If you are looking to purchase a violin through an online vendor, reading reviews will quickly introduce you to the VSO–the Violin Shaped Object. It looks like a violin, but it doesn’t produce the sounds you expect from a violin.

In Quality, we have plenty of our own examples of the VSO phenomena where there is the promise of Quality tools and initiatives leading to improved performance and then the reality of little to no sustained improvements or benefits.

This podcast episode explores some of the possible explanations for why quality initiatives and tools are failing when they are implemented.

Here is a link to an music store’s description of a Violin Shaped Object: https://kennedyviolins.com/pages/what-is-a-vso

The famed pianist Keith Jarrett also comes up in the episode. Here’s a link to a fan website that has links to many, many resources about Keith Jarrett: Unofficial Keith Jarrett website