Well, my guess is that us programmers are so socially challenged that we are left with our music and our books (comics, I mean) to adore. isn’t it?
Strange, as my personal experience leads me to believe more the opposite conclusion:
Back when I was learning to play the guitar in the early 90’s, there was this strong backlash amongst rock artists against having any kind of knowledge about music theory or flashy technical skill. I managed to teach myself how to read music and dug through theory books covering oddball 20th century classical composers because I thought they were intriguing but the overwhelming majority of guitar players can’t sight-read (and certainly don’t need to for rock n’ roll). At my college’s music department, when I told people I was a CS major, they’d usually mention how they weren’t into that high tech stuff or how they were awful at math.
Conversely, I’ve run into more scientifically-minded people who don’t seem to have an eye for art. I figured it was a left brain/right brain thing and never challenged that wisdom until I read this post. Fascinating reading.
There’re several things in common between music, math/computers/technology, writing poetry and prose, learning and using spoken languages (including great speakers and story tellers):
- you create, there’s room for art in everything
- there’re certain patterns and (even if not apparent) rules in all of them, there’s a great deal of structure and hierarchy too
- every one of them implies and uses languages
- when you become a good learner and problem solver in one area you can directly or indirectly apply that in others, you become good at those two things, that becomes your universal, deep and broad skill. Many great/talented people have been known to be proficient in many different areas. This is why.
- technology is applicable to all of them and brings the areas close
- all of these areas allow for selfteaching, trial and error and probably all come out from curiosity – a lot of great works have been done by those folks who didn’t take CS classes or learn to read sheet music
- it takes time to truly excel, although some achievements may seem to have happened magically or by pure luck, many great people have put a lot of effort in what they do and that’s why they are what they are. Applies everywhere
- if I’m not mistaken, psychologists or psychophysiologists have determined that fine manipulations of objects with one’s hands improves their thinking processes (I don’t remember the exact wording). So, there’s no wonder why good musicians may in fact be noticeably more intelligent/smart than your average Joe and able to deal with the technology well as well.
I believe the list of details could go on and on.
When I studied music theory I made programs based on these theories to automatically create chords to a melody as well as create notations.
I’m a programmer and a musician and for what it’s worth I think there is a lot of overlap. Both are systems of patterns you know. A lot of times I’m in the same mindset and working patterns when I’m debugging something or working on music. I’m trying to figure out why a system of rules and pattens is not working and what to add or take away to make it flow.
like Frank Zappa also said Music is the Best!
Most of the evidence for this seems suspiciously anecdotal. The very first response (jammus) was at least logically skeptical. Sort of like the hackneyed answer to what are your hobbies ummm…duhhum, Ah like mewsic, and bou-uoks, and maovies, and…
Another thing to note is that most observations are about U.S. programmers - a country with a higher than normal facination with the pop rock and entertainment culture. A more accurate assessment may be to study if such a correlation can be found among programmers in other countries like India, Ethiopia, Romania, China, etc. (Russia, I think would again be skewed because of the heavy push towards the study of music in their schooling system).
In the absence of such, this would appear to be a romantic fantasy to cheer on and soothe dejected and harassed IT spirits.
P.S. I do think some studies may have been done to relate mathematicians to musical ability. Not all programming practice (not theory) is highly mathematical (I am distinguishing between logic and math) … perhaps developers more in that realm tend also to have such talents?
I play trumpet and guitar for a Mariachi band.
To me the common thing between musicians and developers is they both perform complex tasks, and something about being able to solve a difficult problem gives me a similar feeling of being able to play harmoniously in a band. I also have many engineering friends who play instruments.
As someone who spent an equal amount of time in college studying music and computer science, I still put my music minor on my resume hoping that others see the connection as well. I think unfortunately there is more natural, inherited skill involved in music, though.
I wonder if there is also a correlation between world traveling and good programmers as well. I hope so…
I’ve been programming to put bread on the table since 1982. In the 80’s, I remember running into two groups that had not trained as programmers but wound up programming for a living in larger numbers than you’d expect if it were an even distribution. One was music majors and the other was Russian language majors.
As for the fellow with the programmers are like prostitutes… joke piece…any job is like a prostitute when you strip it to the bare essentials, but with two crucial differences. Very few of the non-prostitute jobs’ customers have orgasms as a result of the work and there’s not much lower risk of transmission of STD’s.
The premise of this post is on this ice, and it is amazing to see how many people fell for it.
I wonder how many programmers and musicians wear sox? Eat pizza?
Or how many geeks think they are musicians but are not?
Jeff,
Nice to see you are back to your unqiue, fresh, funny, interesting writing style. A pleasure to read. Stack Overflow (I think) took a slight toll on your writing, but in recent months I am reminded why I read your blog every day.
Keep it up.
So many of the best minds I have met in computing have a love for
music. Is it something to do with being able to see beauty in
complex numerical systems?
No, definitely not. Musicians generally do not see music as a complex numerical system, and I would suggest that programmers generally do not see software as a complex numerical system either.
Also, Carl Franklin’s remark is wrong:
Instrumentalists in particular (guitar players for example) make
great programmers.
No, they don’t. My mother is an incredibly talented instrumentalist (on the piano she can transpose while sight-reading music, that sort of thing, and she can play instruments from every major category). But she’s really poor at the sort of problem solving programmers do, and particularly poor at mathematics. The very best instrumentalist I ever met could barely calculate correct change.
I agree with Jeff on this one - people are looking for correlations on the flimsiest of evidence. That evidence is often what they themselves are like
please you are a musician
if you make your part or all or your living from… music
else I should call myself a carpenter, counsellor, etc?
@Pardeep - Far out! I wear socks and eat pizza!!!
Seriously though, look up personality metrics, like Myers-briggs (spelling???). There are some trends that are more than just a little surprising. This is what Jeff is picking up on, and I think it is valid. I have no interest in playing music, and I know lots of developers who don’t either. But music seems a central theme to people working in IT - most listening to it while working best.
That is - there are personality types that are strongly drawn to specific professions. There are those that are drawn to CEO/upper management. There are those that are drawn to teaching. There are even those that are drawn to sport (although I tend to avoid these people because they seem preoccupied with sport).
Obviously, there are also people drawn to IT and software development.
Most people in software development are INTP or ENTP
There is no wrong or right personality, not even for a specific profession. They all have strengths and weaknesses, and they all bring different things.
BUT - the point is there are shared personality traits within a profession.
BTW - from pictures of his desk, perspectives he states, the amount of time he reads, etc. I would say Jeff is INTP, which isn’t a hard guess because most developers in IT are this type.
Music is a hidden arithmetic exercise of the soul, which does not know that it is counting.
-Leibniz
Ah! This post is Music to my ears!
BTW when Einstein can be a great violin/piano player, there is no doubt that programmers can be, as well?
Why not combine music and programming? When i was studying at university we had a lecture from guy who was doing some tunes with python. He had some cool algorithms which produced music. What he said in his speech was an great inspiration to me.
btw. if you are into exploring new bands and genres check out new software called spotify. Its great.
I do not really see the connection. I couldn’t (nor have an interest) to compose music or play an instrument. There is definitely a creative aspect to programming, but not necessarily related to music.
… and that’s the way I like it!