What is it about serious music training that seems to correlate with success in other fields?

[Scuba]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/13/opinion/sunday/is-music-the-key-to-success.html

The connection isn’t a coincidence. I know because I asked. I put the question to top-flight professionals in industries from tech to finance to media, all of whom had serious (if often little-known) past lives as musicians. Almost all made a connection between their music training and their professional achievements.

The phenomenon extends beyond the math-music association. Strikingly, many high achievers told me music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. And their experiences suggest that music training sharpens other qualities: Collaboration. The ability to listen. A way of thinking that weaves together disparate ideas. The power to focus on the present and the future simultaneously.

...

Paul Allen offers an answer. He says music “reinforces your confidence in the ability to create.” Mr. Allen began playing the violin at age 7 and switched to the guitar as a teenager. Even in the early days of Microsoft, he would pick up his guitar at the end of marathon days of programming. The music was the emotional analog to his day job, with each channeling a different type of creative impulse. In both, he says, “something is pushing you to look beyond what currently exists and express yourself in a new way.”

...

Consider the qualities these high achievers say music has sharpened: collaboration, creativity, discipline and the capacity to reconcile conflicting ideas. All are qualities notably absent from public life. Music may not make you a genius, or rich, or even a better person. But it helps train you to think differently, to process different points of view — and most important, to take pleasure in listening.

So next time the School Board says they can't afford music education, show them this article.

[DURHAM D]

1. lol - I thought this was going to be an Onion bit on Chuck Todd.

[enki23]

2. Gee, I wonder what the corellation could be between people with musical opportunities and others.

1) People who are good at one thing are typically also good at other things.
2) People with one kind of opportunity typically also have other kinds of opportunities.
3) People with time and money for musical training often have time and money for other kinds of training.
4) When someone from an economically limited background puts lots of time and other resources into music, they are less likely lots of time into being a lawyer/accountant/doctor/stock trader/politician/yada/yada. Because they have fewer resources. Including free time.
5) Training in the arts has always been a mark of high social standing. People with high social standing tend to get their kids training in the arts.

6) Lots of people like music. Lots of people play music. I would be willing to bet that most successful people also tend to drink coffee, have pets, and enjoy good food. Obviously, this is causal. Let us not think about things like "background rates". Successful people don't think about background rates. Successful people aren't really much smarter than less successful people. Being smart, like being good at music most likely, is poorly correlated with success. If you do the statistics right, and don't say fucking stupid things like:

"The connection isn’t a coincidence. I know because I asked."

Oh, well, okay then. He asked. That settles everything. Successful people like the author are obviously all-round geniuses.

I look forward to reading all the added anecdotes and baseless pet theories everyone here has to add.

[NYC_SKP]

3. Not only music, but arts and crafts as well.

See these ASCD Educational Leadership articles:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/feb13/vol70/num05/The-Art-and-Craft-of-Science.aspx

http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/oct12/vol70/num02/First,-Discover-Their-Strengths.aspx

and many more!

[morningglory]

4. It may be a factor that music requires practise, and the more you practise, the more you get

out of the music, the better it is, and the more fulfilling the result. It is a feedback loop. The more you play, the more you want to play music. It becomes obvious that you get out of something what you put into it.

[JaneyVee]

5. Math. Creativity.

[LiberalEsto]

6. Self-disclipline, imho

and improving one's ability to focus.

On the other hand, seven years of parentally forced piano lessons basically went in one of my ears, and out the other. I don't appear to have any musical ability, or musical interest, self-discliplne or focusing ability. I wish I did.

Better they should have sent me for art lessons, since that was something I was interested in, and had a moderate amount of ability in.

[FarCenter]

9. Yes, self-discipline, memory, attention to detail, and the ability to work in a group.

[Uncle Joe]

7. This is your brain on music

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/15/health/brain-music-research/index.html

Among participants, the researchers found synchronization in several key brain areas, and similar brain activity patterns in different people who listen to the same music. This suggests that the participants not only perceive the music the same way, but, despite whatever personal differences they brought to the table, there's a level on which they share a common experience.

Brain regions involved in movement, attention, planning and memory consistently showed activation when participants listened to music -- these are structures that don't have to do with auditory processing itself. This means that when we experience of music, a lot of other things are going on beyond merely processing sound, Abrams said.

One resulting theory is that these brain areas are involved in holding particular parts of a song, such as the melody, in the mind while the rest of the piece of music plays on, Abrams said.

The results also reflect the power of music to unite people, Levitin said.

More on the link.

Thanks for the thread, Scuba.

[Coyotl]

8. It wires the brain, just like a second language does.

Which languages you learn determines how your brain is wired. So does learning music or mathematics, logic, etc.

[lumberjack_jeff]

10. The correlation between "serious music training" and family income.

The mom who works at Wal-mart rarely has the time, energy, opportunity, or income to take the kids to violin training.

[Gormy Cuss]

13. And that's why music education in schools pays off.

In my economically-limited public schools we had group violin lessons in 5th grade, band starting in 7th grade and a library of instruments loaned out to kids who couldn't afford to buy or rent them (the instruments were donated or purchased through a community development block grant.)

Of course this was back when public school boards thought arts education was important.

[MineralMan]

11. Many things.

Self-discipline, collaboration, group dynamics, precision, and many other things are learned through music in schools. It's all good. As a way to teach teamwork, concentration, and other valuable skills, it is at least as good as any team sports activity, but without the violence and health risks of many sports.

[mainer]

12. asian american families consider it mandatory

Maybe they know something.

[Egalitarian Thug]

14. The leap. Playing music, and art in general, requires the practitioner at some point

to stop playing the notes and start to make music, to take that last step from replication to creation.