At the University of Michigan, it's hard not to pay attention to sports. The wolverines are everywhere - at the mall, in the news, in my classes...the College of LSA theme semester this semester? Sports. Top news on mlive/com? Football. Biggest factor in decision making about weekend schedule? Football, again. To be honest, arriving in Ann Arbor 1997, as a music student I was quite able to be totally oblivious - even with the football team winning the national championship that year. Now? Not so much.
As I question my own place in the world, and ponder on the rights and wrongs that are inherent in the oh, so noble music profession (not much pay, too much work, crabby hours, but when you love what you do, you do it anyway...) I've also thought a lot about what it is that draws us into sports with such passion, en masse. What inherently human traits influence the need to go watch some guys chase a ball or a puck and beat on each other for fun...I mean, haven't we evolved further than that? I mean, soccer is just a game, why do we have to shoot the guy for loosing?
For a while now, I've been trying to explain music stuff through sports stuff. It is mind-blowing to me how many parallels there are - and how much easier it is for a non-musician to understand sports than it is to understand music! Athletes, musicians and soldiers, it's all based on the fight or flight response, totally physiological and evolution-based. Performance science is brain science and applicable to all situations where pressure (or existential crisis...) is present.
Sports performance psychology offers performers some really exciting tools: there's ample evidence about the benefit of a nap (or "zeroing") before a big game, the success rate of the split second focusing inward and stop in eye movement that most successful free-throwers apply in basketball and about the synchronicity of brain waves ... oh wait, that's actually when people play music together and their brain waves get synchronized! Maybe the athletes could also benefit knowing about the music performance psychology? Food for thought...
As I question my own place in the world, and ponder on the rights and wrongs that are inherent in the oh, so noble music profession (not much pay, too much work, crabby hours, but when you love what you do, you do it anyway...) I've also thought a lot about what it is that draws us into sports with such passion, en masse. What inherently human traits influence the need to go watch some guys chase a ball or a puck and beat on each other for fun...I mean, haven't we evolved further than that? I mean, soccer is just a game, why do we have to shoot the guy for loosing?
For a while now, I've been trying to explain music stuff through sports stuff. It is mind-blowing to me how many parallels there are - and how much easier it is for a non-musician to understand sports than it is to understand music! Athletes, musicians and soldiers, it's all based on the fight or flight response, totally physiological and evolution-based. Performance science is brain science and applicable to all situations where pressure (or existential crisis...) is present.
Sports performance psychology offers performers some really exciting tools: there's ample evidence about the benefit of a nap (or "zeroing") before a big game, the success rate of the split second focusing inward and stop in eye movement that most successful free-throwers apply in basketball and about the synchronicity of brain waves ... oh wait, that's actually when people play music together and their brain waves get synchronized! Maybe the athletes could also benefit knowing about the music performance psychology? Food for thought...
RSS Feed
