4 ms·

To be fair, I think drawing is an exceptionally good example of a learnable skill. Is the same true of music, though? If someone has trouble hearing and disting

by gcv 14y ago

To be fair, I think drawing is an exceptionally good example of a learnable skill. Is the same true of music, though? If someone has trouble hearing and distinguishing intervals, can that person learn music? What about ballet, which pushes physicality just about as far as it can go?

etruong42 14y ago
It's tough to say. It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music. I definitely think that the average person can play notes on a piano given enough time for another average person to enjoy. On a person-to-person basis, we don't know until we try. Kind of like knowing the half-life of some material: we know the decay rate of a large mass, but we can only guess at a per-atom level, and we only truly know when it finally decays. I don't hope to belittle your question, but I don't find it particularly important what the average person can do. I find it much more important to figure out what I can do.
- keithpeter 14y ago
  Keyboard instruments have the advantage that note formation is relatively straight forward compared to (say) the violin, but then you do have to play two handed, i.e. at least two lines of music. "It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music." We tend to judge ourselves against recordings of the best artists, and those recordings may have been heavily edited. Before recordings were easily available, amateur music making was much more widespread. I think I can see signs of a return to social music making for the fun of it.
  - etruong42 14y ago
    Your mention of unrealistic comparisons reminded me of the Dove evolution commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U The original question asked about whether a person can "play music" or "do ballet". I want to add "being beautiful" to the list because I think it will help me express my point that I want to make. I believe that most people can improve on most skills, and that improvement is correlated to the time and effort they put into it. I believe that "being beautiful" counts among these skills along with "playing music" and "doing ballet". The reason I added "being beautiful" to the list is because I have found an attitude among many people, even those with a "growther" mindset, that treats beauty as static. I argue that the general expectations (or at least the projected expectations, which to the projecting person is the same thing) is unreasonable, causing many people to think of their improvements as failures because they fall short of those unreasonable expectations. So if one defines the ability to "play music" as the ability to produce live music that is on par with best-selling recordings, then I argue that no, the average person cannot "play music". Likewise if one defines the ability to "be beautiful" as the ability to look as flawless as the final product in the Dove evolution commercial. I find definitions like these to be unreasonable because these definition/expectations discourage the average person to try to play music or be beautiful when it may bring them and the people around them much joy. I hope that you are right that people can shed these expectations and do things for the fun of it. I see signs of it in music too.
beagle3 14y ago
Is there a reason you believe drawing is a learnable skill? Betty Edwards has shown that it is learnable by actually constructing a curriculum that lifts horribly bad drawers into competent ones. In an almost identical but betty-edwards free universe, do you have any reason to believe the same? Do you have reason to believe the opposite about music?
nostrademons 14y ago
BTW, ear-training is part of just about any decent music-theory course. You probably can't give perfect pitch to someone who's tone deaf. You can definitely teach them to recognize intervals, though. In my counterpoint course, there were some people who had terrible pitch recognition at the beginning of the course who were halfway decent by the time it was over.
skybrian 14y ago
Yes, it's possible someone might not be able to learn it but I believe this is rare. If you can recognize common tunes from the melody alone, you almost certainly hear well enough to recognize intervals; it's just a matter of practice.

by gcv 14y ago

etruong42 14y ago

It's tough to say. It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music. I definitely think that the average person can play notes on a piano given enough time for another average person to enjoy. On a person-to-person basis, we don't know until we try. Kind of like knowing the half-life of some material: we know the decay rate of a large mass, but we can only guess at a per-atom level, and we only truly know when it finally decays. I don't hope to belittle your question, but I don't find it particularly important what the average person can do. I find it much more important to figure out what I can do.

keithpeter 14y ago
Keyboard instruments have the advantage that note formation is relatively straight forward compared to (say) the violin, but then you do have to play two handed, i.e. at least two lines of music. "It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music." We tend to judge ourselves against recordings of the best artists, and those recordings may have been heavily edited. Before recordings were easily available, amateur music making was much more widespread. I think I can see signs of a return to social music making for the fun of it.
- etruong42 14y ago
  Your mention of unrealistic comparisons reminded me of the Dove evolution commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U The original question asked about whether a person can "play music" or "do ballet". I want to add "being beautiful" to the list because I think it will help me express my point that I want to make. I believe that most people can improve on most skills, and that improvement is correlated to the time and effort they put into it. I believe that "being beautiful" counts among these skills along with "playing music" and "doing ballet". The reason I added "being beautiful" to the list is because I have found an attitude among many people, even those with a "growther" mindset, that treats beauty as static. I argue that the general expectations (or at least the projected expectations, which to the projecting person is the same thing) is unreasonable, causing many people to think of their improvements as failures because they fall short of those unreasonable expectations. So if one defines the ability to "play music" as the ability to produce live music that is on par with best-selling recordings, then I argue that no, the average person cannot "play music". Likewise if one defines the ability to "be beautiful" as the ability to look as flawless as the final product in the Dove evolution commercial. I find definitions like these to be unreasonable because these definition/expectations discourage the average person to try to play music or be beautiful when it may bring them and the people around them much joy. I hope that you are right that people can shed these expectations and do things for the fun of it. I see signs of it in music too.

beagle3 14y ago

Is there a reason you believe drawing is a learnable skill? Betty Edwards has shown that it is learnable by actually constructing a curriculum that lifts horribly bad drawers into competent ones. In an almost identical but betty-edwards free universe, do you have any reason to believe the same? Do you have reason to believe the opposite about music?

nostrademons 14y ago

BTW, ear-training is part of just about any decent music-theory course. You probably can't give perfect pitch to someone who's tone deaf. You can definitely teach them to recognize intervals, though. In my counterpoint course, there were some people who had terrible pitch recognition at the beginning of the course who were halfway decent by the time it was over.

skybrian 14y ago

Yes, it's possible someone might not be able to learn it but I believe this is rare. If you can recognize common tunes from the melody alone, you almost certainly hear well enough to recognize intervals; it's just a matter of practice.