High SAT = Beethoven; Low SAT = Lil Wayne | Hacker News Reader

High SAT = Beethoven; Low SAT = Lil Wayne

musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr

22 pointsturbod29 comments

This is broken in so many ways. Of course the music listened to by the largest number of people is going to correlate to a more average SAT score. The children that regularly listen to classical are those with parents who either intentionally expose them to it at home (which means that they are likely well-educated) or have them take music lessons (which indicates both a concern for their child's mental development as well as above-average financial status). So music and SAT scores are largely influenced by the same factors: education and money.

Also, as someone who spent over a decade of my childhood playing classical piano, I'd suggest that the vast majority of college-age kids who have Beethoven on their "favorite music" list are smart kids just trying to appear to be even smarter. Notice how no other composers, modern or classical, are listed; Beethoven is to classical music what the Beatles are to classic rock and Jay-Z is to hip hop: a generic name for someone to pull, the Java of composers. If I was listing what instrumental music I do listen to, I'd be putting up names that define the styles I like. Philip Glass? Branford Marsalis? Ludovico Einaudi? Sure. Beethoven? Negative.

The only thing I can possibly attest to is the lyrical / instrumental dichotomy. Sometimes it takes a certain kind of mind to appreciate some instrumental music; you have to be able to sit and analyze it, recognize the patterns / progressions, etc. That's why I could see popular bands like Radiohead, U2, and even RATM to a certain extent, doing better than other groups in their genre.

The problem is that classical music enthusiasts tend to be rarer than rap enthusiasts, and the so-called "classical" music world is much more diverse than the world of rap, seeing as it spans many more centuries. You can be a die-hard classical enthusiast and never have heard of some very prominent composers, because there are so many.

For instance, more people know Philip Glass than Steve Reich, but they're part of the same contemporary classical scene, and that scene contains a ton of people I've never heard of (plus it branches out to the rock minimalists, such as Brian Eno).

Obviously this isn't saying much, since absolutely this chart isn't proving anything, but I doubt it would be easy to find significant statistics for students liking other musicians. For instance, I've got a ton of various musicians and composers listed, but the ones that most likely correlate with other people's lists are the biggies: Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mozart, Bach. Even huge names like Holst and Ravel are less likely to be found in a good listing of profiles.

(Also, in the interest of finding out new stuff: what sorts of things did Marsalis and Einaudi do? What pieces of theirs would you recommend a novice begin with? Personal favorites?)

Aagh, I had a ridiculously thorough reply, which I promptly lost when I closed gedit. The messy, truncated version:

I'm guessing that you play piano (in regards to the "novice" part). Marsalis is a jazz sax musician; the Marsalis family is probably the closest thing that jazz has to a household name these days. The point I was trying to make with him is that instrumental music training rarely has such a limited scope in terms of genre: in the case of piano, even the most hardcore classical-focused piano teacher would still have their students dabble with Scott Joplin or whatever.

Einaudi does comtemporary classical piano / string arrangements, sometimes with a mix of digital / world type stuff for ambience. "Giorni Dispari" is the first song of his that I heard, probably one of my favorites of his and not particularly hard to play if you can find sheet music: http://tinyurl.com/dnj7t3

I haven't played much lately, as I'm currently a sleep-deprived college student living in an apt. Last two songs I remember working with are Carly Comando's Everyday (you can actually buy the sheet music from her directly on her MySpace page for a few bucks) and Greg Maroney's Castle of Shadows. I've developed a serious bent for modern / minimalist stuff lately. My favorite piece I've ever played is Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor; that song is a beast. It's definitely for the less experienced though, I doubt I'd be able to play it now without taking the time to get my skills back up to where they were.

Maybe. One reason I listen to classical music is that it is nice if you study with it and it drains out the background music. (e.g. I find it less distracting to work with classical music on than with Korn or Papa Roach).

A few people I know is like that - but they would for sure not have a classical music CD in their car.

they would for sure not have a classical music CD in their car.

Point taken, but an aside:

I find listening to classical music in the car to be an exercise in futility. The dynamic range of classical makes it so that you're constantly adjusting the knob so that you can hear then quiet parts, then turning it down when it starts blasting your face off.

For the car, I just prefer the "normal" stuff, which has a much smaller dynamic range and is more conducive to listening over the background noise of a moving car.

That's why getting a good soundsystem (read, one with a very nice range) is important. It's also why having an EQ is very handy.

"I find listening to classical music in the car to be an exercise in futility."

Also, the better stuff demands attention, which I prefer to give to the road and other drivers.

(I'm a fan of post-rock, which, for lack of a proper description, is sort of like prog rock meets Michael Nyman on the way to Brian Eno's house.)

Not directly related but Bob Brozman has some interesting thoughts on music -

"African-based music normally has as the fundamental meter: both 2 and 3 at the same time. This opens the door to syncopation, polyrhythms and musical creativity, which occurs on a more primal level in the brain than harmony. It is acknowledged that Europeans developed harmony further than any other culture; but rhythmically their culture is among the planet's most primitive."

"Put simply, marching (colonizing) cultures see the downbeat as something to follow, and the "marched-upon" (colonized) cultures see the downbeat as something to react to, using the backbeat."

http://www.bobbrozman.com/tip_rhythm.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPXRWRxda8

Additionally, the majority of western music is now performed in equal temperament which adds to the blandness. As hackers you may find the math of music interesting..

http://www.kylegann.com/microtonality.html

http://music.case.edu/duffin/

http://www.larips.com/

That entire article sounds like pop psychology bullshit. There are far more likely explanations which don't involve implicitly claiming that before Africans even knew Europe existed, they somehow just knew they were going to be oppressed and developed backbeat-based music as a result. (Get real. Maybe you can build all of African-American culture as a reaction to slavery, I still think that simplifies beyond usefulness but whatever, but African culture in general can't be based on that, it's temporally impossible.)

Maybe the implication is the opposite - backbeat-based music has been lost over time in our countries. Perhaps to the expense of gaining harmonic complexity. Perhaps due to the rise of marching music? Just thinking aloud.

In any case, I think it's an interesting observation from his travels.

Yes, that at least gets the temporal ordering correct, and I agree the observation is interesting. I just object to the pop psych additions. I find it more likely that local materials lent themselves to drums, and since they had drums, drums are what they developed.

Many European instruments, especially in the era when European music as we know it today really started to take off (Bach's time), require significant technological advances to create. Not all of them, necessarily, but a harpsichord is not a trivial instrument. Having harmony, they developed harmony.

It is worth pointing out that both have spread the world over (with changes as they go, as cultural artifacts should travel), which I think further knocks out the "oppression" aspect. Plenty of non-oppressed people love a beat.

Good points, thanks. The other issue is more interesting to me, the proliferation of equal temperament, which seems to be finding it's way into classical music also. Hopefully I'll have some info up on the web at some point once I've finished refretting my guitars.

That is true. At least drum music was developed before colonisation took place. The style of music is probably influenced a lot by the instruments.

There is some evidence that these drums were used for communication.

Considering every musical genre is at or below my final SAT score (1380/1600), it could only mean:

1. SAT's are not an indication of intelligence. 2. There is no correlation between type of music and SAT scores. 3. All music, including Beethoven, makes people dumber.

Author claims this is funny? What's funny? People that listen to Soca, Jazz, Hip-Hop, and Gospel make the dumbest students? Here's a correlation, which diaspora pioneered all four of those musical genres?

This is inaccurate. I love Lil Wayne. I don't remember the last time I enjoyed Beethoven.

It means no such thing. The fact that a correlation exists on average doesn't necessarily mean anything for an individual.

How many times is this going to be posted?

Exactly I have already read this before and had thrown out all my Lil Wayne music !

And replaced it with the soundtrack to that dog movie.

That's nonsense. I know at least 50 people with 1400+ SATs (on a 1600 scale) and only one of them is really into classical.

That statistic is wrong on so many levels. In particular, SAT scores correlate to the level of education, which correlates to the wealth of the family, the area they live and, therefore, the music they would be exposed to.

Which only confirms the correlation. The author clearly points out he does not intend any causation.

> The author clearly points out he does not intend any causation.

I'd say then that 'musicthatmakesyoudumb' was a poor choice of domain name.

It seems pretty sarcastic.

Those statistics are nonsense! Check out my anecdotes!

High SAT = lying to impress others, Low SAT = truthful.

I actually, factually enjoy classical music, to the point that I voluntarily listen to it of my own free will. I've participated in a lot of musical conversations with high-SAT people. People either don't like classical and make no bones about it, or give a nod to Beethoven but cite other people they like better. (In my case, Schubert and Rachmaninoff would be the ones I cite.)

Excepting perhaps the Ninth Symphony, which if listened to properly really is a tour de force. ("Properly" is listening to the whole thing straight through with no distractions and at a decent volume level; the Ninth is designed to be a bit loud. This is not something you can do very often.)

But then, I'm conversing with adults, not adolescents trying to impress me.

Well the chart shows people who listen to Garth Brooks as having higher scores than people who listen to classical music

you guys are missing the real conclusion of this - the SAT is racially biased.

I notice a lot of white musicians with lower scores. Aerosmith listener? Buzzer! You're down near the bottom.

I get into this argument all the time, but - isn't it just a teensy bit possible that classical music is better than rap? I've given rap a lot of tries, I've slowly gotten into it, but I'd still say that some of the best rappers I listen to pale before even some of the lesser composers. To pick a name that even classical enthusiasts: I'd pick Pachebel before I'd go with, say, the Wu Tang.

Are we allowed to hate rap despite the fact that it's predominantly black? I've been called racist for expressing my dislike of rap, which I think is grossly offensive.

Writing dumb titles makes you dumb and cancels out whatever knowledge you claim to have about causation != correlation.

that title is just mean. that reminds me to download that album right now.

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  Weeeee Ooh Weeeeee Ooh Weeeee,
  Weeeee Ooh Weeeeee Ooh Weeeee,

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