Dear Music Thinkers around the world,
We are celebrating a major milestone! Exactly five years ago, on the 19th of May, The Power of Music Thinking podcast was launched.
Five years ago, I was nearly 80% done writing a book about Music Thinking. I sent the draft to some friends for feedback. The responses were kind, but deep down, I knew something was missing. The spark wasn’t fully there. Unsure of my next step, I put the manuscript aside.
Then, a podcaster from the US reached out and asked me to talk about the Music Thinking framework on his show.
Hearing that conversation back changed everything. I realised something powerful: it is incredibly compelling to talk with others about music. To explore how other top performers work, how they listen, how they lead, and when they choose to follow.
That spark led me to launch my own podcast on 19 May 2021: The Power of Music Thinking. (And yes, the book of the same name was successfully published a year later!)
Today marks exactly five years of conversations with world-class leaders, neurobiologists, architects, and artists who all share one trait: they are also musicians. Thank you to every guest who has shared their score, and to every listener who has tuned in over the last five years.
To celebrate this milestone, I’ve scrobbled through the archives with a little help from AI to create a comprehensive guide based on 20 leadership questions and answers from across our episodes.
We’ve broken them down into four key themes:
1️⃣ Leadership Style & Organisational Structure (leading a team without a conductor)
2️⃣ Innovation, Agility & Strategy (navigating the real impact of AI)
3️⃣ Culture, Communication & Empathy (the strategic power of active listening)
4️⃣ The Leader as an Individual: Development & Wellbeing (techniques to reset before high-stakes conversations)
🎧 Click here to listen to Take Five: Highlights from five years of podcasting and also find in the show notes the 20 leadership questions with answers from 20 guests of The Power of Music Thinking podcast.
You can also listen to it on:
Spotify, Apple, and YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts.
This is a personal story about my first online interview at the end of the 1990s. It is a trip back in time with original sound snippets from the interview with famous conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim in the Opéra Royale at Versailles. Find out how we did this technically and what questions the maestro was asked that came from the internet.
This is another special episode where I experiment with different kinds of storytelling.
This time, it is also about pioneering the internet and music thinking. You hear original sounds from 1997 that might sound a bit bumpy but have historical value. It shows unreleased material from a great musician, an empathic, sympathetic person in a relaxed, collegial atmosphere.
🎧 Click here to listen to:
Pioneering music thinking and first online interview with Daniel Barenboim
You can also listen to it on: Spotify, Apple, or YouTube.
Every month, I share one of the jam cards with you for inspiration, to think out loud, or just as a trigger to train your music thinking.
The essence of the Trust Card is that there will be a time where you want or have to perform. In other words, the time of thinking or asking questions is over. It is showtime, it is just doing, and the partners involved have to trust each other to create a seamless experience for themself and others. I think this counts as well for organisations and people as for services and products.
The Quote
WHEN THE MUSIC SUDDENLY STARTS IT CAN BE DIFFICULT TO RECOGNIZE WHERE WE ARE IN THE PROCESS AND WHICH IS THE RIGHT FOOT TO PUT FORWARD. THE BEST GUIDE, IN LAUNCHING A NEW DESIGN PROJECT, IS SOMETIMES JUST TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT PARTNER, CLEAR THE DANCEFLOOR, AND TRUST OUR INTUITION.
Tim Brown, IDEO
This month I had the opportunity to try out the Jam Cards with the regular public in a tent during the Burning Man Nijmegen edition. This was great fun. People had to think about a future problem, walk three times around the tent to think about it and pick a card for an answer. We got surprising reactions. I learned that just picking one card is enough to ponder and also to start a conversation with strangers.
Every day, I find something interesting that connects to listening, sound, and co-creation from a music-thinking perspective; it drives me to read and think. I am sharing this with you to start exploring and having a conversation. Let me know your thoughts via Substack.
Secure adult attachment to fathers’ and students’ perceptions of shared reasons for musical engagement
Music can be used as a tool for exploring, learning, and coping with our environment. Moreover, research suggests that parent–child shared participation in music may promote enduring secure attachments. This research tested whether there is a relationship between secure adult attachment to fathers and perceptions of shared reasons for musical engagement (identity, coping, learning, relationships, time, and relaxation).
I came across this fantastic app. Neumz is the only complete recording of all Gregorian Chant in the world. More than 7000 hours in an App for iOS and Android, this beats Spotify in any way :-)
Check it out here: https://neumz.com/
I am truly looking forward to sharing this 15th anniversary year—and the years leading to 2041—with you here. If you are interested in the cues and rhythms of business and life strategies through a musical lens, I am honoured to have you in the ensemble.
Please forward the newsletter if you think you can make someone happy!
Let’s listen, tune, play, and perform together.
Best regards,
Founder, Music Thinking Society
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