I was a music major in college. I loved music. I didn’t love math. (Okay, I did rather like Geometry.) I always got A’s in math in high school, but it was hard. In my day, one only had to take 3 years of high school math to get into university. But once I got there, I was told I had to take two math courses to graduate. Ugh. The very last semester of my fifth year (my degree was a five year degree – it was supposed to be four, but explain to me how they expect you to fit 5 consecutive years of music theory into 4?), I enrolled in the required Algebra 103 class.
A week into class, I was thinking my SAT scores had put me in the wrong class. I double checked, but nope, I was where I was supposed to be. It had been SIX years since I had cracked a math textbook. And yet, this stuff called Algebra was easy! I finally understood math. It was all about patterns.
Halfway through the semester, my math professor called me into her office, and said that I really should be in a much higher level math, and had I considered a math minor? Uh, nope. I hated math. Well, wait a minute. I didn’t really hate math anymore. It made sense, and I actually liked being successful at it.
It didn’t take me long to figure out why. If you’ve ever spent time in the dungeons of a music department, you’ll soon discover that 95% of the double majors are music and some sort of math or math-heavy science. The french horn and bassoon players (being generally both the smartest and funniest and strangest of the music breeds) are the astrophysicists, the biochemists, and the aeronautical engineers. (Oh, please, don’t send me nasty emails if you are a clarinet player with a job in the field of quantum mechanics. I’m sure there are brilliant clarinetists out there, too!)
I realized that my 5 years of music theory was, like math, all about patterns. The music had somehow trained my brain to comprehend math.
Years later, when I started learning about how music helps develops the brain, I found a much more sophisticated answer. Imaging studies have shown that mathematical processing and musical training activate the same areas of the brain.
It appears that early musical training begins to build the same neural networks that will later be used to complete mathematical tasks. Although I played an instrument starting in 5th grade, I didn’t really have any good musical training – theory, private lessons, Kindermusik, etc.
So, my years of music theory, ear training, piano, conducting, private lessons and singing in college really did help those neural networks to grow. How I wish I’d had music training when I was very young, all the way through high school. I might have liked math better.
Of all the academic subjects, music and math are the most closely related. Music and math both require lots of counting. Within that counting, there are musical intervals, (the difference in pitch between two notes), and the math counterpart, arithmetic and geometric sequences.
Playing music also requires an good understanding of fractions, including adding and subtracting them. Reading music notes is dependant on comprehension of ratios and proportions – how long is a half note compared to a quarter note? How do you play triplets against sixteenth notes? Geometry is used when remembering finger and slide positions.
My heart introduced my children to music for love, and joy, and pleasure. My head introduced music to my children so I could give them the very best start in life. Even if they don’t follow in my footsteps and become a music major, they’ll still reap the benefits their musical experiences.
-posted by Miss Analiisa, who is tickled when her violin playing 4th grader asks his instructor to “teach him some theory”.
1. We discovered that puppet making is becoming a lost art. Our search for the perfect puppet took us all the way to New York City. The fabulous fish puppets you’ll see on stage are hand-crafted by the internationally renowned Furry Puppet Company.
QUICK LINKS
