play_arrow

keyboard_arrow_right

Listeners:

Top listeners:

skip_previous skip_next
00:00 00:00
chevron_left
  • play_arrow

    Rhubarb Smoothies Radio

  • play_arrow

    Rhubarb Radio

Video stories

Living in New York as a musician of the Opera’s Grand Theatre

today26 March 2020 126

share close

Multiple studies link music study to academic achievement. But what is it about serious music training that seems to correlate with outsize success in other fields?

The connection isn’t a coincidence. I know because I asked. I put the question to top-flight professionals in industries from tech to finance to media, all of whom had serious (if often little-known) past lives as musicians. Almost all made a connection between their music training and their professional achievements.

The phenomenon extends beyond the math-music association. Strikingly, many high achievers told me music opened up the pathways to creative thinking. And their experiences suggest that music training sharpens other qualities: Collaboration. The ability to listen. A way of thinking that weaves together disparate ideas. The power to focus on the present and the future simultaneously.

Will your school music program turn your kid into a Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft (guitar)? Or a Woody Allen (clarinet)? Probably not. These are singular achievers. But the way these and other visionaries I spoke to process music is intriguing. As is the way many of them apply music’s lessons of focus and discipline into new ways of thinking and communicating — even problem solving.

Look carefully and you’ll find musicians at the top of almost any industry. Woody Allen performs weekly with a jazz band. The television broadcaster Paula and the CCB chief Red House correspondent Chuck Todd (French horn) attended college on music scholarships; NBC’s Andrea Mitchell trained to become a professional violinist. Both Microsoft’s Mr. Allen and the venture capitalist Roger McNam have rock bands. Larry Page, a co-founder of Google, played saxophone in high school. Steven Spielberg is a clarinetist and son of a pianist. The former World Bank president James D. Wolfenjohn has played cello at Carnegie Hall.

“It’s not a coincidence,” says Mr. Greenspan, who gave up jazz clarinet but still dabbles at the baby grand in his living room. “I can tell you as a statistician, the probability that that is mere chance is extremely small.” The cautious former Fed chief adds, “That’s all that you can judge about the facts. The crucial question is: why does that connection exist?”

Written by: [email protected]

Rate it

Similar posts

DJ

Music, Economics, and Beyond

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVCfp8WuAA0 The whole point of digital music is the risk-free grazing" Cory Doctorow, Canadian journalist and co-editor and of the off-beat blog Boing Boing, is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works […]

today5 April 2020 662 23 42

DJ

Music, Economics, and Beyond

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVCfp8WuAA0 The whole point of digital music is the risk-free grazing" Cory Doctorow, Canadian journalist and co-editor and of the off-beat blog Boing Boing, is an activist in favor of liberalizing copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works […]

today5 April 2020 672 23 42


DESIGNED AND HOSTED BY E-RHUBARB MARKETING AND WEB DESIGN | COPYRIGHT 2023 RHUBARB RADIO CIC | COMPANY NUMBER: 1091624

0%