larger than themselves. i remember sitting with steve jobs and i asked him why did you do what you do? and he said, life is like a river. you get to pick things out of the river, really cool things people have done, they put before you in the river, great devices or great ideas, but after a while you realize it's not how much you get to take out of the river it's what you put back into the river, what you leave behind so that your spirit is still manifest after you have been go