As some of you will know, I spend my life teaching people to improvise in business and I use parallel examples from the world of music in order to embed concepts such as flow, mastery, emotional intelligence, combinatorial creativity and so on. In a disruptive world, a core skill for leaders is that of structured improvisation.
So, it’s always a good idea to take your own medicine if you are to preach the gentle art of improvisation. Here is a piece of music I composed for the festive season, themed around our feline friends. The piece, recorded on rudimentary equipment was inspired by an initial synthesiser sound which reminded me of a cat. So I set about composing a piece of music that was inspired by the sound. Eventually, I sampled the sound of my publisher’s own real cat to add realism to the piece.
The piece evolved through several iterations as all good creative endeavours usually do. Out of some 40 or so tracks I recorded, I disposed of about half of the recorded material to give the piece simplicity and coherence. Innovation also usually benefits from simplification. In music this often means leaving things out.
So, please enjoy this piece “Cool Cats” with some great video footage from Fun Compilations:
