{"id":142,"date":"2017-03-03T15:21:51","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T14:21:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk.linux182.unoeuro-server.com\/2017\/03\/03\/ligheder-mellem-et-fodboldhold-og-et-symfoniorkester\/"},"modified":"2024-11-23T00:20:34","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T23:20:34","slug":"ligheder-mellem-et-fodboldhold-og-et-symfoniorkester","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/ligheder-mellem-et-fodboldhold-og-et-symfoniorkester\/","title":{"rendered":"Similarities between a football team and a symphony orchestra"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Toke Lund Christiansen<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In this greeting to the members of the Danish Friends' Association, Toke Lund Christiansen tries to look at the similarities between playing football and playing in an orchestra. For more than 40 years, he was employed as principal flutist in the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. Toke Lund Christiansen has written a number of books that relate to his time and his experiences in the orchestra. This spring he will be releasing a new book: Music and the Brain, which he has written together with Professor Jesper Ryberg. The book will be published by Gyldendal.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The round ball as inspiration for classical musicians<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The ball is round<\/em>, so anything can happen<\/em>. Those are the words in football. It's not true, because the ball is not round and not everything can happen. A lot is fixed, even more than you might be led to believe.<\/p>\n

In the world of classical music, there is hardly any widespread interest in football among music listeners. For us, the performing musicians, it's often different. Classical music and football. Are there any common factors, anything that is mirrored? In my own wide circle of classical music colleagues, there are quite a few for whom football is a vital part of their field of interest.<\/p>\n

But first the ball: a traditional football ball is sewn together from 32 pentagonal and hexagonal leather patches. In the world of professional football, the sports company Adidas in particular has developed new balls for each major championship, each time adding rubber to the seams. First with 14 stitched fields, then with 8, the latter dubbed Jabulani<\/em>, proved to be a bad ball that made erratic shifts in the air, and finally the 2014 model, Brazuka<\/em> called, with just six leather panels glued together, created for the World Cup in Brazil, a ball that has proven its stability in the air after tests in wind tunnels and more. But round it is not.<\/p>\n

We talk about a player hitting the ball \u201dcleanly\u201d. This means that in most cases, when kicking through, the ball is hit \u201dunclean\u201d. The ball \u201dbreaks\u201d in the air. Today's ball equilibricians can twist and dive the ball, with a banana kick add a curved (banana) trajectory, but there will always be a certain element of randomness to the ball's trajectory, a possibility of randomness. A certain amount of arbitrariness is always present in art as in sport.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Team sports and solo runs in the concert hall<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Chamber music and symphonic music is a team situation for the performers. You have to understand your role, not overplay it, honour agreements and still be able to break them in a given situation. Every collective musician is both a team player and a soloist. Responsibilities and loads are distributed, depending on the team line-up. In the string quartet, roles are set in strict discipline. Perhaps that's why we see more and more often that the first and second violin change places from work to work: they must both possess leadership qualities, be able to run with the ball, score, have soloist courage, but also be able to conform, pass, act defensively in rows of subordinate accompaniment figures.<\/p>\n

In the past, it was very common to set up a football team's formation with a so-called striker at the top. An erratic factor, free from other, more defensive duties, circling in front of the opponent's goal. The striker moves around the opponent's half of the pitch with the lazy attitude of a predator. Effort must be rationed in order to deliver the optimum when the chance arises, often created by chance or a single fatal error in the opponent's defence. But the spearhead has gone out of fashion. Now we talk about one or more boxing players<\/em>, In today's international football, all 10 field players must be adaptable, understanding their multifunctional role in the team, as the coach has set the scene, but a select few must, now as before, be prepared to deliver a solo performance.<\/p>\n

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The trumpet as a goal scorer<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In older times, and that was only about 25 years ago, the first trumpet was seen as a \u201dgoal scorer\u201d. He didn't have to make much of a fuss during the symphony, but had to be able to \u201dscore\u201d at certain moments. He was not necessarily a team player. He was the soloist. Increasingly, we see that solo performances are causing problems for top players. They are afraid of failing, afraid of falling through by wasting a play with too much selfishness. This tendency is as true in football as it is in the orchestra. But then, fortunately, there are the exceptions. And it is here, as in all matters of art, that there is a long way down from the sublime to the brilliant. The born soloist is rare, but highly appreciated by the audience and correspondingly highly paid. The soloist, the loner, not infrequently develops prima donna qualities, and there are numerous examples of how total pampering and idolisation can ultimately cost the soloist his status and credibility. But no matter how the soloist manages their talent, we expect some measure of purpose, or at least a series of assists<\/em> (goal-scoring passes). If the product is not delivered, the soloist's salary and market price between clubs drops drastically. Football culture varies from club to club and country to country. Some top clubs boldly focus on individual skills, while others put the collective, team effort as a top priority.<\/p>\n

In symphony orchestras, the situation is quite similar. The hierarchy between soloists and tuttis has been adjusted. Among solo players, team effort is increasingly valued over individual performance. On the other hand, those who are able to make a difference when playing solo are highly valued. You could perhaps speak of a Berlin model and a Viennese model. In the two-orchestra Vienna Philharmonic, there is a tradition of playing solos with restraint and with constant consideration for the homogeneous, the whole. The equally esteemed Berlin Philharmonic has always valued and made room for uniqueness, that which is immediately recognisable even to non-specialists. In the previous generation, soloists such as oboist Lothar Koch and flautist James Galway. Among the concertmasters, individualists such as 1st concertmaster Rainar Kussmaul and double bassist Klaus Stoll were also chosen, and more recently with Emanuel Pahud on flute, Albrecht Meyer on solo oboe and 1st concertmaster Guy Braunstein.<\/p>\n

In football, you can compare the football culture of the Latin countries with, for example, the Nordic countries including Germany and the Netherlands. All the top teams play with systems where the team, which in principle must cover the entire pitch, is set up in formations or chains such as 4 - 4 - 2 (very defensive) or 2 - 4 - 3 - 1, here with a box player. Very common today is the 2 - 4 - 4 - 4, a formation where there are two cooperative, individually aligned forwards, a strong chain of midfielders, but also a defence quartet with aggressive players on the wings that, like the rooks in chess, can be used for sudden offensive thrusts.<\/p>\n

But all this doesn't make football into music or orchestras into football teams.<\/p>\n

The musician's widespread fascination with football lies not least in the artistry, the perfect mastery of technique when handling the (not quite) round leather ball. But also a patient waiting for the unexpected, the sudden turn and a pass that aims for a seemingly empty space on the pitch, but a place where a team-mate can run in and make a goal-scoring difference. The game is played in small interplay groups (triangles or trios), such as Barcelona FC<\/em> has developed the game to perfection. It's also known as \u201dsamba football\u201d, where high-tempo equilibrism draws all its energy from the spontaneous joy of skill. It's mood football, a performance situation that all performers can mirror themselves in. An optimistic mood carried by a mixture of focus and confidence, and a winning mentality creates creativity and the courage to do the unexpected. You gain confidence by succeeding.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Classic Samba with half-time<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The music press sometimes compares playing in the concert stands to samba football, and what musician doesn't rejoice in that? A musician I know very well was once compared to Michael Laudrup in his playing. Could he bask in the sun? Yes, I should think so.<\/p>\n

In teamwork, on the football pitch as on the concert stage, it's the patterns of reaction that determine the height of the art. Understanding that every second has its moments, that periods should be sustained, not to say deliberately predictable, others should contain a peak or two of intensity, but not necessarily more than two.<\/p>\n

Every time course has its tension curves. This is well known in cinema as in the condensed world of novels. In football, they are staged with an external framework that cannot be changed or moved around: The referee's whistle for a total of 45 minutes of the first half (plus a little extra time), the break to drink tea and gather strength, and then the following 45 minutes (plus extra time), a symmetrical structure that can only be disturbed by \u201dextras\u201d such as extra time or even a penalty shootout.<\/p>\n

Similarly, the framework concert form is usually quite predictable: Two times, typically 45 minutes, with the first half being more varied, e.g. an overture and a solo concerto. In the second half (as it is also called), for example, a large-scale continuous symphony of typically four contrasting movements. Composers know the need for intensity rhythms and have planned the sequences accordingly.<\/p>\n

In football, there is greater flexibility and variation in form and content within the external framework. A match can be so defensively organised by both teams that the whole 90 minutes becomes monotonous and the game ends in a draw, maybe even 0-0. But in most cases, the teams are well-matched and different game systems increase the unpredictability factor considerably. Then there's the loner, the soloist, like Argentina's Lionel Messi, who can decide the game with two virtuoso solo runs. Or just a single action, such as a free kick from 25 metres out of the goalkeeper's reach so precisely that it is only the precision of the shooter, perhaps an alert Christiano Ronaldo, that decides the outcome.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The coach on the podium<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Every football team is dependent on its coach. The coach rarely stays in a job for a number of years and is replaced depending on the team's performance. In a symphony orchestra, there are permanent positions for the musicians. But the conductor is treated like the coach. He has full responsibility for the artistic quality of a concert and, unlike the musicians, he's loose in the saddle. Sometimes the conductor is only offered a single concert and not re-engaged. In other cases, he may be permanently engaged for a period of time, even attaining the status of chief conductor, a position similar to that of a football coach. But even that has its time. The coach can be good for one club and fail at the next. Just like the conductor. There is chemistry and culture in every collective, and sometimes it goes well, even brilliantly, and sometimes you know from day one that this is going to be an uphill battle.<\/p>\n

If we observe how the Danish National Symphony Orchestra matches this analysis, we can see that the orchestra performs with colossal discipline in the collective, and at the same time it is my impression that the orchestra's soloists, despite the collective straitjacket, both dare and are able to \u201dgo for the ball and the goal-bound pass\u201d. This is not least why we want to follow them from match to match, from concert to concert.<\/p>\n

My reader is recommended to look at the magical sports universe of football with new eyes and, perhaps more obviously, also to observe the symphony orchestra as a sporting game. A game where much, well, maybe 9\/10 of the \u201doutcome\u201d is planned in advance by the composer, but where unpredictability makes the crucial difference. There, in the long run, where we jump in our seats with excitement or where the hairs on the back of our necks stand up in excitement and amazement. <\/p>\n

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