What Einstein and Violins have in Common

rwtrumpetThe picture to the left was taken about 2 years ago while I was playing with a Jazz quintet at a local winery in Portland, Oregon. Why is it here? Well, the other day, I started thinking about how many musicians I see working in the computer field. It’s rather amazing, they seem to be everywhere. Guitar players, horn players, drummers, violinists, etc.

After doing a little research on the Internet, I think I may have found the answer. It seems that musical aptitude is one of the strongest predictors of success in technical positions. Terry Skyarek, Director of the Institute for Professional Development in the School of Computer Science at DePaul University, states “The highest scores on the admissions test and best performers have been people with a background in music.”

The articles goes on to hypothesize the reason behind this interesting phenomenon. Here are a few highlights:

  • Both music and computers are structured environments.
  • There seems to be a high correlation between musical ability and reasoning skills.
  • Technical people favor spatial/temporal reasoning, or the ability to visualize. Both Mozart and Albert Einstein excelled at this. Einsten was also known to favor the violin.

What do you think? Is this a just a lot of scientific “mumbo jumbo” or is there some fact to this? Let’s hear your thoughts.

This entry was posted on April 29, 2008 at 9:27 am and is filed under training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “What Einstein and Violins have in Common”

  1. Joe Michaels Says:
    April 29, 2008 at 9:34 am

    Richard,

    What an interesting post! As a guitar player, I’ve noticed the exact same thing. I’ve been a programmer for many years and also played trombone in high school and college. I started working with computers back in the days of the old terminals/mainframes. I still play but its now just a hobby. Do you still play? That looks like a fluegal-horn in the picture.

  2. richardwatson64 Says:
    May 4, 2008 at 9:36 am

    Joe,

    I still do play from time to time but it’s getting a little harder to do. I’m currently working on my Certified Professional in Learning and Performance (CPLP) credential, starting a new job, and just staying really busy. You are correct regarding the instrument I’m playing in the picture. Most people were introduced to it back in the 1980s with Chuck Mangione and his “Feels So Good” album/song. Thanks for posting!

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