Regardless, I want to show how sport shares some characteristics with music and how this can increase our enjoyment and appreciation of sport.

Some sports involve "closed" skills where movements are pre-planned, and predictable. The coach can easily design training drills to practice or rehearse the movements with the hope that the athlete can reproduce them automatically.

Team sports involve more "open skills" that are varied and unpredictable. The coach might use "structures" or "set plays" (pre-determined tactical team actions), but skills are still performed in response to a constantly changing environment.

I'm going to focus on team sports using Australian Rules football as an example to discuss commonalities to music.

Communication in music

When a solo singer performs either alone or to an audience, they want to convey a message.

This may be explicit from the lyrics but even in the absence of words, the performer can convey a mood or emotions from the way the music is expressed through the manipulation of melody, rhythm, timbre, etc. When a musician plays as a member of a group, the communication is also within the group.

Without this communication, the end result would be disjointed and probably fail to convey the intended meaning.

I'm not a musician, but I am sure that speaking the language of music helps bonding between performers. A musician might travel overseas and not be able to speak the language of that country.

But if they jammed with a stranger from a very different culture, they can have an instant rapport and easy communicate through the language of music.

Communication in sport

The need for communication within a team is obvious. A team cannot function if players perform as individuals.

Every team-sport coach asks players to perform for the common goal of the group. At an individual level and similar to music, a footballer could join in a social game at a foreign country and have excellent communication with his fellow players.

This is because they all understand the rules as well as the emotions, frustrations or thrills of executing the skills of the game. A bond may be formed simply because players understand their shared emotions of participation in the game.

Creativity in music

A piece of music can be performed be reading musical notation and replicating the sounds as closely as possible. But even an interpretation or cover-version of a song, although not be entirely new, can be created to be fresh and unique by varying the instruments used, changing the tempo, adding harmonies, or changing key.

The song may be recognisable as the original composition, but can evoke very different emotions to the original. This is one form of creativity, but a more extreme example in music can be found in some free forms of jazz.

In this genre, there may be no pre-determined structure at all; but instead, one musician will set a mood with his or her playing and the other band members will improvise by playing their own unwritten phrasing.

For this to be successful, all band members must play harmoniously so the feeling of the music is consistent. They must communicate with each other while having total creative freedom.

The audience might sense they are hearing something never heard before, and this adds to the pleasure of the experience.

Another music example is battle rap where the artist performs freestyle rapping, often to brag or insult their opposing performer. To perform free jazz or battle rap requires an element of virtuosity, which is readily appreciated by the audience.

Creativity in sport

In a game of football, the coach might set up and practice structures or rules about the roles of certain players in various situations.

The team might practice set plays relating to what players will do if there is a stoppage in a certain part of the ground or at a certain situation in the game.

This provides a structure that can be rehearsed (like musical notation). However in a match, the game situation is constantly changing and the game has an element of chaos or unpredictability.

Therefore, players need to be able to improvise and create opportunities to maintain possession, win possession in a contest to create scoring opportunities.

Although not a Carlton supporter, I'll never forget the time Eddie Betts evaded three opponents to score the most amazing goal.

His actions were improvisation at its best, and contributes to the joy of playing and being a spectator (see Eddie's face where he even surprised himself!).

In this example, there is no way that this scenario could have been re-created or rehearsed in training. Eddie was required to assess the situation and make multiple, split-second decisions based on the rapidly-changing environment.

Even the movements he performed were unusual, and would never have been rehearsed. Witnessing something unique provided excitement and joy for all who saw it.

To do this requires an element of virtuosity, which is readily appreciated by the audience.

Communication and creativity are key features of the performing arts such as music, and this is readily accepted.

I believe that open skill sports like Australian football also involve communication and creativity, and these features also contribute to the appreciation of sport.

Warren Young is Adjunct Associate Professor in School of Science, Psychology and Sport, at Federation University.