
Chess, memory training and music only improve chess, memory training and music - AndrewDucker
https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/11/24/no-far-transfer-chess-memory-training-and-music-just-make-you-better-at-chess-memory-training-and-music/
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grawprog
I disagree. Learning chess gave me a better understanding of spacial analysis
and helped me learn to pay attention to little details in everything I do. I
still think back to the moment I realized I needed to pay attention to all the
pieces on the board when I miss little things I do.

Having a good working memory helps me with literally everything I do all the
time.

Learning music helped me with math and I find writing songs to be similar to
writing a computer program. I think about them both the same way. They're both
large complete things built from different abstract parts.

Building a program, using classes and structs built from basic primitives is
not much different that building a song by layering different notes and chords
into tracks and tweaking them until they work together as a song.

In both cases there's certain patterns that do and don't work together, you
have to pay attention to tiny details. One misplaced keyword or drumbeat can
fuck up a whole program or song.

I work on both the same way, I start with a base loop for my program or song,
I focus on one small piece at a time, then tie it together with the rest, I
frequently go back and change old parts because they don't work well as a
whole or I figured out a better way to do it.

Personally I feel like learning those things helped me be better at life in
general.

Music and chess are both extremely useful for learning about abstraction which
is pretty much the most important skill a person can learn. Abstraction makes
our society possible. Both of these teach you how to focus on small parts and
tie them to a bigger whole. Everything we do is based on these concepts.

They both teach you to think and plan ahead. If you're playing a song you have
to know ahead of time what's coming next or at least be able to read music on
the fly.

If you play music with other people it helps with learning to read people and
work with others cohesively. You have to be able to tell what the others are
doing, make sure you stay on time with everybody as well as keeping track of
the song and just about everything else going on.

Honestly everything I learn I find ways to apply to other things I do in life.
Things are a lot more similar than they may seem. Humans only have so mamy
skills but we have countless ways to apply them to do amazing things.

~~~
brudgers
The finding of the study mentioned in the article was that the far effect was
inversely proportional to the quality of the study design. Everything in one
anecdotal experience may in fact be the case but in many situations will not
constitute a high quality experiment.

