Music, Business and Peace

This is interesting, we need to discuss what is meant by musicking! Perhaps by email outside of this fabulous online conversation!

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Listeners do tend to associate musical genres with political positions, but political movements often use hybrid musical forms. There is no one to one correspondence. So the complexity of musical meanings is also a challenge.

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I believe that we have only a couple more minutes --Concluding thoughts? We’ve raised a bunch of important issues, which I’m assuming will remain on this “chat” for us to reference in the future. I think we can elucidate some important points from today’s discussion –

Thanks to all for an AMAZING set of discussions!! I look forward to much more.

absolutely agree – context is more than politics(!) – I think of the talk about mis-appropriation this year.

Much to think about here. Thank you!

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Yes, thanks to all of you.

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Concluding thoughts: fabulous exchange with outstanding people, so happy to be here!

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I’ve appreciated being able to participate in this.

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Thanks everyone! This was a success!

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Thank you, everyone, for joining today’s live discussion! We’ll keep this forum open, so please do continue to add your comments.

To read the articles related to this discussion, click here.

I think it might be useful to go back and reread all of the abstracts (or full papers) on this topic from last year – we brought up many important points there and now we’re expanding on them –
Also - we didn’t talk about Bernstein as a model today, but the quotes that Alexander read are almost a call-to-action on the intentionality of music.
More later.
Thanks to all!

[quote=“OliBFP, post:103, topic:735”]
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[/quote]Music and business can make us want to participate, do things, take action, change our societies. – This seems to be one of the most important points.

AGunning,

I guess I am saying exactly that. I’m having a hard time believing that music will encourage you to go out and commit some violent act. I think it requires way more influence to convince you to do something than it does to keep you from doing something. UNLESS there are mental issues that are involved that tend to lead to violent behavior.

Alain, I totally agree. So often, people fail to see any connection at all between a right-brain activity like music and what they view as an analytical, left-brain activity like business. However, successful business takes so much more than just data and number crunching. It often requires some real creativity and innovation… so there is a lot more “art” in business than people tend to think.

Fascinating! Love this comment and concept really! Think of how we learn music as children. ABCs and twinkle twinkle are the same melody and that makes it easy to learn. Kids show solidarity of music probably better than most in that they just feel and experience it through each other. Then you think of how loyal a country music fan base is. Most country songs are a combination of just a handful of chords. Never had thought about that but the volume, pitch, melody absolutely drives emotions therefore in some cases action.

Oliver in terms of how we can translate music to business I came across this article which I thought was rather interesting without knowing too much about the credibility of the source. It notes that tonality, repetitiveness and slow tempo can be relaxing. So as you translate that to business, in a setting driven by conflict, how can we use the same methods to structure our conversation? Using the right tone, speaking at a pace that can be understood and being consistent in message is something that relaxes people in music and business.

Here’s the article for reference if anyone is interested! I know a couple of you talked about music being more than entertainment and there is an undertone of that here. https://enlightenedaudio.com/psychoacoustics-and-science-relaxation-music

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Steven 100% agree. Think about how a leader has to facilitate peace esp in a zone of conflict. It’s very similar to a composer. He/she can’t play themselves even if they know how they have to achieve through others. They have to learn to work together to make the melody ultimately better. They have to know when to turn some sounds up and tone others down. They have to know when there is someone or a group that is starting to go offbeat. Having that judgement definitely would be an art form and while something you get better at over time, likely something that is more natural for some leaders than others.

This got me so curious about our current presidents favorite song. It sounds like he loves an older Peggy Lee song though it’s quite dark. Link to a comic version of that here if anyone is interested. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/donald-trump-and-i-have-the-same-favorite-song/amp

Otherwise cool article in rolling stone about presidential candidates favorite music. Interesting when you think about it although I’m sure there was some mindfulness in how they responded as well that was tied to a larger strategy! Link is https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/complete-guide-to-the-2016-candidates-favorite-music-20160201

This is really cool stuff Ashley. Makes me think it would be worth a project for a research assistant to see what s/he could find through presidential history!