

Why programming and musical talent go together: enjoying seeing patterns - KentBeck
http://www.threeriversinstitute.org/blog/?p=435

======
Towle_
This seems like a very muddled claim to me. I won't refute that there's some
kernel of truth in there somewhere, but using anecdotal evidence to loosely
tie one's own theory together rarely ends well, especially when one's claim
would be beneficial to oneself if true.

A perhaps more plausible and/or stronger explanation for programmers'
disproportional display of music talent as a group:

To gain the experience necessary to label oneself a programmer, one has likely
a >lot< of time on a computer. Whether that computer exists at home or at a
school/university, we can already likely assume (especially for the population
of "professional" programmers, due to the lesser availability of this
necessary resource in past decades and the length of time necessary to become
a "professional") that the group we're talking about trends toward the higher
income side of the population. That alone would make the group as a whole far
more likely to have ever picked up a musical instrument in the first place,
let alone to have received the countless hours of necessary instruction.

Additionally, I think we can all agree programmers are disproprotionally
likely to be homebodies. If one spends a lot of time at home, one has more
opportunities for practice.

Lastly, if one has the patience and determination necessary to learn enough
programming to label oneself a programmer (especially a "professional"), then
one is more likely than the rest of the population to have the same patience
and determination necessary to learn another skill which requires countless
hours of disciplined study-- like music.

~~~
stcredzero
It goes deeper than amount of time spent. There are differences in the MRI
scans of people who have spent time doing substantive work in music before the
age of 12, and those who started much later. I've also taught music, and let
me tell you, the difference is _stark_! It's much the same as learning a
spoken language. There is a _big_ difference between 10,000 hours spent
learning spoken languages during the K-12 years, and 10,000 hours in your late
30's!

Teaching adults who had no exposure to making music as a kid is like trying to
teach someone who can't see color to paint a sunset! There are some adults who
can't keep rhythm with any meaningful accuracy, and can't hum a tune back at
you. There is some entire _facility_ which is missing. I've had similar
experiences teaching programming.

~~~
AndrewHay
I've recently wondered, is the common knowledge that kids pick up languages
quickly and better than adults really true?

Adults have a much wider range of skills and far more knowledge than children,
adults already have some of the most important aspects of thinking down: a set
of concepts about the world. Yet many struggle to learn a second language past
a certain time in their life.

Clearly children learn languages better than adults, a near 100% success rate
for children picking up their first language, to what may be something less
than 50% success rate for adults (guessing these numbers, but its clearly
lower for adults).

As a child though, what do you spend nearly every waking minute doing?
practicing and learning language, usually from their mother. Where as adults,
usually they give up not because its impossible, but because its too hard --
and they have better things to do!

Is ten thousand hours of language study as a kid really worth ten thousand
hours of language study as an adult?

I would be interested to hear if anyone knows of research looking into the
actual hours/work put in to study a second language to get to some certain
level of proficiency where the subjects started learning at different ages (5
years, 10 years, 15, 30 years old etc.)

~~~
barry-cotter
_I've recently wondered, is the common knowledge that kids pick up languages
quickly and better than adults really true?_

The question is insufficiently precisely formulated to be answered.
Unreferenced BS follows.

As you pointed out children don't actually pick uplanguages that fast. It
takes a motivated English native speaker about 600 hours to achieve near
native fluency in German if they have any gift for languages. That's just
classroom and home study, not talking immersion. It takes on the order of
10,000 hours for children to learn a language with _native_ fluency.

Even for children who started learning a language by immersion before 14
(approximate cut-off point for native fluency) there's a decent statistical
relationship between vocabulary and the age at which they started learning.
Obviously if you moved with your parents to X at ten and are a voracious
reader you'll beat the deprived kid from the slum estate, _statistical
relationship._

Learning a language that's closely related to one you already speak isn't that
hard if you are totally immersed. Grammar books, vocabulary lists,
dictionaries, helpful native speakers all help tremendously. It is possible
but incredibly hard for an 'adult' (14+) to learn a foreign language natively,
unless they're a biological freak (hyperpolyglot, remembered from SciAm, treat
with appropriate caution)

~~~
stcredzero
_Learning a language that's closely related to one you already speak isn't
that hard if you are totally immersed. Grammar books, vocabulary lists,
dictionaries, helpful native speakers all help tremendously._

Yes, being quite fluent in a language is just a matter of effort. But really
speaking like a native -- this is exceptionally hard. My dad's English is
incredibly good for someone born in Korea. His grammar is impeccable, and he's
completely fluent. But I still catch that he still has to think a little bit
about L and R sometimes. (And he's been at it for 60 years!)

------
stcredzero
Music also goes deeper than pattern matching. Often, it is a game of
_awareness_! A really good musician also becomes aware of complex secondary
effects, both in the mix of sounds produced and the effect those sounds have
on the emotions and "kinesthetic sympathies" of listeners. (By "kinestheic
sympathies" I mean a gut reaction people can have to the physics of movement
implied by asymmetries in rhythm. "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that
swing!")

Awesome acoustic musicians are aware of little nuances, and can exploit them
to great effect, much as a great chef can bring out a little edge of nuttiness
or caramel in a dish that enhances the whole. Sometimes these effects can be
stretched out over time, and at 2 or three levels of granularity
simultaneously. (The tasty thing you are doing this time through, is also
setting up a resonance with something you are doing the next time, which is
part of an overall structure of drama and anticipation you're setting up over
the whole song.) I've started delving into pop influenced by electronica, and
find there are many of these exquisite things in electronic music as well.

To bring this back to programming: there is also a game of awareness that can
be played while programming. There are may levels of granularity, and many
parts coming together in ways one might not yet be aware of. Often, it's
bringing such things into awareness that results in that great refactoring.

~~~
KentBeck
What you are calling "awareness" sounds like what I mean by pattern matching.
When I'm "on" as a musician, this "pattern matching" operates on a variety of
time scales--multiple concerts, this concert, this piece, this verse, this
phrase, this chord-- and multiple people scales--me, my fellow musicians,
different people in the audience, the audience as a whole.

At the very highest level (perhaps five times in my life) any consciousness of
all this disappears, even though I'm sure all those factors are still
influencing my behavior. Strangely, this is absolutely sublime in music but I
tend to produce code I later regret when programming in this zone.

~~~
stcredzero
_"What you are calling "awareness" sounds like what I mean by pattern
matching"_

Perhaps pattern matching is involved. What I'm thinking of are occasions when
one is listening to a very good musician and one is very taken by a particular
phrase or lick. The pleasure in that moment is intense, but it's often hard to
put the cause of that pleasure into words or even to replicate it musically. I
often find that I have to go back and analyze what happened, sometimes by
playing back a recording at half speed. Even then, I can fail to replicate the
essence of what was good in that moment. There's a certain discipline of
awareness one has to practice. Even though I'm able to produce a _resemblance_
of what I've heard, this often lacks the _essence_ of what gave me the
pleasure. I have to be aware that I'm reproducing the right thing sonically,
and not just taking pleasure from mastering a new sequence of movements. (And
it's quite common to meet musicians who just stop at doing the latter.)

Pattern matching might be involved, but it's only part of it. There's a kind
of introspection involved in figuring out _what made it work._ I have to think
about how I'm feeling and connect that causally to some particular nuance or
combination of things.

------
Goladus
Calling yourself a programmer and calling yourself a musician are both fairly
easy. I would say a lot of programmers are musicians because a lot of people
are musicians. I know a lot of musicians who are not programmers.

I think that if you actually look at the most talented musicians in the world,
they are probably not programmers either. The amount of dedication it gets to
reach the top makes it difficult to do both.

~~~
KentBeck
That's certainly a possibility, that programming accomplishment and musical
accomplishment don't correlate at all and it's just sampling error. However, I
experience both and I was trying to identify the commonality, in answer to a
question that has been discussed ad infinitum. It would be interesting to me
if the question applied to people in general. At the moment I'm glad to have
made my world slightly more understandable.

------
nerme
I sing, play guitar, bass, and saxophone, as well as enough drums and
keyboards to get by in rock or pop settings.

With my current group we've started to use a heavy dosage of Max/MSP for audio
and Quartz Composer for visuals... my professional programming experience
really helps with creating really good interfaces for the software (not just
UI, programmatic interfaces as well), so extending or modifying the software
happens at a pace that keeps up with the rest of the band... and being that
music is prety much realtime...

If you're interested, we've got some demos up... <http://redblueyellow.com>

Of course I did our website as well... Rails ;)

And how many bands have a github account? Sorry, no public repos yet...
<http://github.com/redblueyellow>

At one point we had three software developers in the band, but we've slimmed
down due to _gasp_ , guys getting jobs in the industry elsewhere (other than
SF, I know, right?) and now I'm the lone coder.

I'd say I'm about 50/50 when it comes to music... I've had periods where I did
it full-time, and I've had periods where I've coded full-time. Right now I'm
burning the candle at both ends with a contract job and spending at least 30
hours a week on the band.

I know quite a few professional programmers who are also professional or semi-
pro/very dedicated musicians.

I think there is more to it than mere correlation.

And can I say that the 10,000 hour thing is WAY WAY off?

I'll put it in musical terms:

I started playing the saxophone in 5th grade. I played for 2 years. I switched
to guitar. About 4 years ago I picked up a sax because the band I was in
needed some horns. After about a week, I was 100 times better than I ever was
before. So what happened? Well, I learned more about _music_ in the mean time.
I'm sure I could pick up any instrument much, much quicker than someone who
has never played any instruments. What am I getting at? Well, a lot of things
in life have more than just a passing similarity. They have core fundamentals
that are shared. I am completely convinced that this applies to music and
software development, although I have no idea why.

------
scott_s
Humans are pattern matching machines. I think it's the root of our
intelligence - it's certainly necessary for our survival. Basic pattern
matching is required to, say, determine what kinds of plants are safe to eat,
and to figure out where big game is and to predict where it will be.

~~~
Sthorpe
Have you read on intelligence? Jeff Hawkins, talks about how everything we do
is about detecting whats different in the patterns.

~~~
KentBeck
No, I haven't. I heard an interview with him, though, that makes me think
we're thinking about similar ideas.

------
amichail
Learning to play a musical instrument changes the brain.

[http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-
articles/b...](http://www.articlesbase.com/art-and-entertainment-
articles/benefits-of-music-education-456737.html)

~~~
yan
Isn't it accurate to say learning _anything_ changes the brain, since that's
what leaning _is_?

~~~
mattyfo
I agree and since the link doesn't seem to work for me, I can't comment on the
article.

Perhaps learning music changes the brain in a way that is different than say,
learning how to cook French food or to fix a computer?

~~~
stcredzero
Actually, if you are a _excellent_ French cook, I suspect that your brain was
changed in much the same way. Fixing a computer, not so much. See my post
about the "game of awareness" in music.

------
RyanMcGreal
I'd be curious to see a poll of HN readers asking how many enjoy/excel at both
programming and music.

I'll never win any awards for either my code or my compositions, but I love
programming and I love playing music (rhythm guitar and drums, mainly).

~~~
abstractbill
Done: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1045758>

------
pvg
Unfortunately for the thesis, we have a well-established counterexample.

[http://www.jwz.org/hacks/why-cooperation-with-rms-is-
impossi...](http://www.jwz.org/hacks/why-cooperation-with-rms-is-
impossible.mp3)

~~~
KentBeck
The good news about psychology is that a counterexample does not invalidate
the thesis the way it does in math.

~~~
pvg
We probably disagree on whether this is, in fact, 'good news'.

------
dagw
What is the basis for claiming programmers are musically talented? I know a
number of very talented musicians and a number of very talented programmers,
but the overlap between the two is pretty close to zero. Sure I know
programmers who can string together a few chords and musicians who can hack
together a website in php, but I've never seen anything to make me think that
the overlap between programming and playing a musical instrument is any larger
or more significant than the overlap between any other profession and playing
a musical instrument.

~~~
KentBeck
AFAIK the correlation is anecdotal and no more. However, I've had enough bar
discussions of "why do musical and programming accomplishment go together"
that I was glad to find an answer that made sense to me. I'd love to see real
research to confirm or deny the correlation.

------
jpwagner
This claim is just a subset of _people-who-excel-at-anything-are-able-to-
relate-to-excellence-at-anything-else_

~~~
KentBeck
I've certainly seen that kind of argument. What makes me think I haven't
fallen into that fallacy (although it is a possibility) is that I freely admit
that I'm terrible at lots of things (like reading people) and that I'm good at
other things (like baking or cheesemaking) that have nothing in common with my
experience of programming and music.

