Sound Strategies and how things go together with Michael Spencer

The Power of Music Thinking

• 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

1. Sound Business Tokyo:
   https://www.soundstrategiestokyo.com/
2. Sound Business London:
   https://www.sound-strategies.co.uk/about
3. Japanese woodwork:
   https://japanobjects.com/features/japanese-joinery
4. Beethoven 9th Symphony - with 10000 Japanese Choir
   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8wzXZRd087I
5. Michael Spencer at TEDxWWF:
   https://vimeo.com/61710533?share=copy

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