Musicianship (was RE: I'm going to write an Anziowin/scanning interface for filePro...)

[Bob Rasmussen]

Hi John,

Corrections noted.

I am moderately good at sight reading piano music, especially if it's in a 
style I'm familiar with. I can do pop stuff easily, show tunes with a 
little more difficulty, and classical stuff poorly. 

I do think a lot of it has to do with different parts of the brain, 
although I believe the right/left divide is now widely recognized as a 
vast oversimplification. I've been reading a lot on brain science lately, 
and it's faschinating stuff. If you haven't read "This is Your Brain on 
Music", read it (or listen to an audiobook if there is one). Another good 
one is "How We Decide".

Anyway, I think sight reading has a lot to do with pattern recognition. I 
remember years ago scientists (and programmers at IBM) studied how chess 
grand masters did it. They found that they weren't looking at individual 
chess pieces, they were looking at patterns on the board, and correlating 
those with other patterns.

It turns out our brain has a section that is really good at pattern 
recognition, quite separate from the part that does rational thought. When 
a rational thought just "doesn't seem right", these two parts of our brain 
are in conflict. Recognizing when this is happening ("metalogic" or 
"executive function") can give us a great advantage in life. I could go 
on...

When I am doing a good job sight reading, I am recognizing chords, and 
playing them with my left hand. It helps if there is a chord name above 
the staff, but that's not required. My eyes and brain recognize the note 
pattern, as A minor perhaps, and my left hand plays A minor in some 
inversion (not necessarily as it's written), but my rational brain never 
really thinks the words "A minor". I imagine something similar goes on 
with guitarists. The melody line is less likely to be in a pattern, so 
that takes more concentrated rational thought. Rhythm, by the way uses a 
different part of the brain, and so do lyrics. It's all quite amazing if 
you think about it.

It is interesting that many programmers are also musicians. An older-timer 
once told me that in the sixties, when there weren't workers available 
with computer science degrees, folks like IBM hired musicians. I also 
wonder if the discipline and practice of learning a two-handed instrument 
might strengthen the multilateral connections in our brains.

One last observation about metalogic: One of the best skills to learn (and 
there is evidence that it can be taught to children) is to detect when 
you're distracted, and avoid it.

Now I have weeding to do.


Regards,
....Bob Rasmussen,   President,   Rasmussen Software, Inc.

personal e-mail: ras at anzio.com
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