Ability to read music suggest other talents?

[Bax Burgess]

A niece of mine plays while reading - she's very strong in math. A daughter of friends plays while reading - merely ok in math, but a wizard in language. My talents favor the visual arts - can't read for...

[LadysSolo]

I read music, and learn languages easily, but don't see any correlation necessarily....

[Rapido Eduwardo]

I would not be surprised if there is a connection between math and music. More specifically, often people that like math and physics are also drawn to music. There are many examples of this. For example I believe that Einstein had an interest in the violin. I love the guitar and spent my life in science (physics) and quite a few of the people I knew in the field were also musicians. Wish I could say more about this, but a few years ago I began to write about the physics of music. Only did about 100 pages and lost interest.

[mr. beaumont]

Math and music, huge correlation.

[Bax Burgess]

LadysSolo, which languages present higher or lower levels of difficulty?

[Erithon]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Math and music, huge correlation.

Yes, there is tons of scholarship on this. Very interesting stuff.

But the connection is between math and music, not the ability to read music. Reading music is a wonderful skill, because it opens doors to a vast repertoire of compositions and allows one to easily communicate ideas, but it's hardly indicative of anything else. There are plenty of children (and people) who are highly skilled at languages or math and cannot read music (not because they can't, but because they never learned), just as there a great many people who can read music but are not particularly gifted at language or math. Moreover, reading music doesn't automatically beget musical skill. Ability in performance or composition doesn't derive from reading music. But ability in performance and, especially, composition is where much of the correlations are to be found.

[LadysSolo]

Originally Posted by Bax Burgess

LadysSolo, which languages present higher or lower levels of difficulty?

Spanish and French, very easy. Amharic, pretty hard. German - mid-range in difficulty.

[Bax Burgess]

Originally Posted by LadysSolo

Spanish and French, very easy. Amharic, pretty hard. German - mid-range in difficulty.

Is the greater difficulty of the Amharic having to do with the visual aspect, or is there more to it than that?

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by Erithon

Yes, there is tons of scholarship on this. Very interesting stuff.

But the connection is between math and music, not the ability to read music. Reading music is a wonderful skill, because it opens doors to a vast repertoire of compositions and allows one to easily communicate ideas, but it's hardly indicative of anything else. There are plenty of children (and people) who are highly skilled at languages or math and cannot read music (not because they can't, but because they never learned), just as there a great many people who can read music but are not particularly gifted at language or math. Moreover, reading music doesn't automatically beget musical skill. Ability in performance or composition doesn't derive from reading music. But ability in performance and, especially, composition is where much of the correlations are to be found.

Huge correlation between being able to count a bar of music and simple fractions...not so simple, once you syncopate...

[Erithon]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Huge correlation between being able to count a bar of music and simple fractions...not so simple, once you syncopate...

I'm not sure I follow where you are taking the conversation here, Mr. Beaumont. I agreed with your previous post, and then meant to nuance the OP's claim/question, but I don't quite understand why you quoted my response and then wrote this one.

EDIT: Oh! Do you mean to say that the music described by some sheet music is "not so simple?" Absolutely there are different levels of complexity in written music, but the ability to play syncopation, hemiola, etc. is not the same as being able to read it. With instruction and practice, just about anyone could read (I'm talking visually, not sightreading) complex syncopation: they could look at the page and say "That's an eighth note rest followed by a C3 eighth note followed by a triplet," etc. In short, they could identify and articulate what is on the page. But yes, I fully concur that doesn't automatically translate into the ability to actually play what's on the page, to realize the written text as it were.

[mr. beaumont]

Yes!

You get beyond simple quarters and eighths, there's math out the wazoo!

[Erithon]

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

You get beyond simple quarters and eighths, there's math out the wazoo!

And that's just rhythm! Intervals, overtones and the harmonic series, scales and their relationships, the circle of fifths, etc. are all fundamentally math, too. In many ways, music theory is applied math.
And then there's the science of acoustics: even more math--we can't escape it lol

[Bob Womack]

It shows that you've got a way with symbolic logic.

Bob

[Bax Burgess]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

It shows that you've got a way with symbolic logic.

Bob

For me, a music score is another artist's visual sense, completely logical as I study the components' meanings, that I don't relate to in their visual arrangement (I'm not knowingly dyslexic). Maybe it comes down to processor speed and short term cache memory, things of which I'm in short supply. Dang it, because why should math be hard? Really, it's orderly and sensible.

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by Bax Burgess

For me, a music score is another artist's visual sense, completely logical as I study the components' meanings, that I don't relate to in their visual arrangement (I'm not knowingly dyslexic). Maybe it comes down to processor speed and short term cache memory, things of which I'm in short supply. Dang it, because why should math be hard? Really, it's orderly and sensible.

Math and music are taught from the outside-in, starting with the particulars (individual problems for math, individual relationships for music) and working inwards to the principles. Philosophical Logic is taught from the inside-out, starting from the principles and working out to the particular applications. Math and music education both rely heavily on symbolic logic to communicate concepts. Logic only uses symbolic logic as a shorthand. Yet all are deeply related.

Anyone who has difficulties with symbolic logic will struggle with learning math and music, even though he may be able to grasp the deep concepts of either or both.

Bob