Is there anything more cross-cultural than our love for music? We might not all enjoy the same kind of music, or possess the same level of sensitivity to it, but, think about it, do you know anyone who doesn’t like any music at all? Probably not.
Ingolf Wunder definitely doesn’t belong to that group. Already at the age of 4, he began playing music. Today, he has played concerts in more than 50 countries, become one of the best pianists in the world, and also taken it upon himself to conduct and compose music. He lives and breathes music – and, according to Ingolf, so do you:
If you zoom into the body very very closely, almost to the quantum level, everything is waves, is frequency. So we are music, in a way.
– Ingolf Wunder
That’s why music is so important to Ingolf and to us humans. Think about it: Whatever you eat, and whatever you look at influences you. The same goes for the sounds that enter your system. All the noise and all the music – good and bad – actively shape you. We have to take care of what input we receive. We shouldn’t consume the musical equivalent to McDonald’s every day. It’s going to harm us: “A bio movement for music needs to come.”
Ensuring this is Ingolf’s mission. That’s why he founded Appassio and Appassimo – two platforms to enable and encourage music education across borders, socioeconomic statuses, etc. so more people gain the musical sensitivity needed to separate good from the bad.
“In many countries, music education is cut completely from normal education programs. To change all that we thought we have to make a platform where it doesn’t matter if you live in the rural side of Austria or Germany or in Tokyo or in New York, you can still find the right teacher. Because only the right teacher can inspire you, can give you the information you need. The right teacher for me is not the right teacher for you because every human has a different energy, everyone needs something different.”
Ingolf puts great emphasis on individuality and personalization. We are all different and have different needs, and we need to respect that. Moonshot Pirates couldn’t agree more. Our individuality makes us special and makes out our quality. So stand by and be proud of yourself, pirate! There is no one like you, and that’s awesome!
Music: The Skill of the Future
Engaging in music is important because the world needs people with musical sensitivity and creativity. Music, and arts in general, is what makes us different from computers and might be one of the most important components for our employability in the future.
“One core mission of our music mission is to make people more sensitive and to use music to learn the skills they will need in the 21. century job market – soft skills. What we’re currently doing is make humans more and more like computers, while we should do the exact opposite. If you make them more like the computer, then the computer will always be quicker than our brains in terms of data and data processing, and so on. But if we are better than the computer, then we tell the computer what to do, and here music education can help enormously. Music education can actually give us those things that the supercomputer of the future cannot do.”
In addition, we can learn so much from music that’s also relevant for entrepreneurship. The most important lesson Ingolf has learned throughout his musical life is the importance of perseverance. If you believe enough in your dream and work hard to fulfill it, then you will – it may take a lot longer than you thought, but you will eventually get there if you persevere.
Achieving Greatness
Ingolf has become a master of the piano – how? By believing in himself, by pushing himself, and by practicing, practicing, practicing. There is no shortcut to mastery.
If you want to be good at something, you have to sit down and do it.
– Ingolf Wunder
The good thing is that becoming good at one thing will spill over and influence other aspects of your life, too. You’ll gain greater sensitivity in your field and in neighboring fields too, and it will raise your overall life quality. Because music is so central to our being, it’s a particularly great field to be active in.
Since everyone is musical from birth on, we just lose it or don’t do anything with it, it’s super helpful no matter what you do in life.
– Ingolf Wunder
Do your thing, pirate, and do it with all you’ve got. So says Ingolf, and so say we at Moonshot Pirates.
Watch his full interview with Moonshot Pirates here:
