What is Cronbach's Alpha?
The definition by UCLA's Institute of Digital Research & Education describes "Cronbach's Alpha as a measure of internal consistency, that is how closely related a set of items are as a group. It is considered to be a measure of scale of reliability. Technically speaking, Cronbach's Alpha is not a statistical test-it is a coefficient of reliability (or consistency)."
What does that have to do with a indie folk band that lives life on the ASD Spectrum and manages mental illness and advocates for the invisible marginalized people of the world?
It is a symbol that states that things relate on a scale. Essentially, we are all on a spectrum or scale to one degree or another. Popular culture describes as "normal." Normal is not common and neither are the extremes.
We are lifting up the idea that life is on a scale not all ups and not all downs but somewhere in between, and that in between varies from person to person. We orbit together on a globe circulating in a universe with a common condition called life. This idea for me is that nobody is "normal," but we can see how we all fit together inter-related in the human condition. The music produced is to hold up the human condition, so to me Cronbach's Alpha is a cluster variables that affect happiness, sadness, joy, pain, sanity, chaos, structure, sound, silence, race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, identity, harmony, wealthy, poverty, trust, betrayal, success, failure, laughter, and grief. We all experience these things. Humanity on the margins experiences everything too, and it might seem "normal" but we are here. We are different, but not less. We are valid and we all can relate, if we all listen. Music helps with that medicine through the ears and ultimately into the soul. Cronbach's Alpha is our symbol, our mission, and our muse for many things. Life is the coefficient to individual experience and our ability to relate to one another. The variables is where we lose each other.