
Are musicians better language learners? - pyduan
http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/feb/27/musicians-better-language-learners?CMP=share_btn_fb
======
cjbprime
Yes, there seems to be a massive obvious correlation here: people who are good
at learning difficult skills over time (an instrument and musicianship) are
good at learning difficult skills over time (a new language). I doubt there's
any real link/cross-sharing between music and language here.

Some people enjoy investing time into something that they will be bad at for a
very long time and then become good at, and some people hate it. If you went
through that with music as a child, you're probably more likely to have the
confidence to want to go through it again as an adult with a language, because
you know that it's something you've done before successfully. Programming's in
the same category.

~~~
6stringmerc
Well, I did check into this as part of advanced study, and your doubts are
misplaced - there is a real link/cross-sharing between music and
language...because there's an observable link/cross-sharing between music and
overall intellectual development. Here's a quick summary citing the study that
I think I used in my own inquiry[1]:

 _Confirming the belief that the relationship between music and academic
performance is positive, “researchers have found that music instruction
actually enhances student achievement in areas outside music” (Kelstrom, 1998,
para. 12). It is believed that “music develops critical thinking skills and
improves skills in reading, writing, and math. Music develops and improves
spatial intelligence, which transfers to high-level math and science. It
develops perceptual skills necessary in many academic areas” (Kelstrom, 1998,
para. 31-32). According to this study, music has a strong influence, because
it produces and develops skills needed for many academic processes._

[1][http://www.kon.org/urc/v5/fujita.html](http://www.kon.org/urc/v5/fujita.html)

Personally, as both a musician, person who successfully learned a foreign
language, and was, for a time, on a professional track to become a programmer,
I can say that programming is very low on the totem pole. It is predominately
mechanical in nature deriving from logic comprehension, compared to music,
which is a highly expressive and dynamic format. Or, to put it another way,
I've never seen a "collaborative jam session" in programming that wasn't
anything but chaos, because the format simply doesn't allow for it.
Programming is great to understand how machines work, but to build the
machines, the mind should be expanded via music and the arts to enable
practical creativity.

~~~
drcomputer
The only thing I subjectively see in the value of music is the lengthy amount
of time that the formalism of it's language has survived. Otherwise I
typically listen to the same songs on repeat until they have turned into a
drone like noise for me to block out the rest of the noise in the world.
Sometimes I do appreciate variation in music, and I have spent a lot of time
devoted to studying classical music. But still, a particularly well known
sonata might as well be a recursively constructed formalism of white noise to
me, because that is how I remember the piece. It is beautiful in that regard,
but I just do not consider myself educated enough in music to understand
anything about it otherwise.

I find code and mathematics to be much more delicate, intricate, fundamental;
to my own personal comprehension. I remember playing the piano a couple of
times to think about how a computer might experience the progression of it's
thoughts. The thing with creativity is it has no walls.

------
ianamartin
Both my parents are/were (dad is retired now, mother still teaches) University
German professors for over 40 years each. Both of them have claimed for years
that they can spot the music majors in the first day of class just by noticing
how much better at pronunciation they are than the other students. Neither of
them have done anything serious with their observations beyond notice that
their musician students are often far better in the language than the non-
musicians. It's anecdotal for sure. But it's quite a lot of anecdotes, for
whatever that's worth.

It's also worth pointing out that a better pronunciation from a set of
students can skew the teacher's view of the students' actual abilities in the
language. That is, two students could have roughly identical mechanics,
vocabulary, etc., but the student with better pronunciation will be perceived
as having a better grasp of the language. You can argue that the way the words
sound is a part of the language, so this isn't really a skew. But you get my
point. On paper, they are the same; in speech one comes across as better.

~~~
yodsanklai
> they can spot the music majors in the first day of class just by noticing
> how much better at pronunciation they are than the other students

It makes sense. I can see at least two explanations. First musicians are used
to listening to sounds in order to reproduce them accurately. Second, less
obvious reason, is that they are less shy to "perform". Maybe I'm wrong and
generalizing my own case, but I think that sometimes people are just too shy
to work on their accent. As kids, we used to make fun of those that were
trying to have a correct accent.

~~~
visakanv
It always blows my mind to listen to songs from my childhood, which was before
I learnt to play music. When I was a kid I was effectively tone deaf– didn't
recognize pitches, harmonies, bass, etc. Now I hear the nuances, and it's
interesting to look at old things with sharper eyes. Makes sense that it would
affect language skills.

------
baristaGeek
This is a specific case which is part of a broader fundamental principle. This
principle might sound reduntant, and it's basically that "people who learn how
to learn are better learners".

Learning how to play a musical instrument is something that never permeated
our general culture as much as it should've had, which implies that doing so
requires the acquisition of -in some level- unconventional skills.

This ability to acquire unconventional skills can be extrapolated to any other
area of knowledge. For example in my case, the shift was from music to CS.

EDIT: BTW, I speak 3 languages.

------
flyinghamster
Looking at my own history, it makes sense. As a kindergartner, I was playing a
toy organ with play-by-number song books, and later in grade school I played
clarinet. Big mistake: quitting in eight grade. As a side note, whenever I
looked up words in the dictionary, I always paid attention to the etymology as
well as the definition.

The only subject that I aced in college was Spanish, and the teacher was very
good (and a native speaker), but not easy. We started Spanish 101 with 30
students, and ended Spanish 104 with just seven.

Now, 30+ years later, it's a bit rusty, but I can still read it pretty well,
and can sort-of understand written Portuguese as well. I can drive down
Collins St. in Joliet and easily read the signs on the businesses.

But wait, there's more! One Sunday, in 1993, I walked down to a neighborhood
church that I had never visited before, and sat down, as it turned out, behind
the music director. She heard me singing the hymns, and asked me immediately
after the service if I'd be interested in joining the choir. Then, the next
week, the handbell choir was playing, and I was hooked -- I ended up joining
both.

More recently, I joined a community chorus that sings a wide range of pieces,
and a great many of the old masterworks are not in English. I've found that I
could pretty readily pick up pronunciation for a variety of languages, and
even though I've never taken German lessons, I can almost figure out what's
being sung in Bach or Mozart works -- and when I read an English translation,
the relationships between English and German almost jump off the page for me.
I still wouldn't be able to put together a coherent sentence in German,
though.

If I had the time and money, I'd consider taking German, and maybe even
Russian (I taught myself the Cyrillic alphabet at one point, so the alphabet
would be the least of my problems).

~~~
replicant
> Now, 30+ years later, it's a bit rusty, but I can still read it pretty well,
> and can sort-of understand written Portuguese as well.

I don't want to be picky. But I would not attribute your ability to read
Portuguese to your musical background, but to your Spanish. My experience is
that most Spanish speakers can read Portuguese to a certain degree and vice-
versa. Never having studied French, I was able to read some child comics.

~~~
gothenburg
This is true. I'm Portuguese and I can read full texts (even books) and I
never had a course, or even a lesson, of Spanish.

I can understand Italian at some degree as well, due to the same reason.

------
tzmudzin
If you want a subjective, personal view as anecdotal evidence on this:

music IS another language.

There are regional variations (Western vs oriental) with their own phonetics
(scales...) and grammars (rules of harmony, chord progressions). Not to
mention that quite a few musicians describe it as a means to express
themselves.

Reading sheet music is not much different from reading in a different
alphabet, music theory is the equivalent of grammar study, and BTW playing by
ear is pretty much like the natural language acquisition (the way kids pick up
their mother tongue).

You'd be surprised how many parallels both in the nature and in the learning
process you'll find. Learning music is like learning another language [Source:
I'm a multilingual who just started learning to play piano as an adult.]

EDIT: formatting

~~~
illumen
Yeah, music is another style of communication.

The industrialisation of music has destroyed a really joyful way for people to
express themselves and to communicate with people around them.

When musical literacy is lacking in a person it is truly sad. I read somewhere
musical illiteracy is around 95% of the USA now. Which is a pretty good market
for people who have to buy all their music! When you combine this with no
knowledge of food preparation, and no knowledge of the environment, it makes
for a pretty poor existence IMHO.

Oh well :(

~~~
rprospero
> When musical literacy is lacking in a person it is truly sad.

As a member of the musically illiterate, I ask why?

From my perspective, it feels like being musically illiterate is like being
unskilled in the ceramic arts (which I also am). It's absolutely true that I
cannot make music of my own and would be forced to buy all my music. It's also
true that I cannot make porcelain figurines of my own and have to buy all of
those as well. My inexpensive solution has been to simply not own any
porcelain figurines or music.

Honestly, between the two, I'd be more interested in learning the ceramic arts
at the moment. Not that I really need figurines, but it sounds like more fun
and I have some ideas for bathroom fittings. Why should I learn music instead?

I'm probably coming off as a bit abrasive and I apologize for that. People
have been making music for thousands of years, so there's obviously something
neat going on there that I'm missing.

~~~
thatsjustcrazy
Why don't you just try both?

------
phabian
As a professional musician, classicaly trained, who just recently (I wasted a
lot of time living in terminal and emacs while playing with linux distros)
started learning programming from ground up I find Lisp, S-expressions and
more functional approach attractive and comparable to music composition. If we
take for example Bach fugues of Beethoven Sonatas we can see functional
approach of may I say multiparadigm: development of motives, objects,
augmentation, expanding themes(functions) that contain smaller themes
(closures) etc.. The beauty and magic of SICP lectures and their may I say
musical approach to composing higher abstractions is just plain better than
pure python or javascript tutorials that I tried learning from. Not to mention
amazing talks and writings from Alan Kay, Guy Steele, Pg, Norvig and other
hackers who for me define the essence of hacking and programming. The whole
point of writing lisp in itself is like some strange Bach or Mozart read/eval
loop that never stops. I am far from being an average user of lisp but I keep
doing it day and night. It is not easy though. The only sad thing is so many
people dismiss lisp and I see finding a job will also not be an easy thing. By
the way I am open for internships in some lisp shops, I would work for free. I
dont know how much I can contribute but I could at least clean extra
parentheses (thats a joke! :)))

------
bwanab
This doesn't match my personal experience. I learned music at five and have
been an active musician all my life, but languages have always bee hard for
me.

I believe that music is much more related to computer languages - just
instructional notations as opposed to natural languages.

~~~
ionforce
I'm not down with your link between music and computer languages.

Music is performative while what makes success with computer languages is the
ability to juggle abstractions at different levels of zoom. I don't see an
overlap there other than the nominal "they are both langauges".

~~~
bwanab
I think there's a disconnect in our statements. By music, you seem to refer to
the artistic, creative, performance oriented activity. My reference, as I
thought TFA was about, was to the notational aspect of written music. Listen
to Bach if you want an example of "juggling abstractions at different levels
of zoom".

------
galfarragem
My experience tells me that there are no correlation between these variables:
one of my best friends is a great musician (pianist) and is terrible with
foreign languages despite having had several language courses.

IMHO, would make more sense to rephrase it as:

 _Are singers better language learners?_

~~~
agumonkey
I think it depends what 'great' means and how he learned. I'm a self-taught
(by ear, by eyes, barely no "theory"[1]) failed musician, therefore not great,
but after years of failed intuitions on what was and how to make music, I had
moments where I felt the grace of being 'on' the music.

That taught me a few things:

    
    
      - Sometimes there are things that were completely invisible to you.
      - These things looked complex and painful, in reality they aren't.
      - The right approach was too foreign for your (my) brain.
      - Years of failing aren't waste, you learn patience and faith (yes faith).
      - It is often summarized as `make haste slowly`
      - Learning another weird thing won't ever be the same
    
    

[1] Music theory is a notation for experiences, don't learn theory until you
felt what is described carnally a little. Beside they're only restricted
abstractions. I knew chord progressions, modes, counterpoint, yet it wasn't
until a day where my mind and ears just clicked that all these ideas suddenly
became obvious, the symbols mapped my feelings one to one and
understanding/remembering them was free.

~~~
galfarragem
Apparently music is maths, but despite being confortable in maths and reading
the music notation, I'm terrible playing the piano.

Another thing that doesn't make sense to me is that my friend has a terrible
memory: somebody says something to him today, tomorrow he will not remember
(unless is something that he "feels" somehow). By the other hand, if it is
music, he remembers/plays it after listening just once sometimes even years
later.

~~~
agumonkey
Music is just maths, but so far I've never ran into the correct formula.
Progressions, rubato, ... I don't know a lot, but none explained to me why
some movements felt good and others didn't.

Music notation is mostly wrong to me, it doesn't explain a lot. You learn more
by trying to do anything offbeat. It breaks the notion of time. Same for
harmony, most of the beauty in music comes from slippery progressions that
aren't transcribe on the score.

From my experience, the sensation of beauty in music has more to do with
physic notions like momentum, and complex rotations more than well tampered
scales. That's why no amount of theory will make you a good player, because
then it's about feeling the physics, the subtlety, the sensitivity, inertia,
acceleration...

And you last point just resonates a lot to my previous comment. Music ain't
that complicated, that's why when you see it correctly, the complexity fades
away and you can remember an apparent "whole lot" easily. It's a very abstract
function thus tiny, something you either get, or learn through years of deep
listening.

ps: that's the programmer speaking obviously, but I cannot help but to see a
strong resemblance between asm - higher level programming languages, music
theory - actual music understanding. A few combinators in Haskell, or APL get
you to express vast amount of logic, that would take pages to write down in
assembly (or a score ;).

~~~
kaoD
As a wannabe musician and beginner jazz player, I feel music is explained all
wrong. Unfortunately there's a lot of baggage from older eras where music
wasn't well understood and was mostly a collection of heuristics. The fact
that harmony understanding is usually explained in a chronological fashion
probably doesn't help.

The problem (and I guess you know this already) is that although music is
analyzable with math, how we experience music isn't entirely formalizable.

Music _isn 't_ math, just like physics _isn 't_ math. Math is just the tool we
use to formalize and study them.

> Music notation is mostly wrong to me, it doesn't explain a lot.

Just like words don't explain a lot by themselves: their relationships with
each other, the whole text, and your tacit knowledge and reasoning do explain
far more.

Take this chord chart (excerpt from a jazz tune):

    
    
        C6 | F7 F#º7 | C6/G F9 | Em7 A7
    

It doesn't explain anything itself, but with a bit of analysis (and tacit
knowledge) you can see patterns. E.g., there's a voice which goes in chromatic
ascension and then is held (hinted by the C6 with a G bass and the explicit
9th in F9):

    
    
        C-[E]-G-A                   |
        [F]-A#-C-Eb  [F#]-A#-C-Eb   |
        C-E-[G]-A    F-A#-C-Eb-[G]  |
        E-[G]-B-D    A-C-E-[G]
    

Or only the ascending voice:

    
    
        E | F F# | G G | G G
    

But it can also be seen (and interpreted) as a purely ascending voice (though
not chromatic):

    
    
        E | F F# | G A# | B C  (though I'm not convinced with that G to A# gap)
    

That line is found in the chord chart too (check it yourself). Which one is
correct? None. And both. And there are many more hidden.

It isn't obvious, but those relationships are there, and they're important,
and you're supposed to be able to see them with your tacit knowledge (and
highlight any of them in your playing _if you want to_!).

Of course it could be explicitly remarked and it sometimes is, specially in
classical music or when the composer wants to highlight it himself. But then
you lose a lot of what's jazz, like how different people view the same
standard and express the subtleties as _their_ music.

Also, there are so many hidden subtleties that the small chord chart would
explode into a huge collection of remarks and explanations (imagine explaining
what each word in a story means!) and those would probably differ depending on
who did the analysis (like what exactly metaphors and allegories mean in
text).

And that's why you've never found the correct formula: there isn't. If
Einstein would've sworn by classical mechanics formulas, we would've never had
relativity. Knowing those formulas is good though: each of them strengthen
your understanding little by little. Einstein wouldn't have come up with
relativity without classical mechanics.

The beauty here is that those relationships work because notes are just
multiples of each other. Why do C and C# sound "awful" (unless you intend them
to sound like that) played together while C and E (a major 3rd) sound
beautiful? Because of their interference pattern:

C+C#:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28sin%28261.63*x%29+%2...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28sin%28261.63*x%29+%2B+sin%28277.18*x%29%29+from+x%3D0+to+0.5)

C+E:
[http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28sin%28261.63*x%29+%2...](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28sin%28261.63*x%29+%2B+sin%28329.63*x%29%29+from+x%3D0+to+0.5)

Is this math? Yes. Is your brain doing the math? Nope. But the math explains
why your brain likes C+E more: their interference pattern is less chaotic
(i.e. more harmonic) in the short term. Also, C+C# generates a weird long-term
beat frequency[1]. Of course this doesn't explain the cognitive part (why does
my brain like harmonic interferences?) but you get my point.

Do players/composers think about these interference patterns? Nope, because
they use music notation, which highlights their properties without the burden
of interpreting the sound wave frequencies. I can instantly recognize a major
3rd in C+E, not so much in sin(261.63 * t) + sin(329.63 * t).

The musical staff seems weird but it is comfortable too: chords formed with
stacked thirds (the classic way of making chords) will always have their notes
either on lines or spaces but not both, regardless of whether the thirds are
major or minor. The oddball (like a chord with a 9th) really stands out. It
also makes it easy to see if a chord is major or minor: three consecutive
stacked thirds with a D bass and a # on the second third will be D major (D is
minor in the key of C, thus why its second third has to be raised).

Sorry for the rambling :P This is what happens to my brain on music.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%28acoustics%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_%28acoustics%29)

\----

Did you study jazz theory? Something tells me you'd love it, and breaking with
pre-jazz analysis definitely expanded my horizons. I'm slowly learning it
(self-teaching jazz isn't easy, 2 years already and I still feel like a
beginner) but it's definitely rewarding.

Here's some theory to get started if you're interested, both classical and
jazz:

[http://www.musictheory.net/](http://www.musictheory.net/)

[http://www.cs.uml.edu/~stu/JazzTheory.pdf](http://www.cs.uml.edu/~stu/JazzTheory.pdf)

~~~
agumonkey
IMO breaking chords into moving lines (~counterpoint) is already a better
start (and I've seen other guys saying that's how they digested harmony) than
learning names, modes and such. It's a constructivist way to teach. Start with
a line, then ask the person to harmonize over it. Name don't matter until this
is fixed in your head.

Yes there's probably a strong relationship between frequencies ratios. Simple
ones (3rd, 5th) are good to anybody, but you love jazz, don't tell me you
don't get high on 13th and dissonant bits too. With time I started to enjoy
following subtle and non trivial melody lines in harmonies (gospel tunes are
full of it, fusion also, jazz obviously).

And that's just harmony. What about rhythm ? and grooves ? How do you write
funk or swing on a score ? AFAIK it's not except by a little side comment;
even though this tells you more about rhythm than anything else.

People measured relationship between notes, but I've never seen it done to
'beats'. I have a feeling that there's also ratios hidden in sequences of
strokes that make or break a groove. Placing an almost unheard dead notes at
an odd time before a strong beat will change the feeling so much.
Counterpoint, for rhythm.

~~~
kaoD
> IMO breaking chords into moving lines (~counterpoint) is already a better
> start

Jazz kinda breaks the deal, I found counterpoint a mooter-point (hehe) in
jazz. There is so much freedom you'd have to analyze each performance
individually. Even in the same recording of a song, two identical sections'
counterpoint can vary wildly (or not have counterpoint at all!) Parallel
fifths/octaves are a no-no in classical music (they break the counterpoint)
while they're liberally used in jazz.

You can't even canonically analyze a chord chart. Is that C6 a C6 or an Amin7?
(exactly the same notes: C E G A) It's both and it depends on the
composer/performer and which one they want to emphasize.

What I mean is, chord charts are mostly a way to print standards in books :P
Just like the word tree isn't a tree, a C6 _isn 't_ a C6.

> What about rhythm ? and grooves ? How do you write funk or swing on a score
> ?

Definitely a great point.

That's traditionally been left to the performer, even in classical music. Jazz
brought that freedom to melody and harmony too.

Coincidentally, just yesterday I saw some discussion about it in a jazz forum,
some good points there: [http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/38021-why-
there-more-b...](http://www.jazzguitar.be/forum/theory/38021-why-there-more-
books-scales-modes-than-timing-feel.html)

> People measured relationship between notes, but I've never seen it done to
> 'beats'.

It's been done and is pervasive in traditional music theory (not so much in
pop music). E.g. syncopation is a formal relationship between beats, or
ornaments
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_%28music%29](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ornament_%28music%29)),
or even pulses, beats and bars (which are just a take on rhythm
formalization).

There have been efforts to accurately transcribe rhythm and feel, but it
mostly gets in the way (e.g. the comments here about swing transcription
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_(jazz_performance_style)#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_\(jazz_performance_style\)#Transcription)).
Rhythm seems to be more innate, while note relationships are easier to hear
than to produce. If you got rhythm, you can tap swing feel so a side note
should be enough (and allows for personal feel, just like tempo wasn't
transcribed as BPMs and they used allegro, grave, moderato...)
Improvising/transcribing melody/harmony isn't that easy though (I attribute it
mostly due to the available variety compared to rhythm.) I guess that's why
pop/rock songs transcribe notes/chords but rhythm is usually left as an
exercise.

I personally like it the artsy-jazz way: do whatever you feel sounds good and
express yourself through music. Theory is cool, but ear is king.

------
riot504
From personal experience/observation. I have zero musical talent, my wife
gives me a hard time for not being able to hold a beat by simply tapping the
table. However, I can pick-up foreign languages with relative ease. I have
never become fluent any foreign language, but have been able to
read/conversant in Turkish, Russian, Italian, French and Spanish. I will admit
East Asian languages are extremely difficult reference their tonal aspects; I
have a hard time understanding/speaking those types of languages.

------
raincom
Yes, if you are good at singing in various styles. Singing in various styles
teach a few things about voice quality and tunes.

1\. Every language has its voice quality. So, learning phonemes alone does not
help us one to acquire a new accent or language. Voice qualities vary within a
language itself: compare the southern accents, midwestern accents, New York
accent, British accents. Yes, there are phonemic differences between accents
within a language: but there is a change in the voice quality.

2\. Academic research about the voice quality in languages have not reached
beyond what John Laver had said (check his phonetic description of voice
quality). And of coure, IPA has incorporated some symbols like 'breathy
voice', etc, which you can see in the extended IPA. To me, voice quality
should be the first thing one shud master before getting into phonemes,
lexical stress, intonational stress, etc.

Academics are too busy with their instrumental (acoustic) phonetics. Even
majority of phoneticians are just into instrumental phonetics. Ian Catford, a
great phonetician, advised students of linguistics in general to master how to
use their vocal apparatus.

3\. Joe Estill, an opera singer turned a voice teacher, did a great research
on how to train anyone to sing. Her focus is on how to acquire voice quality.
She calls such steps as 'figures'. They are like thin voice, thick voice,
breathy voice; then adding other combinations to them: high larynx, low
larynx, Aryepiglottic sphincter, etc. Such skills help a singer to sing in
various styles. Even if you want to do pitch match properly, you should do it
in a thin voice (not with the speaking voice, which is thick voice for
Americans, kinda semi-thick(breathy) for Indians in the south Asia, etc.

4\. There is another thing singers and instrument players are good at: how to
remember tunes. Even though speech is not like a song, you can find possible
tunes of a language. In linguistics, it is called "intonational phrase". So,
one does not need to master phonemes of a target language in order to imitate
the tune units (tunits or intonational phrase) of any language. How many
language training materials teach this?

Most, if not all, language training materials subordinate the voice quality
and the tunits to phonemes and lexical stress/lexical tone. Whereever they
touch about tunits, they spend 4 pages on the intonation of the target
language.

------
new8754
But this be fixed by taking sodium valproate?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973842](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6973842)

