

High SAT = Beethoven; Low SAT = Lil Wayne - turbod
http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr/index.php

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manvsmachine
This is broken in so many ways. Of course the music listened to by the largest
number of people is going to correlate to a more average SAT score. The
children that regularly listen to classical are those with parents who either
intentionally expose them to it at home (which means that they are likely
well-educated) or have them take music lessons (which indicates both a concern
for their child's mental development as well as above-average financial
status). So music and SAT scores are largely influenced by the same factors:
education and money.

Also, as someone who spent over a decade of my childhood playing classical
piano, I'd suggest that the vast majority of college-age kids who have
Beethoven on their "favorite music" list are smart kids just trying to appear
to be even smarter. Notice how no other composers, modern or classical, are
listed; Beethoven is to classical music what the Beatles are to classic rock
and Jay-Z is to hip hop: a generic name for someone to pull, the Java of
composers. If I was listing what instrumental music I _do_ listen to, I'd be
putting up names that define the styles I like. Philip Glass? Branford
Marsalis? Ludovico Einaudi? Sure. Beethoven? Negative.

The only thing I can possibly attest to is the lyrical / instrumental
dichotomy. Sometimes it takes a certain kind of mind to appreciate some
instrumental music; you have to be able to sit and analyze it, recognize the
patterns / progressions, etc. That's why I could see popular bands like
Radiohead, U2, and even RATM to a certain extent, doing better than other
groups in their genre.

~~~
unalone
The problem is that classical music enthusiasts tend to be rarer than rap
enthusiasts, and the so-called "classical" music world is much more diverse
than the world of rap, seeing as it spans many more centuries. You can be a
die-hard classical enthusiast and never have heard of some very prominent
composers, because there are so many.

For instance, more people know Philip Glass than Steve Reich, but they're part
of the same contemporary classical scene, and that scene contains a ton of
people _I've_ never heard of (plus it branches out to the rock minimalists,
such as Brian Eno).

Obviously this isn't saying much, since absolutely this chart isn't proving
anything, but I doubt it would be easy to find significant statistics for
students liking other musicians. For instance, I've got a ton of various
musicians and composers listed, but the ones that most likely correlate with
other people's lists are the biggies: Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach.
Even huge names like Holst and Ravel are less likely to be found in a good
listing of profiles.

(Also, in the interest of finding out new stuff: what sorts of things did
Marsalis and Einaudi do? What pieces of theirs would you recommend a novice
begin with? Personal favorites?)

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manvsmachine
_Aagh, I had a ridiculously thorough reply, which I promptly lost when I
closed gedit. The messy, truncated version:_

I'm guessing that you play piano (in regards to the "novice" part). Marsalis
is a jazz sax musician; the Marsalis family is probably the closest thing that
jazz has to a household name these days. The point I was trying to make with
him is that instrumental music training rarely has such a limited scope in
terms of genre: in the case of piano, even the most hardcore classical-focused
piano teacher would still have their students dabble with Scott Joplin or
whatever.

Einaudi does comtemporary classical piano / string arrangements, sometimes
with a mix of digital / world type stuff for ambience. "Giorni Dispari" is the
first song of his that I heard, probably one of my favorites of his and not
particularly hard to play if you can find sheet music:
<http://tinyurl.com/dnj7t3>

I haven't played much lately, as I'm currently a sleep-deprived college
student living in an apt. Last two songs I remember working with are Carly
Comando's Everyday (you can actually buy the sheet music from her directly on
her MySpace page for a few bucks) and Greg Maroney's Castle of Shadows. I've
developed a serious bent for modern / minimalist stuff lately. My favorite
piece I've ever played is Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor; that song is a
beast. It's definitely for the less experienced though, I doubt I'd be able to
play it now without taking the time to get my skills back up to where they
were.

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aoeu
Not directly related but Bob Brozman has some interesting thoughts on music -

"African-based music normally has as the fundamental meter: both 2 and 3 at
the same time. This opens the door to syncopation, polyrhythms and musical
creativity, which occurs on a more primal level in the brain than harmony. It
is acknowledged that Europeans developed harmony further than any other
culture; but rhythmically their culture is among the planet's most primitive."

"Put simply, marching (colonizing) cultures see the downbeat as something to
follow, and the "marched-upon" (colonized) cultures see the downbeat as
something to react to, using the backbeat."

<http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_rhythm.html>

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPXRWRxda8>

Additionally, the majority of western music is now performed in equal
temperament which adds to the blandness. As hackers you may find the math of
music interesting..

<http://www.kylegann.com/microtonality.html>

<http://music.case.edu/duffin/>

<http://www.larips.com/>

~~~
jerf
That entire article sounds like pop psychology bullshit. There are far more
likely explanations which don't involve implicitly claiming that before
Africans even knew Europe existed, they somehow just _knew_ they were going to
be oppressed and developed backbeat-based music as a result. (Get real.
_Maybe_ you can build all of African-American culture as a reaction to
slavery, I still think that simplifies beyond usefulness but whatever, but
African culture in general can't be based on that, it's temporally
impossible.)

~~~
aoeu
Maybe the implication is the opposite - backbeat-based music has been lost
over time in our countries. Perhaps to the expense of gaining harmonic
complexity. Perhaps due to the rise of marching music? Just thinking aloud.

In any case, I think it's an interesting observation from his travels.

~~~
jerf
Yes, that at least gets the temporal ordering correct, and I agree the
observation is interesting. I just object to the pop psych additions. I find
it more likely that local materials lent themselves to drums, and since they
had drums, drums are what they developed.

Many European instruments, especially in the era when European music as we
know it today really started to take off (Bach's time), require significant
technological advances to create. Not all of them, necessarily, but a
harpsichord is not a trivial instrument. Having harmony, they developed
harmony.

It is worth pointing out that both have spread the world over (with changes as
they go, as cultural artifacts should travel), which I think further knocks
out the "oppression" aspect. Plenty of non-oppressed people love a beat.

~~~
aoeu
Good points, thanks. The other issue is more interesting to me, the
proliferation of equal temperament, which seems to be finding it's way into
classical music also. Hopefully I'll have some info up on the web at some
point once I've finished refretting my guitars.

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kyochan
Considering every musical genre is at or below my final SAT score (1380/1600),
it could only mean:

1\. SAT's are not an indication of intelligence. 2\. There is no correlation
between type of music and SAT scores. 3\. All music, including Beethoven,
makes people dumber.

Author claims this is funny? What's funny? People that listen to Soca, Jazz,
Hip-Hop, and Gospel make the dumbest students? Here's a correlation, which
diaspora pioneered all four of those musical genres?

This is inaccurate. I love Lil Wayne. I don't remember the last time I enjoyed
Beethoven.

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smanek
It means no such thing. The fact that a correlation exists on average doesn't
necessarily mean anything for an individual.

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jrockway
How many times is this going to be posted?

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vinutheraj
Exactly I have already read this before and had thrown out all my Lil Wayne
music !

~~~
david927
And replaced it with the soundtrack to that dog movie.

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andr
That's nonsense. I know at least 50 people with 1400+ SATs (on a 1600 scale)
and only one of them is really into classical.

That statistic is wrong on so many levels. In particular, SAT scores correlate
to the level of education, which correlates to the wealth of the family, the
area they live and, therefore, the music they would be exposed to.

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rjprins
Which only confirms the correlation. The author clearly points out he does not
intend any causation.

~~~
jdminhbg
> The author clearly points out he does not intend any causation.

I'd say then that 'musicthatmakesyoudumb' was a poor choice of domain name.

~~~
byrneseyeview
It seems pretty sarcastic.

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jerf
High SAT = lying to impress others, Low SAT = truthful.

I actually, factually enjoy classical music, to the point that I voluntarily
listen to it of my own free will. I've participated in a lot of musical
conversations with high-SAT people. People either don't like classical and
make no bones about it, or give a nod to Beethoven but cite other people they
like better. (In my case, Schubert and Rachmaninoff would be the ones I cite.)

Excepting perhaps the Ninth Symphony, which if listened to properly really is
a tour de force. ("Properly" is listening to the whole thing straight through
with no distractions and at a decent volume level; the Ninth is designed to be
a bit loud. This is not something you can do very often.)

But then, I'm conversing with adults, not adolescents trying to impress me.

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nanijoe
Well the chart shows people who listen to Garth Brooks as having higher scores
than people who listen to classical music

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hyderabad
you guys are missing the real conclusion of this - the SAT is racially biased.

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unalone
I notice a lot of white musicians with lower scores. Aerosmith listener?
Buzzer! You're down near the bottom.

I get into this argument all the time, but - isn't it just a teensy bit
possible that classical music is _better_ than rap? I've given rap a lot of
tries, I've slowly gotten into it, but I'd still say that some of the best
rappers I listen to pale before even some of the lesser composers. To pick a
name that even classical enthusiasts: I'd pick Pachebel before I'd go with,
say, the Wu Tang.

Are we allowed to hate rap _despite_ the fact that it's predominantly black?
I've been called racist for expressing my dislike of rap, which I think is
grossly offensive.

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madair
Writing dumb titles makes you dumb and cancels out whatever knowledge you
claim to have about causation != correlation.

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henryw
that title is just mean. that reminds me to download that album right now.

    
    
      Weeeee Ooh Weeeeee Ooh Weeeee,
      Weeeee Ooh Weeeeee Ooh Weeeee,
      Weeeee Ooh Weeeeee Ooh Weeeee,

