What’s music trivia got to do with team building?

Have you ever thought about just how many songs there are with a colour in the title or chorus? 🤔

I only ask about 10 of them in the Song Colours Game because the workshop is jam-packed with lots of other fun learning activities to get through.

But my playlist has another 18.

Why music trivia in a team-building workshop?

According to Lois Svard, a Professor Emerita of Music at Bucknell University who knows a lot about the nexus of neuroscience and music, there’s an evolutionary basis.

Archaeological evidence across the planet has revealed music to be an expression of group bonding in early societies.

“There is a shared experience in experiencing music together and it makes people more likely to cooperate with each other,” said Svard.

Cornell University researchers Kevin Kniffin, Jubo Yan, Brian Wansink and William Schulze have tested the effect of different types of music on the cooperative behaviour of individuals working as a team. They concluded that happy music provokes people to make decisions that contribute to the good of the team more often.

Music is emotive. It’s evocative. We associate it with experiences and our memory attaches connotations for future reference.

Same for colours. We remember good/bad, happy/sad feelings when we see certain colours again, which influences our responses to them and therefore our behaviour.

Remembering and re-associating colours in different ways stimulates our brain synapses to seek out new connections, keeping our cognitive abilities sharp.

Just like music does.

So, I put them together for people who are already in team-building learning mode, already primed for strengthening team bonds and benefits.

What’s your favourite ‘colour song’?

Mine’s Petula Clark’s “Colour My World” (of course!) 🎨

If this sounds like your kind of team training, book a True Colors Tell Me More call.

Tap back to Communisence for more practical tips