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Comment by asdffdsa321 | Hacker News Reader

I really dislike these kinds of headlines not because they are obvious (jazz and classical require different kinds of thinking), but because they make it easy to jump to the conclusion that the ability to play classical or jazz or xyz is dependent on the physical nature of the brain. From there all sorts of erroneous arguments stem from the "fact" that "oh I'm just not wired to play xyz"instead of the reality that it takes consistent work in a style to understand that style better. Basically the whole nature vs nurture argument, except that people tend to worry about nature rather than work on nurture.

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It seems likely (to me, as a neuroscientist who studies learning and brain plasticity) that the ability to play classical or jazz or xyz (at very high levels) is dependent on the physical nature of the brain. But you get the brain you build through practice (nurture), not the brain you were born with (nature). The consistent work in a style to understand that style better is what wires a person's brain to play xyz.

But I agree that the article could be written to point out that nurture, not nature, is the cause of these neurobiological observations.

Would you happen to have any literature on practice in Computer Science? I've read through most of Ericsson's work on deliberate practice but would love to find more. My PhD research is on examining the benefit of different CS exercises used for teaching

Woah, please share. I'm really interested in seeing your research.

I'm still very new into my research but I have a link to my current research platform in my profile.

Right, I guess it more has to do with the fact that some people don't realize that the brain itself (in my limited understanding) can be changed by our thoughts/actions.

I feel like you're building a strawman of people who would take this study as proof that nature being more effective than nurture. No one commented on such an argument here or within the article. The only allusion the article makes to either is maybe the quote, "Thereby, different procedures may have established in their brains while playing the piano which makes switching between the styles more difficult...", which -- in my opinion -- alludes more to nurture than nature. But it's only her hypothesis and hasn't been accounted for in this study.

I feel like you're spurring some sort of argument that is a non-sequitur to this study.

And to address your argument (yeah, I know, I see the irony here) do you not feel that it's dishonest to not take nature into account? What if a study does say, "99% of lumberjacking is nature compared to nurture." Should we discount it just because it goes against our preconceived notion that we can do anything if we try really hard to achieve it?

If it makes you feel any better, I had the exact opposite assumption when I saw the headline. I assumed it would be about the different ways of thinking to play jazz or classical strengthen different pathways and parts of the brain.

Like all types of publication, exaggerating and glamorizing academic research results is good for funding, because it works. The title "different tasks utilize the brain in different ways" might be just way too obvious and boring, so they have to spice it up and dramatize it.

I'm not sure it's possible or realistic, but I'd love to know what sorts of things we can do as a society or a species to make it so that clickbait ceases to be effective. I remember reading about a language that was designed to make it impossible to exaggerate or lie. It didn't work, but it's an interesting idea!

Pretty much this. I think that what you get into and decide to master is more a foundation of what you grew up listening to than what you're brain is innately wired to do (if that even has meaning).

I think that jazz is one of those genres that, to be legit, you had to have grown up in the culture where those dominate. While people who didn't grow up around jazz can mimic it, it's not quite the same. For this reason, I think jazz has a bit of mystique around it that other genres of music do not.

This isn't only for jazz, but several other genres of music as well.

Jazz can definitely be learned at a distance. Some of the all-time greats of the genre grew up thousands of miles from the traditional heartlands of jazz. Off the top of my head I'd name George Shearing, Michel Petrucciani, Hiromi Uehara, Barbara Dennerlein, Allan Holdsworth and Martin Taylor, but there are countless others.

Jazz is just really, really hard. Good improvisation is incredibly demanding on both a mechanical and cognitive level. A jazz pianist needs the physical dexterity and skill of a classical pianist, but they also need to think like an arranger in real-time.

The sad thing is that classical music used to be like this!

Beethoven would improvise for hours and bring his listeners to tears, and the classical concerto tradition of the "cadenza" was originally a time for the soloist to improvise and showcase his or her skills, finishing off with a trill to let the orchestra know it was time to move on. Additionally, it was commonplace for pianists to add their own flair to pieces they were playing, emphasizing or de-emphasizing elements, or adding extra musical content. (e.g., additional contrapuntal lines, turn some runs into octaves, replace some octave salvos with filigree., &c.)

In the late classical (Beethoven piano concerto #4 being the first prominent example) period, cadenzas started being written by the composer, and the composer's intentions started being seen as sacrosanct, a divine mandate from on high.

This slowly died off. Vladimir Horowitz was the last "great" pianist who regularly re-arranged the music was performing and, ironically, pianists today often perform his arrangements. (See, for example, the Rachmaninoff 2nd piano sonata, a hybrid of Rachmaninoff's two editions, which many feel is a better compromise between grandeur and thematic progression.)

Classical music was a lot more like jazz, but it has largely become a religion rather than just an art form.

Eliot Fisk has done a this relatively recently (~2015) with the Bach cello suites. Although they aren't improvised, they are re-arranged to take advantage of the fact that one can play more notes simultaneously on the guitar — to me they sound like warmer lute arrangements with some modern voicings. Definitely different than the arrangements I play.

WBUR in Boston did a piece on them recently here: http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/11/24/eliot-fisk-rebroadcas...

Very cool!

In spirit, it's probably quite similar to the famous Bach-Busoni Chaconne from the violin partitas.

This is getting off topic, but I cannot wait for the day when we will be able to transmit music from brain to computer. There maybe genius arrangers/composers who never had the time to master an instrument or software.

I definitely can wait. I love that music is a physical medium, requiring a body in order to experience it, not just cognition. That music originated with and continues to largely be based on human bodies generating rhythm and sounds either intrinsically, (singing, vocalizing, body percussion, stomping, etc.), or extrinsically using acoustic instruments. I also totally enjoy electric instruments and electronic music, as they don't necessarily imply losing the various embodied aspects of music creation and enjoyment. Which is to say, embodiment is something I feel is truly important for many reasons , and is one of the reasons why I love music (saying this as a musician, music lover, and temporary pilot of a mostly functional human body).

I love that to play an instrument with some level of proficiency, it takes physical practice. I love that to get good at dancing, sports, or martial arts - takes physical practice. That these things engage your whole beingThat part of the joy from these kinds of activities comes from the time that is invested, the changes and improvements that are experienced over time. I love that we have muscle memory - that our bodies can be trained to respond faster than our thinking mind in various situations.

To me, while it could take some cognitive work up front in terms of synthesis, composition, and arrangement - the otherwise instantaneous transmission of this product from thought to machine strikes me, at worst, as yet another technological solution for a problem that doesn't exist. Not to say that it would never be useful. Just srsly... do we need an app for everything that could ever possibly exist?

/salt

I tend to agree, but it's unlikely that jazz players possess all the skills of classical musicians plus other stuff. At some point, both start to bump into limits.

I remember Grappelli answering a question about classical. An interviewer asked him if he considered playing more classical pieces, and his response was along the lines of "I suppose I could, but why? I could take a few months to do it worse than a top classical musician would achieve in a few days. However, I do have other skills - for instance, I can improvise."

I like this answer, because Grappelli is really, really strong technically. But in the end, if you're going to spend the time developing the mental fluidity and improvisational ability for jazz... eventually something has to give. Top classical players can take on certain technical pieces that probably will elude the top jazz players.

Good point. Classical training aims to make the player as invisible as possible-- jazz training (one hopes, anyway)aims to train a player to value and enhance their personal idiosyncracies. It is difficult for a classically trained player to value all sound as texture and color and to feel free to play with less than "perfectly efficient" technique. A jazz player is making something of their own- while a classical player aims to channel the composer more-- and then make their own bold statement on whatever they are playing. It is unfortunate that classical evolved that way- to value a kind of technical arms race-- and then jazz education began to follow that too-- and as someone who switched, I can say that it was a difficult transition- my brain certainly felt like it had to change first before I could physically do the playing on call.

For an even more recent example see Joey Alexander.

The headline says "work differently", not "are different".

  Headlines change
  Mad things re-arrange
  But it all stays the same
  Like the love Doctor Strange

> they make it easy to jump to the conclusion that the ability to play classical or jazz or xyz is dependent on the physical nature of the brain

Unless you're a Cartesian dualist, everything is dependent on the physical nature of the brain. People just need to remember that a significant portion of this nature is mutable and gradually adapts itself to whatever you focus on.

I agree and it also seems like the truth is probably the opposite of what people are likely to take away.

Loosely, when you train a neural net repetitively in one way it adapts in order to be better at solving that specific case. While there may be some variation in initial conditions it seems likely that a lot of the variance is a result of the training itself.

No, but playing jazz or classical for years makes your brain adapt and respond better when playing what it's used to.

I think the most glaring oversight in the headline is that Miles Davis was a trumpet player.

Yeah these things are silly I have played both and they involve very different approaches to practice and performance its like writing an article that oranges have a different effect on the brain than peaches.

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