What do you think? – A questionnaire about Music Thinking

As a good Music Thinker I would like to learn more about my audience. It would be great if you could fill in a little questionnaire.

When I am doing workshops or presentations about Music Thinking I also ask the audience to fill in this short questionnaire before the presentation, so I can share some insights with them during the session.

Please fill in the questionnaire

It only takes a few minutes, the answers are anonymous and help me to understand more about the young field of Music Thinking and to collect my own data about this field. Insights and learnings will be presented from time to time on this blog.

Link: Music Thinking Questionnaire

thanks in advance

Christof Zürn

Google is using music thinking to promote YouTube with insights and infographics | #EDM #MusicThinking

EDM electronic dance music

Think with Google the research and insights portal of Google posted a new article using music (in this case EDM electronic dans music) to show their compelling data and drive brands to YouTube to connect with their audience. They do this with a very nice infographic in the form of a decision tree.

The Biggest Music Genre You’ve Never Heard Of

How much do you know about EDM, or electronic dance music? Whether it’s a lot, a little or none at all, you’ll want to tune in to this profile of EDM fans. What you see might just surprise you: For example, while millennials under 25 view the most EDM content on YouTube, older audiences are becoming increasingly interested as well. And it turns out that EDM fans are more likely than their peers to be online, engaging in tech-savvy behaviors such as buying music online or following a brand on a social network. See how fans are increasingly turning to YouTube to learn more about music genres such as EDM and the opportunities this creates for brands.

Download PDF: EDM electronic dance music

This is a nice example of Music Thinking

10 more Quotes from the Big World of Music for the Rest of the World – Music Thinking Quotes Vol. 2

This is volume 2 of Music Thinking Quotes.

For quite some time I am collecting quotes that have a connection with what I call Music Thinking (more about Music Thinking click here).
At the same time I am working on a more systematic way to collect and combine music thinking principles. I am working now with 6 principles of music thinking: agility, empathy, personality, jammin’, score and remix.
More about that in a later post. (still has to come 😉

Here are 10 more quotes of more or less famous people with a music thinking connection. Hope you like it.

You can also find the presentation on SlideShare (download enabled).

The Death of the Long Tail? – Music Thinking for your industry

Interesting thoughts about the ‘The Superstar Artist Economy’.

What if this was your industry? Or will be in 5 or 10 years?
What could you learn for your company or brand from these findings?

Music Industry Blog

Today MIDiA Consulting is proud to announce the publication of an important new report: The Death of the Long Tail: The Superstar Music Economy.  The report is available free of charge to Music Industry Blog subscribers.  (If you are not yet a subscriber to this blog simply enter your email address in the box on the right hand column of the home page.)

The 21 ^st century decline in recorded music revenues continues to send shockwaves throughout the music industry and although there are encouraging signs of digital-driven growth, the impact on artists is less straightforward.  Total global artist income from recorded music in 2013 was $2.8 billion, down from $3.8 billion in 2000 but up slightly on 2012.  Meanwhile artists’ share of total income grew from 14% in 2000 to 17% in 2013.  But the story is far from uniform across the artist community.

The Superstar Artist Economy

The…

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The link between music taste and personality

To learn from music is one of the aspects of Music Thinking. Here are some learnings that could be used as input for some methods I am using for Brand development and Service Design like Persona Creation, or working with The Company Real Score. So with your next persona creation or service design project you maybe would like to ask your audience what kind (or maybe a combination) of music they prefer. This could help to understand your target group better.

Knowing whether a person prefers John Coltrane to Madonna, Dolly Parton to DJ Avicii, or Wagner to Prince allows for remarkably accurate personality predictions. 

Explore more infographics like this one on the web's largest information design community - Visually.

According to a study with 36.000 participants all over the world (conducted by Professor Adrin North of Heriot -Watt University, Edinburgh) there is a clear correlation between the musical taste of a person and their personality.

People could make accurate judgments about an individual’s levels of extraversion, creativity and open-mindedness after listening to ten of their favorite songs. Extraverts tend to seek out songs with heavy bass lines, while those who enjoy more complex styles such as jazz and classical music tend to be more creative and have higher IQ-scores.

Blues fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Jazz fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, and at ease

Classical music fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, introverts, and at ease

Rap fans
have high self-esteem and are outgoing

Opera fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, and gentle

Country and western fans
are hardworking and outgoing

Reggae fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, not hardworking, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Dance fans
are creative and outgoing but not gentle

Indie fans
have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard working, and not gentle

Bollywood fans
are creative and outgoing

Rock/heavy metal fans
have low self-esteem, are creative, not hard-working, not outgoing, gentle, and at ease

Chart pop fans
have high self-esteem, are hardworking, outgoing, and gentle, but are not creative and not at ease

Soul fans
have high self-esteem, are creative, outgoing, gentle, and at ease

 

References
North, A. C. and Hargreaves, D. J. (2008). The social and applied psychology of music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Collingwood, J. (2008). Preferred Music Style Is Tied to Personality. Psych Central. Retrieved from http://psychcentral.com/lib/2008/preferred-music-style-is-tied-to-personality/
North, A. C., Desborough, L., and Skarstein, L. (2005). Musical preference, deviance, and attitudes towards celebrities. Personality and Individual Differences, 38, 1903-1914. 

 

More of this:
see the comments or go to www.musicthinking.com

 

The Music of Business – a new Music Thinking Book

There are loads of books on business and there are more and more books that take music  as a starting point for inspiration, strategy, change or innovation. Here is a new Rock ‘n’ Roll Music Thinking Book by Peter Cook:

‘The Music of Business’

Cook is the author of ‘Best Practice Creativity’, ‘Sex, Leadership and Rock’n’Roll’ and ‘Punk Rock People Management’, acclaimed by Professor Charles Handy and Tom Peters. Peter mixes up business ideas with music in a heady cocktail that reaches the parts that other business writers do not dare to touch.

The new book, entitled “The Music of Business” is endorsed by Harvey Goldsmith. Topics include:

• What can hard rock groups such as Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Spinal Tap teach you about business strategy and project execution that the MBA cannot?
• What can you learn about creativity and innovation from The Beatles and David Bowie?
• What can Lady Gaga teach you about business strategy and using social media to build a powerful, durable and sustainable brand in a complex and ever changing world?
• Can Britney Spears, Take That and The Kaiser Chiefs help you become a true learning company?
• Can Jazz and structured improvisation help you succeed in a complex and changing business world?

Tip:
If you think about buying the book I suggest to do this on 31 1 13, you will get a special discount.

Peter also tries to top the established amazon charts with this independent published book and this works only if a lot of purchases are done in a very short time: nice tip! Let’s do it!

Brand Patterns and Leitmotives – Music Thinking Inspirations for Branding and Design

When designing a brand it is necessary to have a shared understanding about the why, what and how of a brand. This can be written down and visualized in a manifesto together with the brand DNA, vision, mission, ambition and the brand values, personality, promis and expressions. But this is just like the musical score. To really ‘live the brand’ it has to be performed and adapted everyday together with  your audience.

Music Thinking:
Here are two musical concepts that could inspire and engage brand professionals to think about the brand consumer relation to add value to both sides: first to the consumer, then it will pay back to the brand.

Pattern

Marc Shillum is approaching the filed of branding from a pattern thinking perspective:  Brand as Patterns. He states the most important feature of a successful brand is not just consistency, but rather the ability to continually reinvent the brand image according to what is most relevant at the time. In short, a successful brand must have a long term goal, but the short term strategy of how to get there must be continually reworked to remain coherent and relevant in a contemporary context.

Besides patterns there are more concepts that can bring context and meaning. In the Wagner Year it is worth to have a look on the contextual building blocks Wagner is using in his compositions: ‘das Leitmotiv’.

Leitmotiv

Leitmotives are musical phrases like story elements that does not imitate the sound of – for example – ‘crackling logs’, but make you feel the heat, thread and magic of fire. If you want to enjoy the music you don’t have to necessarily know everything about it, but ‘the more you know, the more beautiful it gets’.

Watch a great ‘musical introduction’ to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung with Kurt Masur and Jessy Norman and learn everything about the coding and decoding with Leitmotivs in film music like star wars and Wagner’s music.

From a branding point of view many different elements should make a ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’ so that the consumer can enjoy, be engaged and get an emotional bond with the brand without knowing exactly every detail.

But to create a brand it takes a lot of listening skills and contextual vision. Maybe the most importing thing: the music is not ready when the score is written. It has to be performed with real people for real people – again and again.

‘There is joy in repetition’ Prince

Fashion and Music

A fashion label that has music in it’s Brand DNA, a Designer that targets female audiophiles with a new accessory that combines industrial design and expert tailoring. Fashion meets Music meets Design: two examples.

John Varvatos and Jimmy Page

Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin is the model of a new campaign video from John Varvatos, the the brand that has rock and roll in it’s Brand DNA.

In selected John Varvatos boutiques they carry a unique assortment of McIntosh audio equipment, vintage vinyl records, vintage audio equipment and collectible music books for the rock enthusiast.

See more info on the website

Molami

Molami headphones are designed with the contemporary individual in mind. Instead of focussing on the product ‘as a gadget’ and the technical specifications Molani works through the fashion industry to convey how their product ‘frames and enhances the feminine face’. A good example of user centered design.

See the website