Re: vid: sum Bird licks

Some interesting points, Tim. I wish I had more time to read the
literature on the psychology of music. The little I have read I have
found very interesting. I am aware of the so-called 'Mozart-effect'
stuff. (I also believe there are people who question those
findings.) I wish they did some studies playing Charlie Parker
records!

The language metaphor is certainly a useful one for talking about
music, and that's cool. If it gets the message across, it's useful.
But it's hard to see music and language 'meaning' in the same way.
Through language we communicate things far more explicitly and
directly than we do through music. Anyway, my main point was about
the langauge metphor and learning. I still think that for most people
the process of learning music is more like learning a second langauge,
not the first, even if only becuse it happens later in life. But I
agree that great musicians almost as a rule start young.
(Interesting, though, that this doesn't appear to have been the case
for Wes, who inspired this part of the thread.) And it would be great
to expose kids to music as early as they are exposed to language
(i.e., in the womb) and see what happens.

BTW, I know about plasticity. I use the phrase 'hard-wired' simply
because I think people generally know what it means. The fact is, no
one knows yet exactly how langauge is represented in the brain, or why
humans are able to learn it so successfully. Neurolinguistics has
come a long way in the past 10 years or so, but it's still not
specific in a way that makes a lot of sense regarding how knowledge is
acquired or represented in the brain. Yes, we know where the brain is
active during various activities, and we know some things about the
apparent loss of plasticity as we age, but that doesn't get us too far
just yet.

Wow, this is way off topic! Sorry about bringing this up. I should
leave a handy metaphor alone....

Ken

On Nov 26, 1:34 am, Tim McNamara <tim...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In article
<26de0d0f-c7da-47bd-8a11-f7a357ed9...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Ken Rose <enkr...@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

The language metaphor only goes so far. Every normal child learns
their first language through exposure (and some would argue
interaction) by the age of 3-4. No instruction needed, and no
explicit knowledge acquired. It's all internalized and implicit.
But not everyone becomes fluent in music through exposure alone, and
most people start learning music a lot later in life, after some
significant changes have taken place in the brain. So learning a
first langauge seems like a pretty specialized kind of learning that
all human children are hard wired to do. Music, not so much.

There's no biological reason that I am aware of- as a psychologist- for
children not to be "hard wired" (which BTW is a misnomer as the brain is
characterized by startlingly dynamic plasticity) to learn music.

Maybe learning music is more like learning a second language, which
is done all kinds of ways (exposure, various kinds of instruction,
seeking out of explicit knowledge on one's own, and combinations of
all these), and with many different levels of success. Some people
seem to do it a lot better than others, and some seem to be beyond
hope no matter how hard they try.

A main issue is whether they have genuine interest rather than being
made to learn it because it's on the curriculum, which is also a
critical factor in acquiring a second language at any age. Another is
that there are also ceiling differences between individuals in the
ability to acquire skill sets (something disregarded in current public
education policy). Interestingly, there has been some research
indicating that exposure to classical music in infancy and early
childhood may be correlated with increased performance on IQ tests later
in life, although there are confounds to interpreting this research.
Schellenberg at the University of Toronto, in particular, has done much
research on this and has come to the conclusion that learning music
results in small but significant increases in general intellectual
functioning that are long-lasting.

Sorry about being so picky on this, but since I do second language
acquisition research for a living, I often wince when I see the
language metaphor invoked for learning music.

The language metaphor is fairly apropos, however. It is not a perfect
match but there are many parallels. Verbal language has an implicit
structure that can be made explicit, as does music. Verbal language
requires intention in usage as does music. The implicit structure of
both is adaptable and can be altered as needed to enhance communication.
Both verbal language and music are temporal structures and unfold
sequentially. The meaning of both music and language is culturally
dependent. The efficiency with which both language and music are
learned is dependent on the quality of exposure. A primary- and
exceedingly important- difference is that language has explicit meaning
whereas music has implicit meaning.

All of this highlights why it's important to teach instruments and music
to children. If you read through, say, Maurice Summerfield's book on
jazz guitarists, you find that virtually all the greats started playing
at age 10 or younger. Ditto great classical musicians. A lot of them
had parents that were musical and made music a part of their home lives.
Learning music is best accomplished through immersion- as is learning
language. Children learn faster and better prior to the changes that
occur at the onset of adolescence, but a motivated adult will learn
faster and better than a disinterested child.

Unfortunately today children are exposed to lousy quality music from the
get-go, a lot of which IMHO isn't even music. We have an educational
system increasingly rigidified towards a uniform goal model that
disregards individual differences among students, predicated on the
misunderestimation that all American children can be made to be above
average. There's no room for something subversive like music or art in
that model. Music and art are no longer seen as public goods.

.

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