Actually, the article is mainly about running. Music is mentioned just once, and a bit tangentially.
PS. the photo in the article shows the waterfront of Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Georges Island to the left. The island is the site of Fort Charlotte. During the seven years war, the English imprisoned 2000 French sailors there, which is hard to imagine, given the size of the island (all of which is visible in the photo).
Yes, please don’t editorialize titles. Some titles are awkward and need editing. But fixing what the title is trying to say is not the same thing as changing the title to say what you want it to say.
Which does not mean that your perspective is not important. So instead of editorializing the title, either leave it be or fix it to say what the source intended, then kick of the discussion with your own interpretation as a comment.
I have been a runner for just about my whole life (ran track in HS) is started listening to music when the small mp3 players first came out and I noticed that it seemed to interfere with my "runners high" a little bit. I know this is tied to beta endorphins but I also think there is a Zen like aspect. So I stopped using the player and instead just let my mind run free too. My theory is that running can also unlock a type of meditative experience in the brain. I notice how much more clearly I can think after. It could be an evolutionary anachronism in that when the hunter man begins to run that the brain enters a state of heightened acuity in preparation for the kill. Who knows.
"I notice how much more clearly I can think after."
Yes me to. I'm quite past 30 and on most days I feel a little crap. After a run, I feel 20-something in terms of energy, motivation and attitude.
I think it's a combination of the endorphins, and then the rebalancing of sugar levels. I feel as though my metabolism has been 'reset to something proper'.
I think that light cardio is the closest thing to the fountain of youth.
The primary component of a runner's high is attributed to a category of neurotransmitters known as endocannabinoids. Endorphins become the primary component of a runner's high when the body becomes structurally damaged, like when marathon runners struggle to remain standing and lose the ability to concentrate (note the similarities to heroin consumption). The feelings of well-being and the Zen-like state that comes about from running a few miles is almost entirely due to endocannabinoids, similar to when someone has consumed cannabis.
>> In the adult brain, the endocannabinoid system facilitates the neurogenesis of hippocampal granule cells.[37][38] In the subgranular zone of the dentate gyrus, multipotent neural progenitors (NP) give rise to daughter cells that, over the course of several weeks, mature into granule cells whose axons project to and synapse onto dendrites on the CA3 region.[39] NPs in the hippocampus have been shown to possess fatty acid amide hydrolase (FAAH) and express CB1 and utilize 2-AG.[38] Intriguingly, CB1 activation by endogenous or exogenous cannabinoids promote NP proliferation and differentiation; this activation is absent in CB1 knockouts and abolished in the presence of antagonist.[37][38]
Yes, the combo of balanced blood sugar + oxygen + CO2. Might also have something to do with alkalinity as your body clears the lactic acid (by perhaps becoming more alkaline after buffering).
> I notice how much more clearly I can think after.
If the run is more strenuous, do you still see the same effect?
For me, a 3 miler at a relaxed pace definitely helps me be more focused afterwards.
But if I'm going full tilt up and down hills, or running longer distances, I find myself mentally exhausted afterwards. My theory is that this is due to my mind constantly battling itself on these kind of runs ("THIS HURTS PLEASE STOP NOW" vs. "PUSH PUSH PUSH").
EDIT: I should say both types of runs are relaxing afterwards.
Same thing with weightlifting. There's a fine line between a workout that makes me feel amazing and one that leaves me totally depleted. Nutrition also has an impact (before and after).
Good point, if I push myself too far then I end up focusing too much on the push. But on the other hand if I don't push at least part of the time, the end feeling is not as rewarding.
Sure. The other thing I've noticed is that I tend to be more aggressive during strenuous runs. For instance, if a car doesn't yield to me at a crosswalk I'll probably yell out something, whereas I normally would ignore it.
Might be due to both the mental anguish and the "heightened acuity in preparation for the kill" you mentioned :)
Yeah hard runs make me feel great, but it's more of a state of pleasant mental numbness. Mental focus and the ability to do any complex thinking stuff (coding, chess, etc) is entirely diminished.
I had the exact same experience. Listening to music or podcasts - even ones I was deeply interested in - diminished the feeling I got while running and the post-run high. It's also why I don't like running with other people. Even if they don't want to talk I'm distracted by their presence, making sure our pace is similar, etc.
Times like these i feel like the only runner who doesn't experience any sort of clarity of mind or runner's high.
I run five days a week. After a hard run i feel tired. If i made a good time with a low heart rate, i feel slightly happy about it. I don't feel anything i could ever describe as a runner's high, and never have on any type of run.
Music can also be a performance enhancer due to frisson in my experience. I can run for meditation or thrill and feeling. Usually I get better times with the latter and then alternate.
Do runners create brains? Or do brains create runners? The study is interesting but, as the article mentions, more needs to be learned.
That aside, it's likely a bit of both. In the case of the latter (I.e., brain creates runner) what happens when the person fails to realize their potential (?)? That is, you have a runner brain but are 20 lbs overweight and sit on your ass all day. Does that, can that, drive mental illness e.g., depression)?
Regardless, lack of blood flow can't be a positive.
I found that learning music unlocked pattern comprehensions that were very mathematical. Multiple layers of abstraction (rhythm or note points, derivatives of these two, overlay, non linear transformations, and the equivalent momentum phenomenons).
Running is something that trigger creative mind activity for me. And a form of flow. I wouldn't be surprised if other physical activity would do the same: climbing, even body building when done in a meditative manner (maybe?).
Anecdote: When I was in middle school I failed horribly at my first year of algebra classes and just couldn't seem to get a grip on the concepts (also I would often see "shortcuts" in the problems that would lead to horribly wrong answers). I would score about 50% on every quiz. I could tell my teacher thought I was an idiot.
Around that time I started learning music theory and playing in the school band, and learning jazz on the bass. The next year I was at the top of all of my math classes. My teachers thought I was cheating since I had developed a reputation as a "burnout" by that time (there's nothing more satisfying than getting called in after class to take a test in front of a smug teacher and acing it).
Also, even though I quit playing music about 10 years ago, to this day I can map out a melody in my head (I can immediately tell the interval between any two notes and string them together to play a melody on the first attempt), and I can pick apart mult-part harmonies because I can hear them in my head. I very clearly remember walking home from school one day and realizing that for the first time I could hear more than one note at a time in my head.
Music definitely rewires the brain in amazing ways.
Heh, the day I started to isolate overlapping melodies was a huge gift. Makes me happy to read your story. After formal training, and years of wondering what the hell chord progression were about.. the day I could parse harmony in my head and focus on one line in relation to the others, everything became clear. although I cannot measure what I feel in precise way (I couldn't name the intervals) I can improvise counterpoints for a few seconds intuitively. Which is a god damn pleasure. I even enjoy singing dissonant, just for the sake at aiming where the chords don't, and then keep a dissonant counterpoint. It's not dissonnant to me anymore, it's just a different sonic feeling. After all, 13th 17th and many jazz harmonies felt dissonant to me at first.. this is just an extension.
I believe that this "explains" more about music than 10 years of music theory classes.
ps: That's why I'm often thinking we should teach math to kids with actual activities. Involving your sense is to me critical to internalization of concepts. Later on you can drop the notation.
pps: indeed that's the kind of brain rewire I never expected. It opens your mind to other sensations too; and also, even pushing it, it change my view of European geometric explanation of everything. If people, cultures didn't have written music but understood music as you describe .. who has the knowledge here ?
Is there anything in particular either of you did to learn this? I've been playing saxophone for decades and still can't really parse harmonies that I hear.
I sometimes wonder if it's because I play a single monophonic instrument rather than a polyphonic instrument.
As a sometimes runner and jazz sax player (intermediate), I can completely relate to this thread on both topics. One thing I noticed when studying a new improv technique or parsing out chords and applying great mental strain, a few days / weeks after said activity, I will dream that I am playing my sax and actually do a pretty nice little improv in my dreams. When I wake up, I can barely remember the melody. This has happened about a half dozen times. My reasoning is that in my waking moments I over think things, e.g. What is the right line to play over this or that progression. I guess in my sleep, I am released from all these heuristics and am able to tap into a deeper, freer layer. A jazz teacher once told me to just forget about the theory - not overthink stuff - and just play what I feel. It sounds cliched but it's good advice. (He was a mathematician by training so could relate ).
This is why I didn't invest in theory, I wanted to feel the music. It happens once in a while and I can surf the music's surface for a minute totally free. It's a bit crazy but in these moments the brain really sees things like smooth hills and if you're tuned in, you're like a ball rolling in these, picking a bit where you'd like to roll next, or maybe bounce because why not.
There's a thing you get after a while on drums, the internal clock becomes stable. You can play whatever, if you feel you don't make sense, a part of your mind is still ready to catch the groove as if you never played outside the click.
In Harmony there's a similar sensation, you don't care about the note, any note on any chord will taste something, but you learn to swerve back into the harmonic movement if you think you're turning into noise, or if you want to express something sweeter to the ear, depending on your emotions and the overall flow.
I believe to learn that, the best way is to play off. Off time, off key. And feel what it is to lock in again. Then play on that sensation.
I play mostly bass dont worry. I think the explanation is odd but easy. I tried singing guitar solo (little wing etc). Tried to expand range, and when it was above, I started to try to sing other instruments or backing vocals. Started with unison and fifth, then 9th etc etc. I also listened to contemporary gospel and acapella (take 6, brothers voices only, sometime they imitate instruments too, Google take 6 - jazz vive).
Also jazzfusion guitar chord progression got me to focus on funny progression. John scofield, tribal tech, r. Gatto, return to forever...) All reach your ears.
I don't do body building (taking a narrow definition of the term), but I do heavy (for me) barbell lifts as part of my regular exercise routine.
For some anecdata, I consistently find myself in a better frame of mind after lifting as long as I was properly focused on form, challenging myself rather than going through the motions, etc.
My university education revolved around cello performance, and I find many similarities in the state of mind after a good practice session compared with a good lifting session.
I'd say it's the connection with the world through your body. People say meditation is looking inside you, I start to think it's what they mean. You allocate your neurons to sense more about your own body and your interface with the world. Either the movement of weights and their effect on your muscles and joints. Or the vibration caused by your bow on the strings.
When I was working out, since I was out of shape, I used the music "slowness" as a guide to doing push ups. Always going slow, very slow, and very smooth.
Even on every day chores, I realize that anything done in this fashion is relaxing, body and mind wise.
I started running a couple months ago, I do my best thinking now while running out in nature (running in the city is not as good, too many interruptions). I've set my day up so I can go straight to the computer after I run without changing out of my running clothes or doing a bunch of transitional tasks, because that time is cognitively valuable. I'm full of ideas and want to get them down before they fade. Running takes up about 2 hours of my day, but running for 2 hours and working for 4 feels more productive than just working for 6 hours. I'm doing better work.
I was once obsessed with climbing for almost a decade. When climbing I was 100% focused on climbing, my mind wasn't really free to wander and think of other things. Even when I was done climbing, I would still be thinking about climbing. Climbing problems were always the biggest problems in my life, they had a way of eclipsing everything else, which is what it means to get the 'climbing bug'.
Cute quote. I started thinking I disagreed but I confused calculus with counting/algebra .. A whole chunk of classical music is "integer" like (algebra). Jazz/Swing adds flips music around syncopation which is a massive change in mental representation. It's the difference between Harryhausen and Star Wars stop motion (or more recently keyframe tweening and Mitsuo Iso odd time animation). Macro vs Micro. And .. it aligns with Leibniz theories. It's all variations, accelerations, you're always in motion. I believe only 18th music started to care about bending time [rubato, chopin] which is akin to what I felt trying to understand jazz.
I understand your reasoning, but it is based on incorrect assumptions.
The first assumption you make is that we actually know how pre-18th century music sounded like. We have guesses, some better than others, but we know that we are likely wrong.
The second assumption is based on the idea that music somehow improves in complexity and quality. We have many scores that have survived the test of time, but these provide a huge selection bias. Only scores that were popular, widely copied and preserved due to timelessness are currently available. Musical ideas that could not be expressed using the scoring techniques didn't survive. Nor did musical ideas that didn't mesh with following eras. Therefor, what we see is a pattern of scores that are popular (of low complexity), easy to write (of low complexity) and similar to following eras (of lower or equal complexity). See the selection bias?
Lastly, and more concretely: 18th century musicians didn't suddenly start caring about bending time. They started caring about sharing musical ideas outside of their direct sphere of influence (printing press), so they understood the need to add extra markings on sheet music, such as rubato and accelerando.
And saying you try to understand jazz is akin to saying you try to understand philosophy. It cannot be done, too much has been written and one cannot understand all standpoints simultaneously. Try to understand a specific era, like Bebop, or a specific musician, like Chick Corea.
Good point about loss of information from historical, technological and cultural restriction. My reasonning is based on what people today call music theory in most schools and below a certain level. Surely Berklee talks about all kind of stuff.
I don't think all was lost, things that weren't writeable could be passed orally as virtuoso techniques that weren't deemed useful to be written for the average player anyway. See how Spanish guitar technique has survived time.
My attempt at understanding jazz is that it revolves rhytmically around swing. And that core swing can be described through a tinier and principled abstraction rather than a crude ternary feel mark left for the student to figure out. Also from trying to make sense of jazz music without the traditional formalisms (I barely know two modes, and never learned that many progressions). There are some tiny tiny notes in Herbie Hancock playing that shifts the whole world. I'm sure "the" truth lies in there. see the finale solo https://www.youpak.com/watch?v=95TAfOWJKwg
Could you elaborate please? To me, music is entirely a subjective aesthetic experience which leverages our shared history to elicit certain emotional responses. I view mathematics as the opposite of that, being objective, where everything is derived from explicitly stated axioms.
I can understand if you say that music (in general, or at least in the west) conforms to a system of patterns and relationships, but I question whether those patterns and relationships are integral to the experience of music. I suspect that they are more a result of our expectations than a fundamental property of music.
It's missing the inertia part I was trying to convey. This is rarely taught. Except for a crescendo flag on the score. But to me it is essential to what music is. Intervals, harmonies seem like side effects (I'm exagerating).
I don’t know if this is wha you mean, but when listening to music, the human brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen next. Jerry Coker explains that the quality of the experience lies in the balance between the familiarity of being right and the surprise of being wrong.
Thus, when listening to syncopation, you constantly comparing what your brain hears to a steady 4/4 it ‘expects' to hear. And when listening to a soloist improvise, you are comparing the notes your brain hears to the melody it ‘expects’ to hear.
This is obviously not the only effect, not by a long shot, but is that what you mean by “inertia?"
I've heard this idea too. The inertia is the physical incarnation of the predicted motion. I'm talking about playing the music, not only listening, it makes a difference. Talking about syncopation in terms of overall time signature is only partially valid. You can syncopate by altering an accent place while still on the same time. Think a dead note on drum or bass. It totally alters the feeling. My understanding is that A B C D isn't interpreted the same as A b c D, because there's a variation of energy between these for notes. It's implied in most music. For instance Rock is 4/4, Funk is 4/4 but it's not rock.. where's the difference ? implied change in energy (Rock is almost linear, a smooth wave; funk is superficially linear, close inspection reveals very weak and short changes). Same for jazz, to swing a beat you can't just play at the right time; it has to be the right momentum. Otherwise it will be flat aka no swing. It's hard to describe, the best I could find was in physics, momentum and internal system energy. The inertia is in your wrist and stick, it's always flowing back and forth between cymbals and your fingers. The change of perception of the listener comes from the player understanding of this.
There's a lot of "feels" that you cannot represent without that. But these aren't studied formally, funk, latin, caribean music. Jazz is but I think the people studying jazz don't explain everything because they're talking among themselves and already have internalized all this. So they just write "swing this" above a measure and the cats will deal with it.
oh: and I just thought of something else. The idea of prediction; since I relate everything to physics, often feels similar to a sense of internal balance. I mean your body position, as in not tripping. Syncopated music often feels like falling. Maybe it's synesthesia but considering that all these music were linked to parties and dance I think it's not far fetched that our musical prediction is the same as the one that tries to predict how to balance movements and body.
All this stuff can be precisely measured and explained (and has been - there are a million drum instructional videos that get academic about how to play various styles).
Swing feel isn't a closely guarded secret among jazz musicians - it just isn't quick to explain. There's a sliding scale of the ratio between the first and second eighth note, where at slow tempos it's 2:1, and at fast tempos it's 1:1. The exact ratio at a given tempo is something that's passed down aurally. There's also a harder articulation on the second eighth note. There are other nuances too, but those are the most important ones.
Ha well, I didn't see them all, I did see quite a few and it was never explained at all. At best a few slowed down classical swing patterns. But it was all imitation and no deeper meaning.
The 1,2 ratio is nice, but I use to see response curves... a bit like interpolated splines...
Interesting. After some reading, apparently this interpretation of the trivium is standard, though this interpretation of the quadrivium not entirely. My immediate thought was that of course there would be crossover. For example, rhetoric includes elements of time (tempo/rhythm are poetic). Maths, geometry and astronomy are largely about processing, and so on. More interestingly, they considered the whole lot preparatory work for studying philosophy.
Might a modern pentivium add numbers in n-dimensional space (matrices / calculus), or a sextivium explorations and representations of infinity? Or would these fall under the subsequent study of philosophy? How about parallel/concurrent systems? It certainly seems to me as a layman that large swathes of research mathematics and theoretical physics are approaching subject areas traditionally ascribed to philosophy. I wonder what the latin word for GPU would be.
What other definitions for the quadrivium are you finding? The set and description I've cited have seemed fairly standard, though I'm not an expert in the area.
I'm finding the content and descriptions mostly interesting in a retrospective sense -- I'm not ent
advocating that the mediaeval curriculum be implemented in its original form today. At the same time, I find the notion of input, processing, and output to be quite useful, and one which might be considered as part of a modern curriculum.
For the maths progression of the quadrivium, there are a few other possible clusters or progressions. We've made some advances in maths as well.
I see a general structure of: quantitative notations and operations (arithmetic), solving for unknowns (algebra), geometry and trigenometry, integrals and derivatives, matrixes, differential equations and approximations (FFT). There's also logic (informal, formal, programmatic), programming, and artificial intelligence / machine learning. Genetic engineering seems also to fall somewhere on this axis.
Collectively, all of this falls under inforamtion acquisition, processing, storage, and transmission.
I've been trying to learn to play guitar on and off for 25 years now. It's a huge struggle for me. For a while I'll practice daily, make very little progress, get frustrated and bored, then quit. A year later I start over and no progress is ever made. I've had different teachers and different instruments (I love the gear part of it) and I know what's really needed is grit.
I do get the feeling though that my 46 year old brain is a little calcified and doesn't want to learn something entirely new. That's part of the reason I think I really need to work on it.
My kids take music lessons and after the first week, they accomplished more than I had in years.
I've taught guitar on and off over the years, including to retirees- I would say you are never to old too learn. Please forgive how reductive this comment will be, it may not help at all. I do think you have to have this coincidence inside you where you can learn to love practicing, and not knowing things. The trickier or more stupid something is, the more you have to love unpacking that problem, and allow yourself to dive deep into what it is made up of. That attitude was what finally got me to stick with learning programming after years as a musician. Figure out that every obstacle is a gift you can learn from. The main thing I have found that helped me in learning is that you are not teaching your hands specific positions, you are teaching your fingers specific paths between locations. Focus on the paths.
It's partly how I learned music. It was a deep curiosity about what and why. You just like to try to emulate that sound, try all variations.
The plot twist was that it turned into "how to learn". Because you can try things blind forever and never make progress. There's a million way to be wrong in music. It teaches you patience and sensitivity. All the beautiful rhythms are very small details invisible to the newcomer, you have to go slow in order not to miss them.
The "between" trick is important. I told above about inertia and thinking about moving as constantly flowing and not as spaced points.
I had piano lessons for a year at 14. Stopped (learned nothing except 2 or 3 children melodies, and few ideas that I forgot in a week). Then started again around 19, drumsticks and bass. As I said I was almost dead wrong for 6 years. With mostly regressions.
All instruments are different though. Guitars require quite a large amount of time to adapt your left hand (neck). It's easy to never make progress there. Bass guitar is a tad easier because you play melodies and not a blend of this + chords, which are demanding in dexterity and stamina.
The frustration, abort, guilt cycle is hard to avoid. Even guys who took lessons as kids have off days. They told us on boards that when they struggle to play, they just take it easy and make it a rudiment day. Stupid patterns at slow pace, just to keep warm.
Do not ocmpare yourself to kids, it's mostly masochism. It's like comparing the speed of a fresh windows 95 install vs a 2 yo one. They have natural excitement and smoother fingers, I believe their brain is just a nasty pattern cruncher and most things end up intuitive the next day. That says nothing about your own ability to learn or take pleasure. <= pleasure which should be the goal.
One question, do you use a metronome ? everytime I struggle, 2 minutes of metronome backed practice suddenly realigns my hand and my ears and everything gets smoother. Not perfect but it helps to get properly warmed up and enjoy the feeling.
I do have a metronome and I when I use it, I pretty reliably rage quit about 4 minutes later.
One thing that I think music teachers would probably frown on is that I picked up Rocksmith and made more progress with that than practicing chord changes, scales, and Hal Leonard songs. The score for being on time on the right note with the software always adding a few more notes than I can play works really well for me.
Dude, do whatever works. Don't dismiss advices, try them, revisit them from time to time but walk your own path, shamelessly.
For me a metronome is not a source of frustration, it probably calibrate my sense of time and is like a wingman for locking into place. Usually it makes warm up efficient, and when my hands are loose I can just walk the neck as I feel.
I've heard the RockSmith critics. I can understand but I felt it's not a bad step, although it's quite incomparable from making your instrument sing. Kinda like driving a car vs Gran Turismo.
Fellow guitar-quitter here. I get the impression that most people that keep practicing do so because they're in a band. The stuff you practice doing has to actually feel useful to you, I think.
Piano's another good one if you're looking for something more melodic. Although I think drumming is where it's at if you'd find value in the social aspects of music (it's harder to play piano in a band). Now that I think about it, drumming and piano have a couple of things in common, even though they're vastly different instruments.
Both require 'synchronising' the left and right sides of your body (and also, presumably, the left and right hemispheres of your brain). Although, occasionally, they require 'un-synchronising': for example when the beat is syncopated. As a pianist, it's such a strange feeling when a syncopated piece 'clicks': it almost feels like your left & right hands (and brain hemispheres) are operating completely independent of each other; almost like it's two separate people playing two separate pieces at the same time.
And one from my favourite composer, Claude Debussy, the first in his pair of Arabesques: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Fle2CP8gR0 . The Arabesque is really nice: it starts off synchronised and then transitions to a really beautiful syncopated flowing section.
And although this has nothing to do with syncopation or off-beat rhythms, I highly recommend this video from Valentina Lisitsa (one of the most technically brilliant pianists alive, IMHO) playing a Beethoven Sonata with a GoPro strapped to her chest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0m2RW4m8xE
Although you might want to avoid that last one if you're prone to motion sickness :)
I didn't felt a lot for Lisitsa interpretation. Debussy Arabesque n°2 has bits that I like a lot, too short though. Chopin's piece is nice for the momentum but .. I'm more in love with the Prelude 20. Do you know other piece of him with similar harmonic brilliance ?
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Listening to classic music like this is relaxing, I currently listen to things like:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U3s3dne0d8Q (this is the piece that made me think I should start listening to classical music more openly. I used to be in jazzfusion, but the piano introduction felt mostly classical in tone and quite beautiful. The rest isn't bad either, strings, bass, guitar... a very nice crescendo)
Talking about off beat syncopation, not sure if that's what you mean, I think of this kind of rhythm (warning not classical music):
I consider the dude who created this album a genius, his pianistic style is messy, lightweight, with diagonal solos (see next song finale) toying with the bar in all directions.
Hey thanks for the links. I'll probably take a little while to go through these; it often takes me a few listens to 'get' a piece of music (regardless of genre). I don't know if anyone else gets this, but I find after listening to an album a few times through, pieces that I initially didn't like sometimes end up being my favourites.
I get what you're saying about Lisitsa; if I has to make one criticism, it's that she can play a little 'mechanically' at times. This is often the case with talented 'technicians'. Well, with the exception of Horowitz, who was some sort of freakishly talented mutant, with his crazy 'flat-fingered' technique and heavily modified Steinway (that most people find unplayable). Although, given the level of her technical talent, Lisitsa is not so bad in this regard. If you really want to see a concert pianist with no feel for what he is playing, take a look at some of Lang Lang's performances. I suppose a lot of people must like him, given his success, but he just isn't for me.
As for nice harmonies, I'm a little unsure what to recommend. I only did a little formal study of music theory (mostly forgotten), so am not the greatest theorist... Maybe try Liszt's third 'Liebestraum' (which has an interesting, and bloody difficult, 'three hands' technique where both hands contribute to a 'middle melody' in sections of the piece): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpOtuoHL45Y . Also, a famous Chopin Ballade that you've probably heard before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce8p0VcTbuA
As for the term 'syncopation', I think it has fairly broad meaning. The kind I was referring to is when the timing/tempo of one clef doesn't neatly divide into (or 'match up' with) the other. For example, see page 2, line 3 here: http://www.mediaphorie.com/pdf/PSU_Demo_En.pdf
Hell yes. I'm a "drummer" first. I don't mention this because drumming is rarely thought as musical. It does make you reflect on different part of the musical continuum. To summarize my years twirling sticks:
- drumming often lead to learning things slow. Focusing on minute details that are ignored, also meditative (you have to be slow and low energy but it's dense, you pay attention at the 10th of a second so you're constantly mentally and physically active)
- limb independance is akin to meditation for me, playing patterns involving all limbs massages my brain. It's like trying to balance on a virtual wire. It's a game of doing more with less and abstracting the motion of each limb into another form of data. You must not think of one limb in particular. You feel rhythm and accents, and you distribute to some limbs... I feel like a live compiler.
- oddly technique also required revisiting my understanding of physics. It's all about angular momentum, shifting gravity center and inertia. Also doing less with more by distributing the effort on every possible muscle. Makes you reflect on a global basis about each hit.
Oh and I forgot, to do lengthy single hand rolls with accents, you don't rotate your wrist, you wave your forearm, hand and stick (it has to be smooth like low basketball dribbling, you'll see if you look for moeller technique later) accents are just a blip in amplitude at the forearm wave; the hand wave will keeps as it is so you'll keep time and won't feel tired because waving doesn't require much energy (half the energy comes from sensitivity and reusing the response of the skin to let the stick go up).
It was through this that I started to "see" music. I played bass too, and along the way melody and harmony started to make sense at the intuitive level (I only took 1 year of accelerated formal theory training on piano as a teen, taught me approximately nothing about "music")
All in all, I'm a brainiac (for better or worse) .. different people will see other things in drumming.
ps: One last thing, at first drumming felt like an immense beast to tame. Famous drummers did things I could barely see, even less understand. My mind skipped to conclusion thinking to reach that level I had to do more and play like a fighter jet. It's the other way around, it changed your view about your perception and interpretation of the world through your senses. As I told before it's all a game of economy, but you have to experience each cymbal, skin, sticks, subtle space and time placement to finally see that just a few strokes well placed are enough to recreate that "complex" thing. It's a bit like when you finally understand a software architecture, you realize how small it is, but you connected the dots and see how much it can do.
Can't agree with you more. I'm a drummer as well, and I didn't "get" drumming until I learned to relax, and instead of forcing hits to be in time, it felt more like I was directing a flow of notes.A lot of what you said really resonated with me, I feel the same about a lot of it. At my high school we've always taught that "to go fast, you have to go slow".
Happy to hear that. I rarely read similar testimonies on the web, and since I'm self taught on drums (a few videos here and there but no face to face lessons).
Isn't it amazing that "relaxation" improves things that much ? it makes you tap in the system much more efficiently. Goes well with my notion of minimalism and also the ways of elders [1]. Did you understand the high school 'fast is slow' motto or was it flying over your head ?
Latin has a proverb precisely for that: "in festina lente". Seems like antique knowledge ...
ps: Also, I kept trying wrong "fast" intuition for something like 6 years until I started to break it all apart and starts back from scratch and slow. One thing that helped me is leading left hand (I'm right handed). Even playing anything with any limb. You just cannot go fast, you have to relearn bit by bit. Surprisingly everything starts to have a better ring. It also corrected things that could flow fast on the right but were mostly luck. Another enlightenment.
No, none, in early 2Ks I just skimmed the first ones Google told me to
Since we're on HN, I could suggest you to search "clojure music" on youtube. There are a few talks about a dude revisiting music theory from wave freq. all up to Bach all in a few pages of clojure code. Very Very very cool.
There was an interesting study that looked at Facebook likes and personality types of a large number of people. They found the pages/interests that were the most heavily correlated with each of the major personality dimensions. It's really interesting and you can see the whole chart twoard the bottom of this article: http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/this-algorithm-knows-you-...
Emotional stability was highly correlated with running, sports, and general outdoor activities (and also rap music, interestingly.) Is it because spending time outside makes people more emotionally stable? Or do emotionally stable people just enjoy outdoor activities more?
I gotta say I laughed out loud when I saw the mention of The Velvet Underground. It also reminded me of this aside Lou Reed spoke before performing a song;
> This is a song about the sorrows of the contemporary world, of which I know we all know so well. At least, I read about it all the time. It's like, one day – this is when I was in college, right? – and I woke up, 6:30 in the morning because I get up early, and I put on the radio, and they said, y'know, 'So-and-so truck driver today ran over his baby son's head and it burst like a watermelon.' And then they said, 'It's 22 degrees out.' So I figured, on all levels, there was no reason ever to go out again. I stayed indoors for about eight months. Also passed with honors in Kierkegaard – that's 'cause I understand, y'know, the existential leap. Anyone who lies in bed at 6:30 in the morning listening to that has to. Anyway, after that communism was the only answer for me, I felt. And if you can't be a communist and make money, then you have to be a rock & roll singer. At least in Hoboken ... So anyway, this is a song called 'I Can't Stand it Anymore.'"
This title is a little click-baity, but I think one of the nice takeaways from the article was the connectivity in the frontal cortex.
I've been researching how to improve CS education this past semester, and its taken me down a long road of cog. psych. Much of this information is "true", but shouldn't be read as "Runners and musicians are 'smarter'". Firstly, what's it mean to be 'smart'?
As expertise grows, that knowledge needs to be stored somewhere. In my studies, this led to Cambridge's Handbook Of Expertise [1], in which there is a chapter focusing on perceptual-motor expertise. In violinists, the neural plasticity of the cerebellum expanded similarly to the cerebellum's in chess players. As my link and this article sort of point out, mental and physical expertise cause the brain to expand.
There is some discussion about the brain being an "arena" for limited neural tissue; however, I am by no means an expert of the brain.
My interpretation of this information is that the same practices done in runners/musicians can be applied to other mental practices - ala CS. You get better at running by running; you get better at playing a violin by practicing your scales; what are the elements of CS that can be reduced to these solitary practices as a means to get better at them?
Do we know if that is because Runners and Musicians tend to be generally better educated and raised, both those things being markers of middle- and upper- class membership?
Not to discredit them, because it's a hard problem, but it isn't a full control: even on a college campus (or looking at alumni) and controlling for weight, running and instrument training would still be proxies for various things about upbringing or current social status, and could account for the effects by selection bias.
That said, I think this is introductory work on the topic and definitely justifies further inquiry.
Just as a note: Runners might be more middle-to-upper class, but musicians aren't. It is more that some instruments can be expensive. Singing, rap, diy instruments aren't so, and neither is digital music.
You do, however, tend to miss out on the physical aspect of playing some of the instruments with the digital music, but not much of the rest if you pay attention.
This doesn't sound like a good study to me because of the two groups they are comparing.
Even in the original article (which I only had a brief look at), it seems they didn't do a really fair comparison but compared two completely different groups with each other.
With the same study, they could also have said "people with more brain connections feel a stronger urge to run long distances".
A better study would have been to take a group of lazy people, divide them into two groups, one will do long distance running in the next year, one won't, and an additional group of current runners divided into the same groups.
Then I would start believing this.
Right now it sounds just like a flawed first-time study an undergrad did.
You could probably get a triangle or tambourine going, but it would be a bit awkward - especially the triangle.
Most breath-based instruments are out, due to the high speed, but you might be able to do interesting things with a Kazoo, or if you have real talent, a Harmonica.
So long as you were at a jog instead of a run, you could probably fashion an extra-sturdy harness for a small xylophone set and play it.
Edit for an afterthought: You might be able to get into certain string instruments as well. I'd start with something like a ukulele due to the small size and occasional low cost.
I would like to see this study replicated as the sample size of 22 seems low, and I have a strong suspicion nutrition plays a very large role as covariate here.
Just not sure how generalizable this is.
Ive been doing some data analysis internship for a similar study but more brain vs circadian cycles. The human data is often messy and does not replicate.
The clonal mouse studies data is often more consistent, and what Im building an in silico model for.
A hypothesis mentioned in the original paper: "...it is also possible that the cognitive benefits of exercise occur because locomotion is not simply an automated repetitive motor task, but is instead a highly complex behavior that involves domains related to both motor and cognitive functions. For example, walking or running through complex environments can engage several components of executive function including volition, self-awareness, planning, inhibition, monitoring, attentional switching and multi-tasking, in addition to motor control..."
If that is indeed the mechanism which accounts for the brain differences claimed, perhaps mountaineers, sidecountry & backcountry skiers or snowboarders, mountain bikers or long-distance hikers might be better groups than runners for validating this.
So maybe I missed it in the article, but it seems like they just tested a group of physically active students, and those who weren't. Does running have anything to do with the "functional connectivity" or is it just exercise in general? The article says we've known exercising is good for the brains of older people for some time now, the new study just tested the effects on younger people. Shouldn't the title be "exercise is good for the brains of young people too"?
I think part of the point is that even apparently-"mindless" exercise is now shown to also be good. See this paragraph:
> Previous studies have shown that activities that require fine motor control, such as playing a musical instrument, or that require high levels of hand-eye coordination, such as playing golf, can alter brain structure and function. However, fewer studies have looked at the effects of more repetitive athletic activities that don’t require as much precise motor control — such as running. Raichlen’s and Alexander’s findings suggest that these types of activities could have a similar effect.
fewer studies have looked at the effects of more repetitive athletic activities that don’t require as much precise motor control — such as running
Is it really true though that running doesn't require precise motor control? Every time I run, my feel "automatically" skip over imperfections in the road surface, placing my foot down early just before the big crack in the sidewalk, sidestepping the dog poop on the sidewalk, leaping off the curb while my eyes are focused on traffic.
And unlike the guy that plays golf where he's only focusing for a few minutes per hole, my feet are active for my entire one hour run and my mind is guiding my feet for 10,000 steps throughout the run.
It may be a different part of the brain than deciding how to hit a ball to reach a target 300m away, but there's still a lot of eye-foot coordination in running.
Start slow, buy shoes appropriate for your gait, work on technique. I have bad knees running in the family, had tendon injuries in both of them as a kid too. Used to get a lot of pain when running then I decided to focus on my technique, taking it slow (like, 2 mile runs at 10min/mile cause running longer or faster felt like the death)
Now 3 years later I run a 4hr marathon and the only time my knees hurt is when it's time to buy new shoes.
And yes, it is a great excuse if you don't actually want to run. My advice is for if you want to but think you can't :)
PS: start slow can mean "long leisurely walk" depending on your shape. Tendons and joints need to get used to being used
My right knee does need to have a professional look at it; I've just been putting that off. Same professional tells me I need more exercise (I eat healthy so that helps me not be _too_ bad, though). I see there's some avoidance there now that I'm typing all this. :)
It's not even clear that this is about running. They compared runners to sedentary individuals; this sounds like another "exercise is good" conclusion to me.
if you really want to improve your brain during exercise, try dancing like jazz/modern/lyric/ballet/street. A nearly common characteristic of dancing people I know is that their mind is quite bright
I always assumed all things that required effort and coordination between the two halves of the brain would increase the connectivity, specifically over the corpus callosum.
PS. the photo in the article shows the waterfront of Halifax, Nova Scotia, with Georges Island to the left. The island is the site of Fort Charlotte. During the seven years war, the English imprisoned 2000 French sailors there, which is hard to imagine, given the size of the island (all of which is visible in the photo).