Great post over at Scienceblogs.com by Dave Munger titled “Musicians have better memory — not just for music, but words and pictures too”

As musicians, we are constantly training ourselves to memorize. We spend hours upon hours memorizing music, and using mnemonic cues such as melodies, song form, harmony, music notation, and so on to help us memorize. Many of us start at a very early age.

Not only that, but practicing music is really doing repetitive calisthenic exercise on the parts of your brain that process technical thinking. We count over and over again (one and a two and a…), those beats are subdivided into fractions and complex mathematical iterations begin to permutate in both rhythm and harmonic elements of music performance.

It gets better: Music composition is really just another flavor of writing code. Musicians who read music are trained to read code from an early age. Musicians make excellent programmers.

So it is clear to me that music instruction is a critical component of education, and should begin consistently and from an early age. This is the best way to develop inherent technical thinking skills, improve memory, and help kids survive in an age where the people who know how to write code, or at least can think in code-like patterns, have a far greater chance of success professionally.

The past three years have been grueling. Working full time, taking classes towards a masters degree, and being a dad all at the same time was taking a toll. The last few months were especially interesting since I was working on a book project on top of everything.

Well, life has returned to a new kind of normal for the past couple of weeks, and it is good to have a little free time again. The masters degree is done – I am now a graduate of of the University of Denver in computer information systems, with concentration in web design and development. And the book is done – an introductory guide to standards-based web development. More on the book details in a later post…

So it is nice to experience a little rest for a change. I actually have had time to relax a bit and get back in touch with cooking, taking the kids on excursions to places like zoo and the Exploratorium, reading a geek book or two that I actually want to read, and of course practicing.

Hey, perhaps I’ll even have more time to post items here in the ‘ol blog! But don’t hold your breath…

Finding the right mentor is more important than anything else. This quote struck me as a perfect example of the mentor-disciple relationship:

Confronted with a sudden, near-lethal dose of humility, my mind hatched an insane plan. Acting with cleverness and boldness unmatched before or since, I started looking for Wil Shipley. When I finally found him, I blurted out: ���I want to work for you, with no pay, for one year.��� When I got back to Seattle, I sold my condo, gave away most of my things, and moved into Wil’s basement.

For certain disciplines, teacher is everything. Sure you can learn programming and do it well on your own with a solid curriculum of books, dedication, and a few classes. But having an iconic mentor to guide you through and provide answers to your most vexing questions on demand is a huge boost. The same goes for music study: You can go far with private lessons and lots of practice, but having the right teacher makes a big difference when you look at the statistics. Jason Heath states:

Music performance degrees are completely superfluous to your pursuit of a music performance career.

Check out his post on this for the numbers. It is an interesting statistical analysis – the four double bass teachers clearly show a strong track record for who gets hired in modern orchestra bass sections.

I say if you want to do something with your life and are willing to make a life-changing and risky change in your life to pursue that goal, then stop being such a chicken and go for it.

This is a great idea, beautifully implemented:

ChinesePod

I like the fact that they’ve broken down the podcasts into newbie, beginner, intermediate, and advanced. I especially like their business model: Distribute the podcasts for free, and charge for the additional learning materials.

They have chosen the blog format to present the material, and have made it available for subscriptions via iTunes and comments are open. Not to mention, a fairly attractive site design. Well done, useful, and innovative.

PlaybillArts: News: Colorado Music Teacher Defends Screening of Faust Video

The controversy began after Waggoner, who teaches elementary, middle and high school students at the K-12 school in a small town about 25 miles east of Denver, tried to pique the curiosity of the first, second, and third graders in one of her classes about opera. She chose a video of Gounod’s Faust (which she found on the classroom shelf) to teach the children about bass and tenor voices, the use of props, and “trouser roles” in opera.

The latter, she says, led to accusations that the married mother of two was a lesbian promoting homosexuality; the plot of Faust, where the title character sells his soul to the devil to recapture his youth, led to her being labeled a devil worshipper.

What a bunch of lunatics. The shocking details of this article don’t stop there, so read on. If these people can’t tell the difference between teaching music and lesbian devil worship, then they certainly shouldn’t be allowed to vote, much less procreate.

Link found at The Rest is Noise.

I am so for this:

Computer program key in teaching music to kids / Sausalito composer, software company unite to bring lessons to school

Using a smaller keyboard of 49 keys — instead of the usual 88 — plugged into a computer monitor, the 18 students progress at their own pace through 30-minute lessons twice a week — enough, Arden said, to give them the benefits shown to accrue from music training.

Those benefits include improvements in spatial-temporal reasoning, pattern recognition and other skills crucial to learning math and science concepts, according to studies at McGill University in Montreal, Auburn University in Alabama, UCLA and others reported in journals such as Nature and Early Childhood Research Quarterly.”My goal is not just that they get some exposure to music, but that they get some musical skills,” Arden said. “And also some sparks, some joy from this.”

I’m a strong beleiver in music education. From years and years of being involved in music programs for kids, I’ve seen very strong beneficial aspects of how music training can shape a young mind. From developing strong mental aptitude for learning mathematics, all the way down to just giving a kid something to do after school, music training can make the difference.

And I definitley want this program in my kid’s Kindergarten…

Wired News: Duke Gives IPods to Freshmen

This is such a cool idea for distributing multimedia curriculum:

Students also will be able to use the devices to download course content, recorded lectures, foreign language lessons, audio books and music from a special Duke website modeled after iTunes. The school will supply voice recorders for some classes, enabling students to record notes while working in the field.

Imagine the implications – one could retreive supplimental course info at any time, from a centralized Intranet website, or possibly via kiosks, and have instant access to all their downloaded material at any time. Giving this technology to each students allows curriculum developers to really get creative and go after new directions in creating educational material.

The kiosk idea gets even more interesting now that I think about it. Imagine having a kiosk at an art museum or where visitors could just download an audio tour. Or how about a symphony hall, where visitors might be able to hear a pre-concert lecture and recorded versions of the music selections long after they’ve enjoyed the live performance. Of course, such a kiosk would somehow have to figure out how to just download a few specific files without trying to sync the whole damn iPod, but that seems like it would be a simple software issue. Alternately, downloads from a website would do the trick, but then you lose the physical presence effect of having a kiosk within the perimiter of a building.

Language learning comes in particularly handy with an iPod. I have imported all 32 of my Pimseleur Mandarin level 1 & 2 CDs into mine, and can review any lesson I want to work on at any time. I have 16 more CDs to add when level 3 arrives.

I think what Duke is doing here is outstanding, and I am betting that many more will follow. I wish that I had this kind of technology when I was in college. Heck, all I had was a Mac SE and access to a bunch of Quadras in our computer lab back at NEC. I mean, that was cool and all at the time, but iPods as a means of enhancing curriculum at a music conservatory is a no-brainer. It has to happen eventually…