Before this gets sensationalized more than it has, let’s consider that cognitive ability also plays a heavy roll in learning to play music. There may be some net synergistic effect music playing has on other cognitive function but the brain is also effected heavily when listening to music. I suspect there is not a link between musical training and cognitive abilities but they are the result of having a brain that can function well in whatever it does.
This is noted in the article, "A direct causal link between musical training and general cognitive faculties, however, seems unlikely."
The point of the article is that they've found a specific neurological relationship between two types of working memory:
"The results show that if musical training influences visual working memory, then it does so via the “detour” of musical working memory. In other words, by way of its primary benefits for musical working memory, musical training could have a positive effect on visual working memory as well."
Glad I saw this comment before checking out my cart full of guitars, drums, pianos, and a harmonica.
Joking aside, would it be a stretch to say that learning to play an instrument well also grows confidence and develops a level of perseverance? Being bad at playing an instrument can be pretty discouraging, until one day you start to get the hang of it, giving more confidence to continue practicing and learning. Maybe that perseverance* bleeds over into other areas.
If you've ever fell in love with a song, or an artist, or totally jammed out to some track in a manner that would be embarrassing had you been observed, or if you constantly walk around with a tune in your head, then yes, learning an instrument is a great idea. My guess is that anyone who appreciates music on a deep level is capable of playing it, if not artfully then at least competently.
It's also a matter of finding the right instrument for you, which could turn out to be a surprise.
I suspect I'm older than they typical HN demographic, but I made several attempts to learn piano over the years and was never able to stick with it. I also tried bass guitar and that was fun (and pretty easy!) but you only get so far without playing in a band which I never had the time for. Then I picked up my dad's accordion (of all things) and got to wondering what it would be like to learn to play a simple song on it.
That was two years ago and since then I haven't missed a single day of practice, learning, or playing for fun. Which surprises the hell out of me, because I'm the kind of person who bounces from hobby to hobby and project to project and rarely finishes anything. It's frankly amazing to have _something_ I can say I have worked on (and towards) every day for a long time. THAT inspires confidence and some sense of self-worth. (And I generally need all of that I can get!)
Sometimes it's frustrating to get "stuck" on a difficult piece or hand movement that's new to me, but I always have to remind myself that I've been stuck before and that I'll eventually get it right with enough repetition, even if it takes weeks. The joy felt when I finally _do_ get it right is so intense that it probably ranks up there with some of the best drugs, minus the considerable negative consequences.
This got me thinking. When I was young I took some guitar lessons, but the instrument never _clicked_ for me. Now I have a (very basic) Yamaha keyboard, which I thought I would learn to play "at some point". It's been years since I last touched it.
> If you've ever fell in love with a song, or an artist, or totally jammed out to some track in a manner that would be embarrassing had you been observed, or if you constantly walk around with a tune in your head, then yes, learning an instrument is a great idea.
That is very much how I am. I almost feel restless if I'm not listening to music, I wake up with specific songs in my head almost daily; I have a decades-old music collection with all sorts of stuff, from the most commercial pop imaginable to obscure metal bands, or bizarre experimental soundscapes that some people wouldn't even consider "music". Music is one of the constants in my life, and one of the few things that are guaranteed to bring me joy, or peace, or _something_.
> [...] because I'm the kind of person who bounces from hobby to hobby and project to project and rarely finishes anything.
Also sounds like me, 100%. Now I'm wondering if there's an instrument out there that I would be able to stick to. Goodness knows I could use something to keep my brain somewhat in line these days.
Pro guitar teacher here. I recognise some things in what you say that leads me to speculate you might benefit from an accessible wind instrument. The saxophone might be something for you.
Some reasons:
- Wind instruments are fairly physical to play. That can be rewarding/refreshing after a day of playing in the geek world. As an aside, this makes them great for the many people with ADHD/ADD too!
- Most wind instruments are monophonic. The complexity of an accompanying/polyphonic instrument is its own can of worms...
- In many parts of the world, especially the western world, it's relatively easy to find a larger ensemble fairly quickly. The group can be a real anchor point.
Seconded, ex-sax player (long story short: lung damage from long ago caused me to have to give it up), the sax is an extremely rewarding instrument. Try a tenor and an alto and figure out which one you like the timbre of best, and stay away from instruments that are too cheap, better a half decent second hand one than a crappy new one. Start off with a #2 reed if you've never played a wind instrument before and figure out if that's good for you or if you want it heavier or lighter.
Don't get discouraged if you run out of wind quickly in the beginning, that will build up fast, and don't overdo it with practice until you've built up some lip strength or you'll end up with claret all over your nice reeds.
Thanks, I honestly had never considered wind instruments. My only experience with a wind instrument was playing one of those cheap plastic recorders in elementary school.
That bit about them being good with people with ADHD reminded me of a friend I had in university. She had ADHD, and had been playing the saxophone since she was 14 or 15, and said that she found it very relaxing.
I keep coming back to this idea of learning an instrument every year or so, and the last time I thought about it I was considering the violin. I absolutely love the sound of it. But I might have to give this some thought, because apparently I've just been ignoring an entire family of instruments.
You might find drums and percussion instruments to your liking. I had a good friend who likely had ADHD, or something like it, with over-active mind, constantly shifting attention/focus, expressed in his manner of speech and fidgeting (always jumping legs up and down). He was a drummer, and it was very noticeable that when he played drums, his mind could stay focused for hours, and even his fidgeting stopped. It was like his nervous energy would get channelled out of his body into the music.
Thanks for the comment. I just posted asking about ADHD. What wind instrument(s) do you recommend for ADHD? Would polyphonic instruments pose a problem for someone with ADHD?
The saxophone is supposed to be one of the easier ones to get a musical result out of. It is also fairly physical.
Polyphonic instruments posing a problem with ADHD is not an absolute rule, but I've seen more than a few people, especially at younger age, benefit immensely from a change from piano or guitar to the saxophone specifically.
The reasons could be many. Less reading while still struggling with technicalities, more deterministic fingering, less going on are just a few.
I'm 100% certain that there's an instrument out there for you. Try a few things out, even if they look and sound like toys. Cheap instruments abound but even if you splurge on something expensive, most music instruments keep their value well enough to break even if you decide to sell them in a few years. (As long as you don't buy brand new.)
One thing that _probably_ helped me stick with accordion is finding a role model early on. He's on YouTube and plays the instrument very well and is super friendly and enthusiastic. He never says, "this is the only way to learn X," like a lot of music teachers do. His philosophy is, "I'll show you some techniques that worked for me, give them a try and see if they work for you." I figure I can call myself successful if I'm only ever as half as good as him, in terms of both musical ability and his general outlook on life.
The other thing is, first and foremost, play for fun! Yeah, it's a slog to get through some of the theory and repetition in the beginning but if you get burned out, find something more engaging to do for a while (e.g. mimicking a catchy pop song) and then come back to the theory later, knowing that grokking it will help you play cool stuff later.
There are some musicians on YouTube that I watch regularly, and I remember finding a piano teacher specifically, who had a full playlist of piano lessons for beginners. His style was along the lines of what you describe: nothing strict or super rigid, and he showed a lot of practical examples and applications of the theory to keep things interesting.
> The other thing is, first and foremost, play for fun! Yeah, it's a slog to get through some of the theory and repetition in the beginning [...]
That's what I struggled with when I was attempting to learn. I felt like it required a bigger time investment than I could justify to myself, and with the slow progress I kind of just let it fall to the side. Which is weird, because I usually have no trouble pushing through learning a new skill if it's something I enjoy.
I'll definitely have to give it another shot, since I already have the instrument here. Trying out different instruments to see if one of them clicks also sounds like good advice, so thank you for that!
> Now I have a (very basic) Yamaha keyboard, which I thought I would learn to play "at some point". It's been years since I last touched it.
If you have a free moment and you have your keyboard hooked up to the computer use Chrome and give pianojacq.com a try, let me know if I can help somehow.
Unfortunately I don't have a MIDI interface to plug it into the PC, but it's something I had considered buying before. Looks like there are some fairly cheap options available. I'll bookmark the site and see if I can get it done in the very near future. Thanks!
Intriguing. I was looking at the user manual just now, and it seems like a USB-MIDI interface would do the trick. I've seen those things sold for $20 or $30 on Amazon. Might be a fun weekend activity to try.
Hah! Great you found your 'match'. Trying my hand at the piano for the third time in my life and having a ton of fun with it but I know I still suck and probably will for a long time to come. That moment you talk about hasn't arrived yet, it still requires a lot of thinking rather than that it is playing. I remember clearly the changeover moment on the sax when I could simply play what I wanted rather than to have to study each song from the beginning to find the right notes. And I can't wait to reach that level on the piano but piano is a lot harder than sax on account of the polyphony and I suspect at some level playing a monophonic instrument for a long time doesn't really help when you want to play piano, all I hear in my head is the 'lead'.
You're the pianojacq.com guy, right? I love the idea of the site and wish there was a way to use it with my accordion. I've been meaning to hook up my MIDI keyboard and give it a proper try. Although I play pretty much only by ear, being able to read sheet music well enough to use as a reference or guide would be a good tool to have in my belt someday.
I'm still early in my journey but from what I can tell, the key to learning piano/accordion is practicing scales and chords more or less relentlessly _before_ trying to play anything more complex than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Once you get the hang of them, and spend a lot of time playing around with them in various combinations, finding the melody of any given song by ear is quite often trivial.
And for what it's worth, the piano can be a monophonic instrument too. :) On the accordion, I'm still somewhat inexperienced so I generally only play one note at a time on the piano side. Which I can get away with and still sound decent because the bass side of the instrument is far easier to play and sound good on than the piano side. Put together, they sound passable even if you barely know what you're doing (like me!).
Hehe, I'd much rather be known as 'the pianojacq.com guy' than 'the webcam guy' :) Thank you for making my day.
Accordion is going to be very tricky. I've been toying around with synthesizing the notes/chords and then to compare the spectrum with the microphone input, that just might work for accordion as well though those tines tend to have lots of harmonics that may make that harder than it seems. I haven't gotten this to work for piano yet, the idea is to have a 'virtual midi' device that just listens to the microphone and turns everything it hears into note on/off pairs. That way you could use the site with non-midi instruments.
Agreed on sheetmusic reading skills being useful. For accordion jazz lead sheets might be useful as well.
> the key to learning piano/accordion is practicing scales and chords more or less relentlessly _before_ trying to play anything more complex than Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Yes... it is also stupendously boring which I think is why a lot of people get turned off from practicing. There has to be some way to make this fun.
> Once you get the hang of them, and spend a lot of time playing around with them in various combinations, finding the melody of any given song by ear is quite often trivial.
Picking out the lead is trivial, picking out all of the chords is not (at least, not for me!).
> And for what it's worth, the piano can be a monophonic instrument too. :)
That's very true :)
> On the accordion, I'm still somewhat inexperienced so I generally only play one note at a time on the piano side. Which I can get away with and still sound decent because the bass side of the instrument is far easier to play and sound good on than the piano side. Put together, they sound passable even if you barely know what you're doing (like me!).
My dad was very good at the accordion, he could play both the clavier one and the 'button' style (chromatic) one. He's long dead so I can't ask him for any tips.
learning anything exercises your learning abilities and they get stronger. if we ever truly understand "learning ability" it's bound to include things like confidence and perseverance among other things. I feel like this basic intuition is behind every "links to cognitive abilities" study I've ever seen, even the recent one about daily drinkers (who probably just don't exercise their minds as much)
This is an excellent point. Perseverance is the key to most achievements unless you are one of those very lucky people that are naturally gifted and able to do something with only a very small fraction of the practice of the 'regulars'. Even then that isn't a guarantee because you still need motivation.
Are there any real examples of these naturally gifted people? For example, someone who picked up an instrument and could play at a professional level within days without ever having touched an instrument before?
We hear stories of kid prodigies, but are we forgetting that kids have a lot of free time to practice if they focus their efforts?
And many, many others besides. The musical child prodigy is a well documented phenomenon and even though 'a lot of free time to practice' is a common theme lots of people with a lot of free time to practice will never even get close to that level. Compare to math prodigies, and other ways in which some people appear to stand out from the crowd.
Of course then you can drag in all kinds of circumstantial evidence that amount to a 'no true prodigy' version of the one about that dude from Scotland but I think the evidence is solid enough to show that there is something there.
FWIW I also know plenty of the opposite: people that have worked really hard their whole life long to master an instrument and who will never be at the level of one of these gifted children. They play beautifully and there is absolutely nothing wrong with them but they are not under any illusion that it came hard to them when it seems to come so incredibly easy to some others. Outliers do happen.
It's all about the feedback loops between the brain, instrument and fingers.
Musical training is an amazingly fast way to shape your brain if you know what you are doing. It's one of the few engaging activities that offer that quick feedback and covers so many areas of the brain.
You can find hundreds of studies linking music and cognitive ability.
There is an observable difference in brain activity between playing an instrument and actively listening: https://youtu.be/R0JKCYZ8hng
The activity of playing is unlike other skills based learning, including other arts. All this is in the video.
It’s the intersection of applying ephemeral knowledge (music theory, intuition for what sounds good) and active muscle memory building.
Personally, since picking up guitar and piano during lockdown, I’ve definitely noticed I’m faster at pattern recognition, more readily see simpler solutions to logic problems, and can find focus and flow with less effort. I did play saxophone from 5th grade on, but quit after HS; I was playing music before that too. The years in between just feel colorless and uninspired.
Will it make one Einstein? No. But it definitely brings a cognitive perspective, sense of self awareness and agency, nuanced inner monologue, that’s missing in its absence.
I don’t get uptight about proper music theory and all that. I just pluck my way into patterns that sound cool to me, build fluency playing them. It’s more like deep work than desire to succeed; I’ve tried meditating, yoga, etc, over years and nothing brings inner peace and sense of self like playing music.
It could also be argued that music training is common and fairly consistent (results/goal wise) and therefore easy to measure. And it may be found that _any_ kind of very organized training over time provides the same sort of benefits, not just music specifically.
Reading your comment I remembered a story I heard about Jimmy Reed. Who knows if it's true, but the story was that he wasn't sharp enough to remember the words to his own songs, and his wife had to stand behind him on stage and whisper to him to remind him. Hell of a blues player though
McCartney says in an interview about the early days of the Beatles that they used to compose and rehearse new songs in hotel rooms with no recording device or paper, and the goal was to be able to play the new songs the day after.
He says (quoting from memory): "if we couldn't remember our own songs how could we expect audiences to remember them?"
If a song is hard to remember it may have a hard time becoming a hit.
He could also be someone like me where it is just very difficult to separate the voice and words of a singer from the instruments. If I listen to a song and do not actively try to decipher what the singer is saying it becomes just another instrument.
I'm glad you figured it out and also glad you got the reference. That book helped me think through so many of my absurd internalized able-isms and forced me to re-evaluate how I look at myself and others in the context of mental health
Genetic Factor 5 Leiden. I clot like crazy. A really bad chemical exposure triggered gene to go crazy. So tons of micro strokes. (TIA) doctors were constantly dismissing, as if it was strokes then I would certainly be dead already.
All blood thinners help with symptoms. Even Asprin helps some.
The main ones. Eliquis and Xarelto both 100% fixed cognitive issue. Side effects are rough. But that’s a separate issue.
He has a magic power that changes his intelligence each day. Mostly Normal. Occasionally stupid or smart.
Very rarely it would go to absurd extreme.
Imagine waking up and before breakfast you solved unified theory of physics. Then got to work on something that might actually be hard.
Part of the Storm-light archive. An awesome inspirational epic fantasy series. One that helped me during the dark days of recovery.
My dad put above average pressure on me to learn piano as a kid. I got somewhere between decent to quite good but never a prodigy or anything (could read almost any piece of moderately difficult sheet music and play on sight, never really got into writing my own music).
When I was in early high school I made an argument that I wanted to quit and he said it would be up to me but that I would regret it later in life. I ignored him, gave up piano, and now 100% without a doubt wish I could go back in time and stick with it.
Still, I'm grateful I got the opportunity to learn music, as now it's a huge part of my life (tinker on guitar, always on the hunt for new artists to listen to, etc).
I have my own kids now, and it's fun watching them get interested in the instruments we've got around the house, but I'm also trying to figure out how to navigate the right amount of influence I should try and put on them to focus on music themselves.
>My dad put above average pressure on me to learn piano as a kid.
Family did similar with musical instruments, I wasnt interested, as this was when singles and record players were becoming mainstream as a primary school kid I was doing some of the basics for dj'ing, way before Technic's 1200's/1210's things like beat cancelling by turning the bass down, scratching that sort of stuff, real elementary stuff. It really really annoyed the family, doing all this weird stuff to records and look at how DJ's are festival gods today! I wished I stood up to them more but as a kid thats not possible, so you take the next best option and do some coding because family want a quiet life, dont want kids causing hassle things like that.
Preface: I have a pretty deep musical background; bachelors & masters degrees in flute performance.
I have a 7 yr old. Her kindergarten required either piano or violin, and we opted for piano. At that time, we implemented a daily '5 minutes of piano' mini-lesson where I'd help her with her current lesson/song. We're doing homeschool now, but have kept up the '5 minutes of piano'. My daughter doesn't really like it that much, tbh, but I've made her stick with it because: a) she's actually quite talented -- great pitch/rhythm, and can already play by ear, for example, and I'd like to get her to a point where she can really enjoy that talent, and b) as a general lesson in perseverance/grit/skill mastery.
But I really struggle with the notion that the above is simply a rationalization and that I'm really trying make up for my own failure[1] to achieve my own musical goals vicariously through my daughter. And I've also struggled not to force it too much. I've bent over backwards to make it fun -- I make up games, do a variety of musical/rhythmic activities like drumming, dancing, or even playing pattycake, or do things like watching Fantasia or even listening to pop songs. And I've had to put the brakes on thoughts like "we're going to polish the crap out of this song so we can impress the relatives" and focus more on the overall process: is she having fun? On the other hand, I'm trying to not reward a "this requires some effort so I'm going to quit" type of mindset.
It's definitely been a tough balancing act.
[1] How I used to perceive it -- I no longer feel that I was a "failure" so much as I chose a suboptimal path.
One thing that can make it fun, speaking as a former kid who grew up playing fiddle, is to get to play with other kids and connect with other kids through music. Maybe that's tough with piano, but youth orchestra, band, fiddle circles, all sorts of things offer them the chance to find other people with whom they can make their instrument their own thing, and not just yours. Though there is always a helpful role for parental encouragement in practicing – because damn is that part not fun.
This is definitely a big thing! Having a group of musical friends to play with is a lot of fun, really helps keep them interested, and is the only way to learn how to play music with people. I wish I/my parents put a little more effort into that, because there's a lot of musical "soft skills" that I'd like to be better at. For better or worse, the Irish Trad scene (outside of Ireland at least) is quite focused on drinking beer and playing tunes in pubs late into the night; so that was off limits to me at the time...
What I'd like to tell my son when he gets older is that he has to choose something to be putting regular effort into getting better. It can be music or baseball or chess or Overwatch, but he has to spend at least some time every week actively investing in a skill that takes several years to master.
We'll see how that turns out. As a toddler he pretty naturally pushes himself to master skills at his own pace; hopefully that attitude will continue.
How do you plan to handle it if his interests change?
Say he first chooses playing an instrument and diligently spends some time every week at it, but then gets into chess and decides that is the skill that he wants to focus on.
My recollection of childhood is that most kids had interests in things that took several years to master, but most never actually mastered any of them because they didn't stick with any particular one long term.
I feel like the best way to learn/improve at something is by making it fun. Often times different people find different things fun so if I'm able to have fun doing something that others find to be a chore then I have a natural competitive advantage.
he's got plenty of playtime, but that's not gonna teach him any work ethics. I don't need to MAKE him play xbox for 5 hours during the weekend, he's perfectly capable of doing that on his own.
We'll see what happens when we get there, but I think to me the difference is how much training there is. If he's spending 5 hours just clicking through an RPG where his character gains skills but he doesn't, then yeah, that doesn't count. If he's spending 5 hours doing "micro" exercises for StarCraft 2, playing on the ladder then analyzing his losses / wins, etc -- i.e., if he's actually investing in a skill that takes several years to master -- then that would count for me. Basically, anything you can hire someone to coach you on.
Not sure my wife would agree with that -- we'll see what happens when we get there. :-)
After all, I mostly enjoy my work; if I didn't have a job I'd still be doing a lot of programming. As you say, it's more about gaining discipline, so you can harness that energy into something worthwhile.
My parents basically had the same rule, and I couldn't be more grateful. Helped me cultivate focus, dedication, and work ethic in a way that I never would have otherwise, given how easy school was.
On top of that I still get huge enjoyment out of soccer and guitar, and I see many of my peers experiencing regret that they did not take those sorts of hobby type pursuits more seriously as a kid.
Those are not hobbies, they are part of his "job". I'm not taking offense, but I'm glad my parents gave me some discipline and I wish they did more of that.
ah okay, well I certainly wouldn't criticize others parenting decisions I just know that for me that wouldn't have worked very well as a kid. My parents just made me work and do chores and music was something I did for fun away from doing my "job".
Thanks for saying this. Our kids are younger but I have to resist the urge to try and force my interests on them, especially as they gravitate toward things that maybe I don't connect with myself.
"I wish I had something that I didn't put the work in to get" is a common 'deathbed' regret, much like "I wish I worked less but still got paid the same". I wouldn't read too much into it.
To add complexion to that thought in this context: I was a bit of a problem child and wasn't sent to piano lessons with the other 3 kids in the house. Eventually, I started playing off my own back, just mashing keys really, and after a while my parents said "do you want lessons". Then I started lessons (~12 yo).
I was very fortunate to have the opportunity of a piano in the house (my sisters both had wind instruments too, so I got to try them; I really like clarinet).
I credit piano providing an emotional outlet with saving my sanity, and perhaps my life when I was a depressed teen.
I'm terrible at piano, incidentally, I'm practically arhythmic and every lesson had my teacher saying "relative values".
TL;DR is, I think, that opportunity matters, it's not just I couldn't be bothered to try.
I quit in middle school due to a combination of it feeling like a chore, feeling like it was too "nerdy" during that age, and not really liking the teaching style of the instructor we found after moving. Definitely regret it now; I've since developed some joint issues in my fingers that make it difficult to play, and often wonder if sticking with it would have helped prevent that. Or potentially just made it worse I guess, no way to know really.
W/R/T:
> but I'm also trying to figure out how to navigate the right amount of influence I should try and put on them to focus on music themselves.
Looking back, I've found the best thing that encouraged me and my siblings growing up was the interest and positive support my parents showed towards all of our interests. My mom would always comment on how much she liked hearing me play, even though I'm sure she was as sick of hearing the same song for the 800th time as I was. She was also super interested in the little gadgets I'd hack together when that started peeking my interest even if she didn't understand them at all. My dad made a point of always seeing if I wanted to help work on our cars when the mechanical aspect fascinated me, etc. And of course they remained supportive whenever our interests changed as we got older.
>> Definitely regret it now; I've since developed some joint issues in my fingers that make it difficult to play, and often wonder if sticking with it would have helped prevent that
I would not loose any sleep over that. Most music performance is a repeat movement which causes great stress for tendons and it could potentially make it worse. There really isn't anyhthing speciall or natural in playing instrument - its as artificial as typing on keyboard.
And I say this as someone who loves practicing on guitar (and been doing it for at least 15 years without any success really and had my own deal of joint problems). And for last few months I started to take keyboard touch typing seriously which really does not help.
... and not really liking the teaching style of the instructor we found after moving.
I had that same experience in 8th grade. I went from a school with fun instruction to a band teacher that seemed more concerned that your parents signed a practice sheet than in how well you actually played. I think the teacher seriously disliked his job.
I don't regret it, though. I just did choir the next year or two (and again in college). Realistically, though, I always prioritized art over music and still make artwork (am over 40, so its been some time)
I have a 7yo and I told him there's a very simple rule: he needs to learn an instrument cause it's good for focus, as a practice for doing work and it ends up being fun once you stick to it. He can pick the instrument, or change it if he doesn't like what he picked, but he can't do nothing, that's not an option.
He oscillates from finding it a chore to being really proud of his achievements (he's a drummer for now). It's kinda funny sometimes he does both in the same day.
Overall I'm comfortable with it being mandatory, as a parent my job is to raise him to be a well functioning and happy adult, not to make him happy right here and now, and he gets it.
My children are going to have the same requirement. One of them is the same age. I was raised with he same requirements and I hated it at times. But I am so thankful my parents kept me at it because it’s a huge source of fun, creativity, relaxation and joy to now be able to play like I do. Had I been allowed my own way, I would have quit, but it wasn’t until I was 15 and joined a covers band that I truly started to “get it”. I’m glad others see the benefit and are following a similar path!
Even though I play multiple instruments I have pretty actively avoided even encouraging my kids to play a musical instrument I always felt like the more I pushed them into the less fun it would be for them. Honestly I probably would have gained a high level of resentment around music if my parents forced it on me.
Pretty hard disagree. You'd be much better off to teach your kids that respect from their peers is fickle and that it matters whether they themselves feel that it is worth their time. Otherwise they'll end up doing anything stupid in order to get their peers to like them which is setting them up for massive problems when their own judgment is all that will keep them safe.
The guitar feels like an instrument that is once again in decline as far as importance in music goes. I might not get them a piano, but a keyboard of some type with a DAW could be a pretty good choice, depending on what music your kid likes.
yeah I'm pretty decent at guitar but nobody really cares they can easily find way better guitar players on Youtube. Honestly if you want respect from others learning to play musical instruments ain't going to get you very far in general.
Its got the advantage of being a convenient instrument unlike a piano or a keyboard that probably lives in one room for the most part. Its polyphonic so you can feel like you can play an entire song without wanting for a band necessarily. Plus these days there are so many youtubers teaching you how to play every song imaginable, and a lot of software too that helps people learn.
In general it’s good to just let them do what they want, regardless of instrument. Piano could be appealing if they’re McCartney, Billy Joel, or Elton fans… or even because they saw Taylor Swift play one recently.
I did guitar lessons twice… once at 10 years old on a classical, and stopped after my 8th lesson when I came home crying about how I had no interest in the material and wanted to play on electric with distortion.
Picked it up again at 14 on an electric, learning rock songs I wanted to play. Massive difference, I would often hole up in my room playing 4-5 hours at a time. Still play 30 years later.
I don't know about that. I knew a guy in high school who threw big, decently wild parties (with more than nerds present), and was also a legitimate piano prodigy. Sometimes after a few drinks he'd sit down at his piano and play something, and every time the house would quickly fall silent and everyone listened. People, even drunken teenagers, respected his obviously great skill, and not just privately.
But then they would learn to number their fingers wrong. 1 is the thumb, dang it.
Piano skill is pretty
transferrable to other instruments. It has the same advantages as the guitar in that you can play entire chords at once and you don't have to empty your saliva out of it, but I at least think it's easier to get into music theory when you have the white and black keys in front of you.
Sure, to a point. I played violin for about ten years from a wee lad to about 16. Was pretty good and even made first chair at one point, but got bored and stopped.
In my adult life I kinda do regret not keeping up with it and have tried to pick it up more than a couple times. Each time though, it dawns on me just how absurdly time consuming it would be to get back to the point of being even remotely decent. Getting good is a different story and is existentially exhausting!
Saying this as someone who picked up drumming in my adult life with many hundreds of hours of intentional practice. So I'm not shy to continuously improving playing an instrument.
That said, I think if you keep your expectations reasonable, it can be a great experience!
I had a similar 10 year gap with the guitar but you would be surprised at how fast the fingers remember themselves. I'd say in a few months or less I was about where I was before I stopped playing.
This has been talked about for decades, and it's always the same story: expose your child to music, or have them learn to play an instrument, because it'll make them smarter![0] Why can't we for once say that if you expose your child to music, and give them an opportunity to learn an instrument, they'll be more able to enjoy and understand music, and have a skill that can give them joy through their entire life? Not everything has to be about intelligence and success; some things can just be about pleasure and joy.
[0] I know I'm somewhat mischaracterizing this article, but that's what the mainstream press makes of it.
I love this perspective, and feel the same way about not just music, but also programming -- why is the thrust on "STEM" so anchored in "so that they can grow up and have a programming-based career"? It's stimulating, fun, and a vehicle for reifying your ideas/creative impulses (applies to both music and programming). Let's leave it at that.
Also there's a lot of research into musical training however this doesn't mean that playing sports or video games can't have similar (or potentially even better) benefits.
Why is this world so backwards? Humans have musical ability, and cognition requires training (that's opposite of OP).
You don't train on music, you train on technique (and practice music, or play).
You were not born with the innate "cognitive ability" to know what these symbols mean, you must train yourself to recognize them, read them in many configurations, iow stay training or go dumb.
The link OP found is the same link between spending extra on education and the expected outcome.
I suspect there's more cognitive ability needed to play a musical instrument than just memory.
I imagine there would be a significant difference in mental engagement when playing different kinds of instruments. Drums vs monophonic instruments vs polyphonics engage an ever increasing range of musical fundamentals and skill: from only rhythm and volume to a single line of melody to multi-line and harmony.
A similar range of engagement (and control) may be needed to play instruments with fewer vs more degrees of freedom (three valves on one hand for a trumpet vs all fingers of both hands for a clarinet (yet monophonic) vs both hands for guitar or violin (asymmetric) or piano (symmetric) (all polyphonic). Instruments that make melody without frets also seem like they'd be more demanding (and more engaging) to play than those with. Instruments that allow more subtlety of expression should be more demanding cognitively too, like the human voice.
I would imagine learning to play more complex instruments is more difficult later in life too (than learning to play those less complex), since the older brain is less plastic or absorbent.
I'll play the role of the insufferable pedantic here and note that drums absolutely have an element of tone in addition to rythm and volume: the tuning of the drum heads, where you strike with your sticks (edge of the cymbal vs center of the cymbal), even mirroring what other instruments in the band are playing and accompanying those parts with your drums to augment the perceived tone of those other instruments for the audience. There's a lot you can do with tone!
I always think musicians are some of the smartest people in the world. Being able to memorize hundreds of songs / pieces is impressive alone. Most of them are also capable of improvising and adding their own interpretations (e.g. in classical music) spontaneously. It's something that a lot of people including myself could never understand how to do well.
This comment reminds me of the meme that floats through the guitar groups I'm on. It goes something like:
- Person 1: Wow, you're an incredible musician!
- Musician: Thanks, it's taken a lot of work.
- P1: How is it possible you play so well!
- M: Lots of practice?
- P1: It must be inborn talent!
- M: No, it's mainly practice...
- P1: You must have musician genes!
etc. ad infinitum.
And, to be honest, I kind of thought this myself as well. When I saw the scene in "Soul" where the piano player figures out the key of the song after playing one wrong chord, then one right chord, I thought, "Miraculous!" Now, after playing bass for just over a year, yeah, not as big a deal as I thought originally.
You're absolutely right. I play music too and I understand how practice is a huge part of this. That's how I perceive intelligence - some people never stop learning and improving, which is what makes them smarter than others. Surely some were born more talented than the others, but they also spend more time practicing than the others.
- How do you know what code to type in?
- Ummm… I know what I want the program to do, and just write it down step by step.
- No, I mean, how do you know what symbols to write??
- I… I learned their meaning…?
- You’re so lucky! I would never be able to learn such things, I was always bad at math xD
> Practice does not make perfect: no causal effect of music practice on music ability
> Abstract
> [...]
> We found that music practice was substantially heritable (40%-70%). Associations between music practice and music ability were predominantly genetic, and, contrary to the causal hypothesis, nonshared environmental influences did not contribute.
> Genome-wide linkage scan for loci of musical aptitude in Finnish families: evidence for a major locus at 4q22
> [...]
> Result:
> The heritability estimates were 42% for [Karma Music test; KMT], 57% for [Seashore pitch], 21% for [Seashore time] and 48% for the combined music test scores. Significant evidence of linkage was obtained on chromosome 4q22 (LOD 3.33) and suggestive evidence of linkage at 8q13-21 (LOD 2.29) with the combined music test scores, using variance component linkage analyses.
The methodology doesn't seem to be measuring the musician's capability of producing music. Rather it measures their ability to hear and detect pitch and comprehend melodies and rhythms, something that's critically required for musicians. And unfortunately that does appear to have a very significant genetic component, one that does not benefit from practice as much.
From what I understand it doesn't mean that hard work isn't needed or that there is no point for someone without the genetics to not practice music. Rather it just puts a limit on what level of skill one can achieve through hard work.
I used to share that sentiment myself, until I (finally) picked up an instrument two years ago.
It turns out, you don't get very far learning to play music without also incidentally gaining an intuitive understanding of how most songs are constructed.
For example, most modern music is based on about three or four main chords put together in a certain sequence and then repeated throughout the song. If you know song well enough to hum it, and can figure out (or look up) what those chords are, then you are 80% of the way toward being able to _play_ the song because the melody is (mostly) made of up the notes within those chords.
You would think you couldn't do it well, and that either you're born with the ability to do it or you aren't; but you'd be dead wrong. It's just practice. That's it.
Given a couple years of regular-ish, semi-structured practice, you would be shocked by how much you can do. When you dive into music theory even just a small amount, it becomes very easy to improvise a melody in a given scale, or write a nice chord progression. It becomes Math.
Most songs that you memorize are very similar, and the ones that are different you simply learn through muscle memory. I can't explain to you how exactly I can fingerpick a song like Blackbird, but I can do it and all it took was rote repetition until my fingers do it quite literally without my thinking about it.
When it comes to memorizing songs, that seems pretty ingrained in humans as a species. See folk songs, oral tradition, and jingles. Set a boring verse to music and I can pull it out of my memory twenty years later if you give me the hook.
As mentioned in other comments, there are a lot of confounding factors.
One of the big one is the selection bias by parents.
I would guess that most musical training starts in childhood and is facilitated by parents.
Also, most parents who are this involved would place schoolwork above musical training. Thus, the kids enrolled in musical training are ones that are doing well in their classwork.
There’s a big physical part too I think. I’ve been trying to learn guitar on and off for thirty years and I think a certain lack of coordination and muscle memory, poor sense of rhythm, and some degree of tone deafness has made it a real struggle.
There is a large portion of music performance that is simply muscle memory, but probably a larger portion is really perceptual.
In order to develop better motor skills, you need to be guided by the resulting sound compared with an intention, an idea of the sound you want. This implies that the first thing that has to change is perception and imagination.
There's a literature on how to practice music. Many of the techniques you'll encounter really have to do with aiding perception (the idea, the sound, awareness of what you are actually doing) and interfering with "muscle memory" so that you can break down and improve execution.
Coordination, rhythm, or pitch will not improve until perception does, but perception can certainly be trained and improved!
Also -- just try practicing something intensely for 10 minutes, then practice/play something else. Then come back next day after a good sleep. The improvement that happens while you sleep is almost creepy.
Good practice helps with this. You can get a better sense of rhythm by playing rhythm and strumming on beat, or tapping your foot, or practicing with a metronome. You gain coordination with regular practice, and muscle memory with practicing different chord shapes and scales. the tone deafness can be improved if you always keep your guitar in tune and start to intrinsically learn what good tone sounds like as you practice.
It's tough making time for how much practice you really need to do. Really great pro guitarists like Jerry Garcia were probably playing guitar north of 40 hours a week whereas many amateur guitarists are lucky to squeeze in 20 mins a day sometimes. The best time to get great at guitar (or any skill really) is when you are a kid and really can just play 8+ hours a day every day all summer without having to worry about a job or many other responsibilities taking up limited time.
I have learned a lot over the years. I’ve had a few teachers, some better than others. I’ve used some online teaching resources. I know the fretboard pretty well, I can switch between chords cleanly and quickly, and I understand the very basics of music theory. I just can’t put it all together. None of it has become pure muscle memory.
It all takes active thinking as I play so if I’m keeping time, my chord changes are bad, if I hear lyrics, my strumming ends up matching the cadence of the vocal track.
Despite all that, I do enjoy playing what I can play. It just isn’t much.
Seeing that much of music, frequency and vibrations in general, are geometry, and any sort of structured order in the universe carries an intrinsic mathmatical properties its not hard to see why: rhythms, melody, pattern recognition, numbers, hand eye coordination, memory, concentration, improvisation, listening.
Music is synchronization of all these skills that are built over time. You could read a book on calculus and start solving problems but you wouldn't be able to read a book on the piano and start playing any meaningful sounding pieces.
So much of training, especially classical music, puts heavy emphasis on fundamentals I listed. It's only when you reach a certain breakthrough in proficiency in all the skills listed, you are in position to start taking on new scores but even then requires you to apply the same set of training although sight reading is probably the biggest measure of one's musical abilities.
Musical training helps to delineate and connect different contexts together in real time. It also requires precise hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills executed perfectly (or as my instructor would say "as closely to perfect as you can: perfect does not exist").
There's probably many domains it overlaps and assists with (not to mention the general philosophies that translate to other domains like creativity, continuity of motion, practice/discipline/feedback/improvement -- e.g. "music is the tool to express life" Herbie Hancock). Though naturally, excellence in one domain does not grant the knowledge necessary to be a master in another
In the Hindu pantheon, the goddess Saraswati is associated with music, learning, intelligence, knowledge. It seems like the link between musical training and cognition is something humanity has been aware of for some time.
I was a choir boy from a young age. Became head chorister. Achieved Deans and Bishop awards from the Royal School of Church Music. I also played classical guitar. On one music exam in school I got 99%. I can't remember what I lost the point on. Anyway, my point is, I'm dumb as fcuk. Scored terrible grades throughout my schooling and in my GCSEs, which is about the time I quit the whole thing.
I feel like this is "water is wet", except that they need Science (tm) to justify teaching music to kids in school, because the only reason to learn how to play music is if it will make you better at something else that really matters. ?!?!!
I wonder how they controlled for the fact that having good visual working memory probably helps with reading sheet music, or conversely doing a lot of sheet music reading probably also trains visual working memory.
At my junior high, the band teacher had access to everyone's IQ test scores and went around scooping up all the smart people. Probably illegal now. Sure to skew any cognitive/music related studies.
Or whether musical training was recent or long past. Or whether performance was solo vs ensemble. Or what level of performance was achieved (occasional vs regular, personal vs serious avocational vs professional). There are a great many musical variables that need normalization given only 148 subjects. Even the variable they chose -- musical memory -- wasn't quantified in any recognized way that allowed meaningful comparison among subjects. Being able to recall a sequence of notes and their durations in a single-line melody is only one aspect of musical memory.
It's a bit like assessing one's memory of a dance routine by asking how many steps were taken.
It certainly helped me. Exploring music opened my mind up to both my potential ability as well as the technical side of audio, which lead fairly directly to me becoming a programmer.
Video games and guitar are like the foundation of my career. I needed to know how they both worked, and that journey exposed me to so much cool stuff. I really can’t see how a musical instrument would hurt, and I see plenty of reasons as to why it would help.
"... IBM preferred to recruit and train programmers from two different groups: musicians and accountants..."
...Now after this Quicksort implementation...Can you please do a "All the Things You Are" transposition into D Major using Java and without triggering java garbage collection? Let me know if the task is not clear. You have 30 minutes.
Why did you plant this idea on them? The hiring was already ridiculous to begin with. Now, how do I find a musical degree to flex on my resume? >:( !!
Joke aside, I do not think that visual memory matters that much when it comes to doing our job. All we need is problem solving skills and there are definitely alternatives to improve those skills. One crucial being solving many problems on what we want to be good at!
if it was anything like leetcode the question would be to play 3 notes and the interviewer would have to check the computer to tell if it was a C or a C#
bring it on, I have a full arsenal of guitars behind my desk and it's routinely a conversation starter for my meetings. I even played for my colleagues once or twice while we were waiting for others to join.
When everything went virtual during the pandemic, I learned that roughly half of my team have some sort of musical instrument on display in their home office. Guitars are most common, but I saw a couple of ukeleles and a banjo. The best though was discovering that one coworker has a couple of very obscure modular synthesizers along with a Wurlitzer and some other nice gear.
I keep a guitar at work office as well as at home. I find it pretty useful when I’m stuck on some problem to pick up the guitar and do something that doesn’t take a lot of thought (like play some scales or chord progressions).
