I tend to listen to classical music whenever I am travelling. I feel really comfortable with that kind of music.
Over the years I have thought about the connections that might be made in coach learning with composers, conductors and musicians.
There are lots of posts on Clyde Street about my imagined connections between classical music and coaching. Last year, for example, motets struck me as a way to discuss coaching. I included this quote about the Thomas Tallis Spem in Alium (written for 40 voices):
The work is a study in contrasts: the individual voices sing and are silent in turns, sometimes alone, sometimes in choirs, sometimes calling and answering, sometimes all together, so that, far from being a monotonous mess, the work is continually presenting new ideas.
I particularly like the idea of performance “presenting new ideas”. In this example, the motet is sung by 700 rather than 40 voices, and raised for me the idea about the scalability of performance:
Occasionally, I break away from classical musical and end up meeting other musicians like the Pierce Brothers and Tash Sultana. They helped me think about performances of understanding.
This week, I discovered, Adam Levine and Maroon 5.
I have had the good fortune to work with many female athletes and coaches of female athletes. When I saw Maroon 5’s Girls Like You video, I immediately thought about how a coach might support the diversity of talents and life experiences in a team.
The video is 4 minutes 30 seconds long and has a remarkable cast. I have replayed the video many times now and it is strikes me forcefully what we might learn from it to support coaches as they explore their practice and their performances.
If you would like to learn more about the people who appeared in the video, you might find this Billboard article of interest (link).
I am delighted Thomas has met Adam via a short detour with the Pierce Brothers and Tash. I think we have lots to learn within sport from outside experiences of performance and how we might enable a commonwealth of talent.
