Today, we are in Nashville, and we speak with Shain Shapiro - a globally recognised thought leader at the convergence of music, culture and urban policy.  Shain is the CEO of Sound Diplomacy - a global research and strategy consultancy, and he also leads the non-profit Center for Music Ecosystems, which commissions research to help solve local, national and international challenges using music as a tool. Shain has authored reports on the role of music in cities, tourism, the nighttime economy, real estate and recovery, including the most extensive guide to music and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in partnership with the United Nations.  We are talking about his brand-new book, This Must Be The Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better, which was published in September 2023.  Note: Unfortunately, there was a very poor Wifi, so please excuse the quality. Show Notes Connect with Shain on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shainhouse/Sound Diplomacy: www.sounddiplomacy.com Music Cities Events: www.musiccitiesevents.comHis book: This Must Be The Place: https://www.shainshapiro.com/book Show support Please choose one or more of the ‘three ways to support the show’! Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show!Tell your friends about the podcast and musicthinking.comBuy the book The Power of Music Thinking and/or the Jam Cards. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation.

Listen to an incredible sonic project by a Design Academy Eindhoven (DAE)  graduate: Louis Moeckel. Hear the story about the supply chain of the production of a Toy Dolphin and the creation of research into an artistic Vinyl record. If you like Techno and the Berghain Club in Berlin you will like this. See the show notes to pre-order this unique Vinyl record. Show support to the Podcast Please choose one or more of the ‘three ways to support the show’! Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show!Tell your friends about the podcast and musicthinking.comBuy the book The Power of Music Thinking and/or the Jam Cards. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation.

What is the use of standing still for 10 minutes? I was asking myself when I saw a post on social media. It was a double picture of a man with a mobile phone around his neck displaying some data, and another picture showed the view he saw at that moment. I learned that he stood there for 10 minutes without any movement, listening to the sound that was already there. There were many pictures like this, and I decided to get in contact. So, today, we are in Oslo. We speak with Alexander Refsum Jensenius, a professor of music technology at the University of Oslo, a book author, a music researcher and researching musician working in the fields of embodied music cognition and new interfaces for musical expression.  Alexander shares with us his experiences while performing and testing with artistic methods of embodied listening and how people experience music and sound. This goes from experiments with and without the conductor of a Symphony Orchestra to the sounds of our kitchen appliances. We talk about his motion capture lab, where a person’s exact location and micro-movements can be detected while they hear different kinds of music, and how the researchers can understand what moves them.  Alexander shares insights about the Norwegian Championship of Stand Still, where until now, 1000s of people have participated, and the winner is the person with the lowest average velocity on standing the stillest over some time.  Alexander explains the interplay of body and mind and reveals some secrets on how to move people, for example, on the dance floor or to calm them down. It all has to do with our bpm, the average heartbeat of about 60 beats a minute.  Show Notes Connect with Alexander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexarje/Follow his still-standing on Mastodon: https://mastodon.online/tags/StillStanding Standstill database: https://www.uio.no/ritmo/english/research/labs/fourms/database/oslo-standstill-database/ Analysis of Research Concert with Stavanger Symphony Orchestra UniOslo_RITMO https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TpiEVkys-Tk Check out his book: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262544634/ Mentioned by Christof: Noisy appliances. How loud is your house: https://www.quietmark.com/news/noisy-appliances-how-loud-is-your-house  Show support Please choose one or more of the 'three ways to support the show'! Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show!Tell your friends about the podcast and musicthinking.comBuy the book The Power of Music Thinking and/or the Jam Cards. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation.

Mike von der Nahmer is a sound researcher, music therapist, scientific collaborator at the German Aerospace Center and composer.  With over 30 stage works and 100+ compositions, he holds international recognition. He has collaborated with GRAMMY, Kenwood, Sony BMG, Rolls Royce and BMW, and his music has been featured in TV series like NOVA. Mike shares with us some sonification projects in various domains, such as weather patterns, language, the brain, and sound design in autonomous vehicles. For example, he gives us insights into his work at the German Aerospace Center (the German NASA), where he works on the sonification of air traffic control. Today, you will not only hear us talking but also experience different sound worlds. Because Mike brought some sound files to the conversation, we hear different sound layers from an air traffic game and examples of what he calls 'mood compositions' for Rolls Royce, BMW and Mini that are central in the sound strategy of these car brands.  We end the conversation with a longer piece of about five minutes of sonification of curves that Mike co-created with two outstanding mathematicians in Luxemburg.  So be prepared to hear about pioneering thoughts connecting sound, science, and human experience. Show Notes Connect with Mike via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peter-michael-mike-von-der-nahmer-0780964/ Sonification in Air Traffic Control, German Aerospace Center (DLR): https://www.dlr.de/fl/en/desktopdefault.aspx/tabid-1149/1737_read-74107/ “ReShape”, Sound of Data - Science meets Music, sonification of curves: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9l_oTHr-_w  Mashrabiya ReShaped, painting curves to music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci0uISK2KAA Mike von der Nahmer, Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@mikevondernahmer5051 Mentimeter questions on sonification: https://www.menti.com/altpihgk8vfp/0 Beethoven's 5th mapped in a Customer Journey software: https://www.smaply.com/blog/cx-professional-interview-christof-zuern Show support Please choose one or more of the 'three ways to support the show'! Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show!Tell your friends about the podcast and musicthinking.comBuy the book The Power of Music Thinking and/or the Jam Cards. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation.

Today we are in Mumbai. We talk with Jeena Earthiva. Jeena is a Transformational Coach, a Producer with a master’s in Computer Science, an ex-Bollywood singer, the Founder of Conscious Music Code, and a ‘Mind DJ’. Jeena conveys her story of a successful Bollywood singer who lost her voice at the top of her singing career and how she found and developed the ‘Conscious Music Code’ that helped her get back on track and start a new career as ‘Mind DJ’. We talk about the broad field of music between India and the West, and analogies between music and business. And the Koan of her mentor Dr Daisaku Ikeda, which became her life motto: “Transforming the life state of humankind”. And, ta-daa, – this is a first – Jeena is singing live in this episode a Bengali folk song mixed with a Persian poem. And be also prepared for a 6-minute musical mind hack exercise at the end of the recording that Jeena is performing for us. So, lean back and enjoy; if you are listening in from your car, we suggest you take a break or do the exercise at another moment. Show Notes Connect with jeena via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeenaearthiva/ Website: https://jeenaearthiva.com/All other links and Social Media in one place: https://linktr.ee/jeenaearthiva  Show support Please choose one or more of the ‘three ways to support the show’! Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show!Tell your friends about the podcast and musicthinking.comBuy the book The Power of Music Thinking and/or the Jam Cards. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation.

Why can elements from music be applied for the benefit of communities or companies?How do you effectively use music and music thinking as a tool? What does Beethoven's 9th and Japanese woodwork have in common? We are in the in-between space, between music and business, education and performance, listening and understanding, and London and Tokyo.  So, today we talk with Michael Spencer. Michael is the founder of Sound Strategies Ltd, TEDx speaker, Visiting Professor at Ueno Gakuen University (Tokyo), and the Communication Director of the Japan Philharmonic Orchestra. He was Head of education at the Royal Opera House in London and, as a member of the London Symphony Orchestra, worked with Leonard Bernstein, Deep Purple and on the Star Wars soundtracks with composer John Williams. Michael gives us a deep dive into why music functions and shares the elements and learnings he used, for example, in the townships in South Africa and his work with companies like Unilever, BASF, IHG (Intercontinental Hotels Group), Daikin, and Fujitsu. So, we talk about making better connections and how musical systems, timing, and structure help us to understand how things go together. And that music comes from the fact that it is some co-created system for creating relationships. There is a lot to learn today - not only about music, but also about business and society - so let’s get into it. Show Notes Sound Business Tokyo:  https://www.soundstrategiestokyo.com/ Sound Business London: https://www.sound-strategies.co.uk/aboutJapanese woodwork:  https://japanobjects.com/features/japanese-joinery Beethoven 9th Symphony - with 10000 Japanese Choir https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wzXZRd087I Michael Spencer at TEDxWWF: https://vimeo.com/61710533?share=copyPlease consider the 3 ways to support the show! Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show!Tell your friends about the podcast and musicthinking.com Buy the book The Power of Music Thinking and/or the Jam Cards.  The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation.

This episode is about art, innovation and leadership.  What is the relationship between art-based learning, innovation and co-creation? How do you lead an ensemble of leaders? And why do people often use the metaphor of a conductor when discussing leadership? Or, is a conductor actually just a middle manager? So, today we are in New York and talking with Harvey Seifter. Harvey is the founder of The Art of Science Learning, a US National Science Foundation-funded initiative that uses the arts to spark innovation in science, technology, engineering and education. And Harvey is also a classically trained musician and formerly served as Executive Director of the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. The only orchestra in the world that rehearses and performs without a conductor.  Harvey shares with us insights on giving directions as a ‘decision maker of last resort’ - as he calls it -   stimulating co-creation and what this means for the innovative power of the organisation.  Well, you can say we have learnings here for any organisation. By the way: we recorded this episode via Zoom when Harvey returned just a few days from his Ted talk in Madrid; before the talk, he lost his voice and finally did the TED talk without repetition.  To spare his voice and energy, we stopped the recording at a certain point and agreed to have a second conversation in the very near future. So listen to Part One with Harvey Seifter and how you lead an orchestra of leaders. Show Notes Connect with Harvey via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hseifter/ Orpheus Chamber Orchestra: https://open.spotify.com/artist/35pZsti1RSA5Zv98jAm8kX?si=FIjGn4yeTPKzZvD46PTdVA Art of Science Learning: https://www.artofsciencelearning.org/ Like this show? Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show! There is more about Music Thinking: a book, a blog and many more podcast episodes. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Support us Tell your friends about musicthinking.com and consider buying the book and/or the Jam Cards.

This is a special episode about listening in the field and some activities I did last month.  Hear more about a short field recording in the middle of the most dangerous roundabout in the Netherlands, about the visit to my birth town in the South of Germany, where I have recorded the Turmbläser, which are performing a sonic ritual since 400 years high above the belfry on all four balconies every Sunday.  And I also share some news, development, and info about the Listening Day at the Design Academy in Eindhoven.   Special thanks to the Turmbläser for allowing us to listen high above the belfry and Cordula and Onkl Hanzl for all the info.   Show notes  Info about Möckmühl / Germany: https://www.moeckmuehl.de/startseiteKaiser Karel Plein, Nijmegen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7uguJjfFFuoConducting Design with Raf De Keninck / Design Academy Eindhoven: https://musicthinking.com/conducting-design-with-raf-de-keninck/  Like this show? Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show! There is more about Music Thinking: a book, a blog and many more podcast episodes. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Support us Tell your friends about musicthinking.com and consider buying the The Power of Music Thinking or the Jam Cards.

Today we touch base on the intersection between music and photography, and that in many different ways.  My guest today is Charles Brooks, an exceptionable photographer and  musician, that for the last 20 years has been New Zealand’s most successful orchestral cellist. Charles held principal positions in Australia, China, Chile and Brazil, with concerts worldwide.  He also gives us insights in the organisation and culture of professional symphony orchestras and shares personal stories about the life of an orchestra musician that played with Lang Lang and for celebrities like Tony Blair and Arnold Schwarzenegger. While his music career took him around the globe at an early age, photography was always there. Charles refined his photographic craft of making musician portraits, astrophotography and landscapes until National Geographic took notice in 2011.  In the pandemic, he prototyped and developed a spectacular new way of photographing the inside of a variety of musical instruments, literally opening up a new space and visual world that give insights in the craft of the most formidable luthiers and instrument makers.  And these got picked up worldwide by magazines like The Telegraph, classic fm, Domus, France Musique, Daily Mail, and just recently Die Zeit in Germany.  Please find a selection of the photographs on the episode page of the music thinking website: https://musicthinking.com/sound-pictures-with-charles-brooks-photography Now, sit back, relax and be prepared for a long episode on all things creative. You will also have a chance to navigate through the different chapters, give it a try and let us know how this works. Show notes  Connect with Charles via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-brooks-a9773a30/Charles Brooks Photography: https://www.charlesbrooks.info/ The software Charles is using for focal compression / focus stacking: https://www.heliconsoft.com/heliconsoft-products/helicon-focus/Lloyd Webber Theme and Variations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1lpCszsOMU Disturbed's version of The Sound of Silence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bk7RVw3I8eg Highlights from Thais, the last opera Charles performed with the Sao Paulo Symphony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QlGfCzPZN0 First realisation of a Zaha Hadid Architecture: Fire Station https://www.vitra.com/en-ca/about-vitra/campus/architecture/architecture-fire-station Like this show? Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show! There is more about Music Thinking: a book, a blog and many more podcast episodes The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Do you like books?  Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking

Today we are in Singapore; we talk with Benjamin Pelzer, Assistant Professor of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University.  Ben is trained in Music Theory and Psychology. He works as an assistant professor and scientist with expertise in the methods of cognitive neuroscience, machine learning, computational social science, and empirical psychology. And Ben is teaching a one-of-its-kind course in the world of research on music as a sort of socio-cultural phenomenon and is using techniques from the field of communication and applying them to the field of music. Our Conversation We talk about how music and sounds can drive a particular scene of a film in two opposite ways, using a positive or negative valence soundtrack. And that music is almost uniquely powerful in its deeply emotional impact and ability to evoke complex or more profound, lasting emotions. Ben shares with us that there are some universal features of music, like low tones are connected with sinister or aggressive emotions that are part of the evolution when big animals were a severe threat.  A little survey And he conveys insights from a little survey he did with the multicultural students of his music course for The Power of Music Thinking podcast about how they listen to music in the context of Asia.  In his music course, Ben also reflects with his students questions like If you were alive 1000 years ago, what role would music have played in your life? And the realisation that for people outside of wealth and royalty, it would be folk instruments or just the human voice.  Ben shares with us some strategies of music; for example, if you use happy lyrics with happy music, you get less happiness than if you have happy lyrics with neutral music.    Good to know For some themes we talk about, I have put links in the show notes, and if you have a look at them, please consider subscribing, make a comment and give us a rating. This will help a lot to get the show going. We had some connection issues, so please excuse the little dropouts near the end.   Show notes  Connect with Ben Pelzer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benjamin-pelzer/More about Olivier Messiaen and his Turangalîla-Symphonie : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r4eeMZBInYAnd the Ondes Martenot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp4mBmsV6Xk later also used extensively by Radiohead.Mentioned episode: Glenn McDonald (Spotify) and his Every noise at once websiteMentioned episode: Steve Keller (audio alchemist) and his research on Sonic Discrimination Like this show? Subscribe to the podcast. Leave us a review — even one sentence helps! I appreciate your support; it helps the show!   There is more about Music Thinking: a book, a blog and many more podcast episodes The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Do you like books?  Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking

What are the links between daily work for a multinational company, an omnichannel fantasy story and playing in a band? My guest today is Eelko Lommers, Global Director Product Experience Design at IKEA, creator, designer, writer of a (not yet published) novel and a musician in a post-hardcore band. We talk about empathy with clients, personality in a brand context and global operations that need adaptations in different markets. And that a lot of a country's culture is directly related to its original music.  We discuss the endless loop of listening, tuning, playing and performing, how stories change while we tell them to the world, and how the audience plays an active role. Eelko shares with us the strategy of promoting his band with a limited budget and how this relates to a global design strategy because every data has a context of delivery for the right moment and audience under the right circumstances. And he conveys with us some details about the novel he just finished writing, a fantasy story about magical places in Germany and mythological creatures that live in a parallel world. As an extension of the book, he plans a whole ecosystem of multichannel media like locative art, TikTok videos and a 3D omni verse. Every chapter has an emotion, including colour and a song that connects with the essence of the chapter.   He explains this world-building and how he uses generative AI to build his characters to brief and guide an illustrator to make the final design.   So technology, content, storytelling and design are not separate activities but an integral part of the total product experience and customer satisfaction. True satisfaction and customer delight happen when all of it comes together to create experiences that solve people's needs in a way worthy of praise, remembrance and advocacy.   Show notes  Connect with Eelko via LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eelkolommers/ Phoenix’ Ashes on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7bPfZO3cREmap4Z4Mpnb39?si=LqNvRT_mRYmU6pCItmtwSA The String Theory article mentioned in the talk: https://www.theinteractivist.com/home/2022/9/21/the-two-strings-theoryIdoru by William Gibson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IdoruBaroque Cycle by Neal Stephenson: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baroque_Cycle    More about Music Thinking: a book, a blog and many more podcast episodes The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Do you like books?  Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode   Like this show? Please leave us a review — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Thank you for your support; it helps the show!

From the wild Punk scene in New York and London of the 70s to a sound healing practice in Los Angeles, my guest today is Jennifer Palladino, also called Dr Jen, a Doctor of Chiropractic, the Regional Director of the You Rock Foundation and a holistic health facilitator connecting mind, body and spirit with Chiropractic Sound Therapy.   Her musical experiences span from being a young performer wrangler at the American Ballet Theatre while Mikhail Baryshnikov was Artistic Director, to working in the music industry and a mastering studio in New York to the legendary Marquee Club in London, where she made friends with members of the Punk and New Wave scene.   We talk about a rich life in music from the impact of the Beatles, the power of Punk, and an orchestra of instruments that she uses in her sound healing practice.  Jennifer shares with us some music hacks, like how different frequencies resonate with our body, which contains 75% of water, and how she uses tuning forks with slightly different frequencies to produce binaural sounds in a sound bathing session.  And she explains the full moon performances she is doing as “The Sound Healers” on the Hollywood cemetery, where Rudolfo Valentino and Judy Garland rest.   Show notes  Connect with Dr. Jen via website: https://rocknhealthylifestyles.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100083204122839Music Hacks for Mental Health: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1255859064818851Dr. Jen on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rock_n_healthy_lifestyles/    More about Music Thinking: a book, a blog and many more podcast episodes The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Do you like books?  Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode   Like this show? Please leave us a review — even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally! Thank you for your support; it helps the show!

What has political journalism to do with music? Well, quite a lot. My guest today is Matt K Lewis from West Virginia, a political columnist for the daily beast, former CNN contributor, TV commentator for MSNBC’s morning show, a podcaster on Matt Lewis and the News (pun intended) and musician. Matt shares with us that he started his career, or better, the foundation of his later career, in the basement rehearsing with his band. Years later, when already a political journalist, he reflected on his music years and wrote an essay about the lessons he learned from playing in bands and how they helped him to understand his work in political journalism today. We talk about his musical upbringing, country music, steel and slide guitars. And make many analogies between music and journalism. Here are the five lessons from his article that he explains in the show: 1. Having an audience of “followers” is vital. 2. Music, like TV commentary, involves performing. 3. Playing music (and being a political commentator) isn’t nearly as glamorous as people think. 4. Not every song (or blog post or column) is a hit. 5. Collaboration is key.   Show notes Connect with Matt on Twitter: @mattklewis Matt Lewis & the News Podcast: https://www.mattklewis.com/Matt’s article: https://dailycaller.com/2016/11/22/what-music-taught-me-about-political-journalism/   There is more about Music Thinking: a book, a blog and many more podcast episodes The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Do you like books?  Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode Like this show? Please leave us a review -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!   Thank you for your support; it helps the show!

Rasa Priya in conversation with Christof Zürn. Rasa Priya describes the concept and advantages of sound healing, especially the vibrations behind the chanting of mantras, which are essential in his teaching of vocal empowerment, like the word 'Om' that, besides the sound, also has a healing effect on our facial muscles, creating possibilities of experiences. Rasa also introduces us to the work of the Japanese water photographer Masaru Emoto who visualises different styles of music but also words like hate, love, and guilt with his water crystals.  And he explains to us how everybody can be a drummer and get involved in right and left brain stimulation to nurture creative thinking and break the moulds of our limitations.  Show notes Connect with Rasa via his website: mauisoundhealing.comWatch his YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjNWWjtk6iLdCLrarEeD9hwInfo about Masaru Emoto: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDW9Lqj8hmcInfo about Gregg Braden: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rUVt650GdEI  Worth knowing If you love society and culture, music and technology, documentaries, and business podcasts, take a second to follow The Power of Music Thinking. Listeners of The Power of Music Thinking podcast will learn from some of the most exciting people in the world with practical tips and inspiring stories that will inspire your personal and business life. Listen to The Power of Music Thinking here: https://musicthinking.com/podcast or on your favourite podcast player. Like this show? Please leave us a review -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!   Thank you for your support; it helps the show!

In The Power of Music Thinking podcast, we have conversations with exciting people that are also musicians. They see analogies between music and the areas they are working. So what they do is combine knowledge and skills from multiple fields to make significant contributions to various areas.  In The Power of Music Thinking book, I call them the AND-musician. I talk about this, especially in the Backstage chapter, where we dive into analogies to switch from one field to the other, like: Black is to white as off is to on. Or, conducting is to classical music as producing is to hip hop.    But there is another expression for this: polymath. Think about people like Leonardo Da Vinci, Hildegard von Bingen, or any guest on this programme. All of them are masters in different fields.   So today, I speak with Barbara Kleeb, a trained photographer, a doctor of medicine, a leadership coach for polymaths AND-muscian.   We speak about her personal journey, how studying multiple approaches leads to openmindedness and that every team or board should have at least one generalist to understand and connect different perspectives. And Barabara shares with us a tool she uses in her coaching practice: Ikigai. We also learn, for example, that most UX designers are polymaths, which resonated with me a lot, being in UX and service design positions in different companies.   Shownotes: Connect with Barbara on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-barbara-kleeb  Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/3PnZvP1WfY3Cg1iTQcoCm6?si=ejzISnZqSrWVZaOLGq6Ilg  Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTBAxXugXGp8Mw9B--WMDnw/featured    The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Check out their website    Do you like books? Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking and get stories, explanations and exercises to apply music thinking. Buy The Power of Music Thinking   More like this Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode of The Power of Music Thinking.

Well it's this time of the year. And I am not talking about the countdown until Christmas and the holiday. I am also not talking about ‘the word of the year’, or any other review compiled and curated by air quote “specialists”. I am talking about you, or better about your data, or even more close about your musical behaviour, taste and most played songs. Yes, it is the time when all Spotify users get their personal wrap-up of the year.   But this episode is not about the making of the wrap-up. This episode is about musical genre types, technology and research with musical behaviour.  My guest today is Glenn McDonald, Data Alchemist of Spotify and founder, programmer and producer of the Every Noise at Once website, which holds and updates examples from all genre types Spotify is tracking.  We talk about personal music algorithms, genre categorisation, subsets of listening, what you can learn from listening data, and how listening behaviour shapes communities that can be the start of a new genre.  Glenn shares with us how he compiled playlists on his Spotify account and a memorable sonic experience when he heard the band Low for the first time live ‘opening up a door’ to a transformational moment.  Shownotes: Website Every Noise at Once: everynoise.comGlenn McDonald personal site: furia.comTwitter: @glenn_mcdonald The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Check out their website.    Do you like books? Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking and get stories, explanations and exercises to apply music thinking. Buy The Power of Music Thinking   More like this Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode of The Power of Music Thinking.

My guest today is Gabriella Di Laccio, public speaker, curator, activist, award-winning soprano and recording artist. She is one of the leading voices in the fight for gender equality in music. Listed as one of the BBC’s 100 most inspirational and influential women in the world, Gabriella is also the founder and curator of the charitable foundation Donne - Women in Music - dedicated to achieving gender equality in the music industry.  We talk about the incredibly long list of woman composers and the unbelievably few plays they get in conservative classical music organisations. Gabriella shares with us the research and the numbers from the latest report: that in 2021, almost 9 in 10 compositions played by orchestras around the world are written by white men. But there is hope. At least in a different field. This year's Biennale di Venezia, invited 213 artists, among them 21 men. And here is an Exercise you can do very easily in a quiet moment: Check your playlists and count the artists that you are listening to (also the producers and composers) and find out how biased your musical taste is. We also made a start with a Top 6 of woman composers you should know and listen to: Lili BoulangerNadia BoulangerFanny Mendelssohn Hensel Clara SchuhmannLeokadiya KashperovaFlorence Beatrice BriceRachel Portman, was the first woman who got an oscar. Show notes and how to connect with Gabriella Website: https://www.gabrielladilaccio.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GDiLaccio/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gdilaccio/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielladilaccio/  Twitter: https://twitter.com/GDiLaccio   More about Donne, Women in Music Website: https://donne-uk.org/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donneuk/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/donne_uk/  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/donneuk  Twitter: https://twitter.com/Donne_UK     The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialises in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Check out their website    Do you like books? Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking and get stories, explanations and exercises to apply music thinking. Buy The Power of Music Thinking   More like this Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode of The Power of Music Thinking.

My guest today is Raf De Keninck, executive member, director of education, research, and organisation of the Design Academy Eindhoven - one of the world's leading design schools. And Raf is also a performing musician, clarinet player and conductor. He played, for example, at the beginning of the 2000s, 300 concerts a year.  We start with sharing the incredible dreams he had as a child and a unique ritual he did in his adolescent years. And we get some insights into his leadership skills, for example, the advantages of having an outside view, combined with excellent listening skills and the practice of 'not knowing' and how to let inspiration flow in two ways. So, when you are open, then people will also be open. We talk about leading and following, and Raf explains what it means as a conductor to have a total overview and a well-defined score and how you can lead without explicitly leading. And there is another story of a conductor shouting at an orchestra and how the musicians were teaching him a lesson.  “Every time you play, rehearse or perform, you learn something.”   Show notes and how to connect with Raf LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rafdekeninck/ Design Academy Eindhoven website: https://www.designacademy.nl/ Personal website: https://www.rafdekeninck.nl/ Mahler 8th Symphony (Director: Georg Solti) on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/51GmsdrdDSuwM9gTTS23Xg?si=Uyq4tbLhRGWvHAzoWZknLg Ligeti Chamber Concerto (Raf is talking about the most inspiring piece for organisations and leading and following): https://open.spotify.com/album/46e15cKAuwDSwyIrTDeDk4?si=YJdzj6ZiRtua0_gfvV-H0g John Cage 4’33’ recording from the first Design Thinkers Conference: https://creativecompanion.wordpress.com/2017/11/20/i-invite-you-to-listen-music-thinking-in-service-design/    Do you like books? Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking and get stories, explanations and exercises to apply music thinking. Buy The Power of Music Thinking   More like this Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode of The Power of Music Thinking. The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Check out their website

My guest today is Rikkert Achtereekte, customer director of sales and electronic musician. Rikkert works for the IT engineering company Schuberg Philis, which focuses on mission-critical processes. And Rikkert is a composer and performer of electronic music and gets together with some friends for a bi-monthly improvisation session on modular synthesizers. Rikkert shares insights about his company that builds solutions for business problems, for example, with a collaborative approach they call 'system in the room'. And they are pretty successful in what they are doing; they now got the Giarte XLA award for the 16th time. And he shares with us a workshop lab setting where he uses modular synthesizers to let people collaborate better and be more creative.  And precisely, that way of thinking - giving output and receiving input in a connected system of elements - is the essence of the Music Thinking Framework, with all the cues connected. So if you are at home or in the office while you hear this, you might want to download the framework first and then listen to this episode. But if you listen to it while driving a car or walking in nature, relax and enjoy the conversation with many life sounds from a modular synthesizer that Rikkert brought to the show. Show notes and how to connect with Rikkert LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rikkert-achtereekte-9694aa49/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voltmeistermodular/ Schuberg Philis, company website: https://schubergphilis.com/en Voltmeister, the modular synth music group: https://voltmeister.bandcamp.com Voltmeister on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/1gB0NEOq2RooF3oSIoAtVv?si=aS8_YsVcStWgcrJeCy1q_w  Do you like books? Check out the new book: The Power of Music Thinking and get stories, explanations and exercises to apply music thinking. Buy The Power of Music Thinking   More like this Please subscribe to the podcast and listen to the latest episode of The Power of Music Thinking.   Meet our sponsor The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating leaders, teams and organisations in customer experience, change and innovation. Check out their website

Today we are in Hawaii. We speak with Dagan Bernstein, a teacher and musician passionate about designing and leading innovative educational experiences. Dagan is currently serving as Capstone Coordinator at an independent K-12 international boarding school in Hawaii with additional expertise in mathematics, music, and digital media instruction.  We speak about collaboration in the classroom, how to co-create with students and how this might be an inspiration for business people. And we talk intensively about the Ukulele, how he is using this in teaching, and some historical background, and we hear him play a tenor ukulele during the conversation like he would do at the farmers market at the weekend. And we learn new Hawaiian words and mindsets like Malama Kaiaulu, the act of Kilo and Ike.   Shownotes Here are some links to sources we mentioned in the talk. Youtube: Student Ukulele EnsembleYoutube: Ukulele Orchestra of Great BritainPeter Moon (spotify)Jesse Kalima (spotify)Eddie Kamae (spotify) Connect with Dagan Twitter: @daganbernsteinInstagram: @daganmusic and @dagan.blogWebsite: daganmusic.com   More info The Power of Music Thinking is brought to you by CREATIVE COMPANION specialised in facilitating companies in making brand minded and people-centred decisions.   Buy The Power of Music Thinking book to learn and find out more about Music Thinking and how to use this in your endeavour. See the latest episode of The Power of Music Thinking