After all our workshops, this has been one of the most exciting ones!

Music and VR! It has aroused great expectation and fascination on 8 to 9 year year old students, teachers and even Javier Franco, the director of Cobeña´s Music School (30 minutes away Madrid) and member of Folk Madrid Norte.

We have shared to all students a sinestesic experience in which the Venezuelan musician Gustavo Dudamel conducts an orchestra performing Beethoven´s Fifth Symphony (first movement) , one of the most famous classical music pieces in history. Alejandro says ¨ Oh this song is cool, I like it, how many songs has he composed?¨. Teacher replies, ¨hundreds of pieces, not exactly songs¨.

¨Who is that gentleman coming there on your left?¨ I ask. -¨Its Beethoven!!!¨ Pablo replies. some pupils laugh. -¨Do you know what that music motif means?¨- ...¨nooo¨ they all reply.

¨Can you imagine that those notes were written by Ludwig Van Beethoven when he begun to lose his hearing in 1800. Those are the notes knocking to his door!.. to his destiny!!! Ta-ta-ta taaaan¨....- ¨Ohhhhhh¨ they exclaim.

The students and teachers flew into a musical journey one by one, each of them discovering the experience on its own way.¨The first impact is the way your brain switches to a sudden reality and you are just part of it, not watching it, but living inside it¨ says Javier Franco.

The experience, a 360 immersive video inside a magnifique music theatre where you can follow different perspectives: The audience´s point of view, then the director´s, the musicians´ and even behind the musicians where you can see the orchestra, the director, the empty seats and the whole theatre.

When all the students were done, I started asking questions:  ¨how do you think all musicians should work together?¨, ¨how do they synchronize all the sounds and instruments?¨, ¨Do they need to follow a leader?¨, ¨Is it important to listen or just play?¨, ¨Is it about musicians, or about people who need to work together?".  ¨ Is it important to TRUST the director?¨, ¨Is it relevant for the conductor to TRUST the musicians, why?,¨What values should a musician have?¨, Students reply shouting and jumping excited..........¨discipline¨, ¨constancy¨, ¨team work¨ and after a big pause comes my most expected answer: ¨ACTIVE LISTENING!¨ - so I add, ¨we need to understand how important is to listen, not only to play accurately in the orchestra, but during our daily lives. Listening to our parents, our friends, teachers...and even sometimes we need to understand their point of view...something called EMPATHY¨ They applause.

Then Carlos, the teacher, came and said, ¨Andrés, thanks, I am always willing to teach them how to listen but they just shout and don´t care about it,  it seems the whole situation has caused an impact, lets wait and see!¨.

So there are many things to discover in just a 3 minute experience. Why is it important to understand different perspectives?, Why is it important to apply your active listening constantly?, Why is it important to follow the leader?, Why is it important to create a sense of TRUST in your team?

We want to give special thanks to Blanca Agudo, actress and musician who enormously contributed before and after the whole creative process.

So, if you haven´t tried your VR headset, what are you waiting for? Close you eyes, put on your VR headset, headphones, open your eyes click start and BOOM!

We will start in July with our Music and VR experiences in Colombia! More news to come soon!

#ImpactoSocial #Valores #EmotionalIntelligence #Music #Empathy #Trust #ActiveListening