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New links found between musical training and cognitive ability
- suifbwish 5y agoBefore 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.
- RobertRoberts 5y agoIt 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.
- cshimmin 5y agoThis 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."
- whiddershins 5y agoAfter a couple of years of learning Tai chi, my hand independence on piano altered dramatically. Hard to call it a coincidence. I think mind-body training can and does change cognitive ability, it’s almost a given. If we doubt this, it’s more likely our ways of measuring are goofed up.
- tragictrash 5y agoIt may be hard to call it coincidence for you, but to everyone else thats a sample size of 1.
- blastro 5y agoCount it as N=2, my anecdote aligns with this one. :)
- treeman79 5y agoMy cognitive ability started bouncing between near genius to hillbilly. (Medical issue) Was learning an instrument at the time. Was going really well. Then on bad weeks twinkle twinkle was a foreign concept. I had to wait for good weeks to make any progress.
- luckydata 5y agohi Taravangian!
- elliotbnvl 5y agoI will not allow this to become an underrated comment.
- kinleyd 5y agoWhy? I'm interested to know.
- treeman79 5y agoHe 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.
- treeman79 5y agoHis character is my entire world. For a long time I would take a simple memory test online each day to see how I was doing. Results were drastic changes day to day. I was trying to figure out what effect each of the dozens of medications doctors gave me we’re having. A simple blood thinner stopped the non-sense.
- 5y ago
- noTooMooch 5y agoThere is an observable difference in brain activity between playing an instrument and actively listening: https://youtu.be/R0JKCYZ8hng 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. But you know; ymmv
- user3939382 5y agoReading 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9xXchxodYg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9xXchxodYg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Reed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Reed
- jessermeyer 5y agoNah, concert singers have teleprompts to remind them of the words. They never show the chords though. Curious divide.
- Melatonic 5y agoHe 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.
- bambax 5y agoMcCartney 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.
- alimov 5y agoIf it’s true then they made some great music as a team
- redmen 5y agoIt'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.
- alimov 5y agoGlad 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.
- gfody 5y agolearning 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)
- alimov 5y ago> I feel like this basic intuition is behind every "links to cognitive abilities" study I've ever seen I’ve had this impression as well
- ushakov 5y agomost people who start learning an instrument quit not quitting alone will eventually make you better than most who tried and quit speaking of personal experience
- jacquesm 5y agoThis 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.
- 5y ago
- throwaway6532 5y agoPlaying drums thickens the corpus collosum apparently: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/327279 https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/327279
- onion2k 5y agoNow tech startups will ask devs to play a song in the 1st interview to make sure they're recruiting the cleverest candidates.
- luckydata 5y agobring 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.
- entropicdrifter 5y agoAre you me? My home office is in my music studio, so the guitars are mounted to the wall right behind me
- belter 5y agoBoth your statements support the claim :-) Now we just need to match musical instruments to programming languages, and we solved SWE hiring...
- criddell 5y agoI 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).
- rednerrus 5y agoPlaying a musical instrument is like weight lifting for your brain.
- criddell 5y agoThere’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.
- nescioquid 5y agoThere 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.
- asdff 5y agoGood 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.
- criddell 5y agoI’ve been doing these things for 30 years now. Progress is slow.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 5y agoAs 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.
- 99_00 5y agoTitle is editorialized
- FredPret 5y agoHumans: almost impossible to study.
- asdffdsa 5y agoMusical 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
- ipiz0618 5y agoI 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.
- chris_st 5y agoThis 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.
- ipiz0618 5y agoYou'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.
- aaaaaaaaaaab 5y agoIt’s the same with programming. - 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
- ushakov 5y agoyeah, the magic wears off quickly i used to look up AC/DC, but now that i know how _literally_ all their songs work i find it rather boring and not very intellectually challenging
- causi 5y agoHow did this study differentiate between the effect of musical training and natural musical aptitude?
- randcraw 5y agoOr 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.
- randcraw 5y agoI 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.
- afry1 5y agoI'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!
- Kalanos 5y agomusic flexes a generative "muscle"
- upupandup 5y agoSeeing 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.
- swamp40 5y agoAt 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.
- lil_dispaches 5y agoWhy 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.
- sharkweek 5y agoRandom story time: 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.
- gowld 5y ago"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. Stated vs Revealed preferences, and all that.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- pbhjpbhj 5y agoTo 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.
- jrochkind1 5y agoI 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. ?!?!!
- JasonFruit 5y agoThis 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.
- xmprt 5y agoAlso 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.
- disqard 5y agoI 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.
- ip26 5y agoI’m sure in a post-scarcity world we will leave it at that.
- fleischhauf 5y agoaren't we already post scarcity? it's more of an distribution issue at this point I think
- albrewer 5y ago"Distribution issue" is a scarcity of labor and capital equipment.
- nhlx2 5y ago“How well are you trained, in music?”
- mr90210 5y agoLiterally just found this while leaving my piano class.
- leke 5y agoI 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.
- shapefrog 5y agoOne time at band-camp ...
- marcodiego 5y agoI wonder if style plays a role. Classical musicologists always seemed smarter than pop musicians for me.
- lifeisstillgood 5y agoCan music be separated from other skills that take time and practise to acquire? (This is more of a experimental design question than anything else - am interested)
- scelerat 5y agoplaying music, writing, learning a foreign language, and certain types of coding all tickle my brain in similar ways
- deskamess 5y agoCan learning to play a musical instrument help with ADHD?
- steve_adams_86 5y agoIt 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. The key is wanting to play.
- irrational 5y agoI hope this is not true. I not only lack musical ability, I have musical anhedonia.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- layer8 5y agoI 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.
- dinvlad 5y agoComposing music is also a good workout for creativity
- elevaet 5y agoIn 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.
- azepoi 5y agoIn the medieval liberal arts, music was taught in the quadrivium alongside arithmetic, geometry and astronomy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quadrivium