I have long suspected that music is basically an evolutionary side effect of language. Pitch and rhythm are fundamental features of language -- to the point where I kind of think their importance in music is a result of their development in service of the language capacity.Originally posted by OtakuLoki
There is certainly a mathematical aspect to music (see my music theory thread for a glimpse at it), but like Exy says, music essentially comes from the same root as language. Both are systems of communication that take abstract elements, both in aural and written form, and turn them into meaning. Music is more abstract, but the cognitive processes are, I believe, largely the same.
One of the most frustrating things about the modern (US) educational system is the constant denigration of the arts, especially music, in favor of the "core" subjects of math, social studies, and language arts and literacy. This despite the clear connection between music and abstract thought, which is useful in every discipline, but is particularly, I believe, connected to literacy. If I ever decide to pursue a doctorate in music education, my dissertation will probably be either the connection between musical literacy (in the sense of reading music) and "regular" literacy, or the connection between musical aptitude and linguistic aptitude, especially as regards skill in the phonetics of foreign languages.
In many ways I see the evisceration of arts education in the secondary schools as symptomatic of the reasoning that one should only educate the little darlings in stuff that's going to be practical. While at the same time, leaving the definition of pragmatism to be assumed, or at least undiscussed. Which seems to me to leave education being controlled mostly by people who define use by whether they've used a particular bit of knowledge in their own professional lives.
It's also largely a symptom of people who don't know about education interfering in education. The largest current culprit of course is NCLB, with its focus entirely on testable criteria and, worse, its insistence on immediate (unrealistic) results, which has led districts to pour money into testable elements without any thought to how those testable elements will remain relevant later in life. As a result, education has become less about training minds to think critically and providing tools for future learning, and more about information regurgitation. It's a giant step backward into the days of rote recitation of facts and figures. The ironic thing is that much of the rhetoric these days is about "Depth of Knowledge" and higher level thinking skills, but in the end those things are extremely difficult to test, and so take a back seat to quantifiable data, which is for the most part simply information recall.In many ways I see the evisceration of arts education in the secondary schools as symptomatic of the reasoning that one should only educate the little darlings in stuff that's going to be practical. While at the same time, leaving the definition of pragmatism to be assumed, or at least undiscussed. Which seems to me to leave education being controlled mostly by people who define use by whether they've used a particular bit of knowledge in their own professional lives.
I am a bit of a contrarian on this issue. I don't see what's wrong with rote memorization, as a tool towards understanding. Having said that, I think part of the problem is the way that testing is done: Standardized bubble tests are cheap, and easy, to grade. They are also hugely limiting in what they can get a student to demonstrate.
Oddly enough, one of the things that I believe the military gets right, and gets right to an astonishing degree, is it's ability to train capable operators in so many demanding and technical fields. I was a Nuc - a nuclear power plant operator. We got fed a lot of verbatim repetition crap, with all the fun that was. Definitions, in particular, were hammered into our heads. But we also were expected to demonstrate an ability to use those definitions for solving problems or describing concerns.
One of the things that boggled my mind in college physics was the way that the presences of the equation sheet that our prof would hand out with every test meant that my classmates didn't bother to really learn the equations. And so they'd spend the test looking for an equation that had the right sort of units for what they wanted to do, rather than looking at the problem, drafting the proper equation from memory, and then checking with the equation page to make sure it was right. IMNSHO the desire to go for deeper knowledge and understanding, while avoiding memorization of basic mechanics equations, was preventing many of my classmates from getting comfortable enough with the equations to be able to apply them in the wild.
Now, I'll be the first to point out my training from the Navy was sharply curtailed: It was the ultimate in a pragmatically tailored overview of thermodynamics, chemistry, p-chem, and other fields. We would be presented equations solved for our specific situations, and presented with certain key variables in the general equation locked for values for us. We didn't touch on how to derive heat exchanger efficiency constants, just what they were. I can point to similar shortcuts all through my knowledge of the field.
But within those limits, the limits of the plants and situations we were actually going to be dealing with, we were given a very effective set of tools to use for our understanding.
I think one of the biggest differences is the way that tests were graded: We had no bubble tests. Everything was short answer, and we always had to show our work. The answer keys would list the specific points that the question was supposed to be answered with, and a clear, unequivocal point value for each part of the answer. These tests were labor intensive to grade: Once the class was done taking them, the instructors spent nearly as much time grading them as we students had spent taking them. Maybe longer. But you didn't have to worry about having an exact repetition as long as your writing could convince the grader you knew what you were talking about. It's a bit fuzzier, but in my experience it works.
Oh, I absolutely believe that rote memorization is a useful tool. I've made that argument (elsewhere) myself. What it isn't is a comprehensive model of education.
As a musician, and especially as an opera singer, I'm expected to memorize things. Notes, rhythms, words, translations, staging, so on and so forth. I couldn't do that without practice in rote memorization.
The problem right now is that information recall ends up being the focus of testing, and therefore education. They do test for "constructed response", but if you consider the time and effort it takes to evaluate that kind of answer for a military specialty, then extrapolate that to an entire state full of kids (testing is done by the state for NCLB compliance), you can see where things are going to be both overwhelmingly complex and expensive, as well as dreadfully inconsistent.
I think the inconsistency problem could be handled.
Of course, even agreeing to address it would be difficult. I'm sure that there would be plenty of teachers that would oppose shifting to more of that sort of testing, and away from bubble tests. The real hurdle I see would be the increased economic costs.
Bump.
108 posts to SEKRET CHATE. Ask me more stuff.
Last edited by fachverwirrt; 31 Aug 2010 at 08:33 AM.
Do you have a rich, bachelor uncle in poor health?
How dare you guys have an interesting discussion about education in a post padding thread so I missed it.
So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.
Have you ever been in a Turkish Bath?
Alas, no. I only had two uncles, both of whom were married, both of whom are deceased (does that count as "poor health"?) and only one of whom was fairly well off, but had enormous medical expenses toward the end of his life. Also, if he hadn't been married he wouldn't have been my uncle anyway.
This isn't quite a question because there's no question mark, but it could be.How dare you guys have an interesting discussion about education in a post padding thread so I missed it.
It's not our fault that you weren't paying attention to my post padding thread! You can still enter the discussion if you want to.
No.
As an aside, I note that personal questions about me are not generally about stuff I don't know. Just sayin'.
Why, when I installed MediaWiki on my computer today, did it come set with memory limits that were too low to allow it to operate properly? Shouldn't the package offered by my operating system come correctly configured to just work out of the box, without me googling a whole bunch of stuff?
Why on earth would I ask such an odd question that does not follow the "ask me stuff I don't know!" request?
This is a guess, but it's probably an alien conspiracy. Either that or weather balloons.
No. That would be logical, and logic has no place in real-world applications.Shouldn't the package offered by my operating system come correctly configured to just work out of the box, without me googling a whole bunch of stuff?
This is a guess, but it's probably an alien conspiracy. Either that or weather balloons.
No. That would be logical, and logic has no place in real-world applications.Shouldn't the package offered by my operating system come correctly configured to just work out of the box, without me googling a whole bunch of stuff?
Double post, but since it's a post-padding thread, why should I delete one?
This is one of the great mysteries of the Universe, right up there with "why would a man voluntarily live in New Jersey?" and "why would a person in full possession of their mental faculties root for the Yankees?".
I'm afraid we'll never know.
A week and a half later, I realized that this brings up another important point.
Music and math are intrinsically linked. Music and linguistics are intrinsically linked. There's nothing contradictory about that. That fact, that music operates on so many cognitive levels at once, is precisely why music is such a critical part of the curriculum, and why students who are involved in music consistently outperform their peers in study after study after study. Trying to make that argument to administrators and board members is another thing entirely.
Not that I'm biased.
Administrators follow the board, and protect their little empires. Board members often have no training, knowledge, nor education in what works for education, and some seem to be in it simply for their own opportunities for empire building. The ones out to fix everything, with some simplistic "back to basics" BS are worse. The empire builders, at least, won't accuse pedagogues of lying or using New Math, or other new methods to hobble and hold back kids.
Hmm.... a question: Which city will be the next to be flattened by an industrial accident explosion a la Halifax or Texas City?
I had a long post composed in my head, but I realized that it basically came down to "this".
So, this.
Woo! Double post! The best post-padding strategy of all.
Last edited by fachverwirrt; 03 Sep 2010 at 06:50 PM.
We can only hope that it will be an unimportant place that no one will miss. Like Los Angeles.
I thought it was Nicholas Tesla testing his death ray.
Political correctness will be the death of our country.
Hell, I don't know. That's the whole point.
(Really, it was probably a meteor.)
Nope, it was Tesla.
Why does it always rain on Bank Holidays?
In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.
Tesla.
If you were a pirate, back in pirate times, what kind of pirate would you be?
Also: if you were a ninja, back in ninja times, what kind of ninja would you be?
Oh and finally: if you were a dinosaur, back in dinosaur times, what kind of dinosaur would you be?
TYFYT.
Well this thread is totally not about me but if I was a dinosaur I uh well realistically I would be a nerdy dinosaur wearing contacts just so he didn't have to wear glasses, but hypothetically I think I'd be a triceratops because I mean those fuckers can rip your ass up. I would like gigantic murderous horns on my nose, it would be convenient in daily life. Like when middle-aged women are chit-chatting in front of the elevator and delaying me, I would just fucking charge their asses. BITCH TALK ABOUT YOUR INLAWS SOMEWHERE ELSE SOME OF US ARE TRYING TO GET SOMEWHERE.
I would be a ninja pirate.
I would be a STEALTH DOUBLE POSTING ninja pirate.
Last edited by fachverwirrt; 07 Sep 2010 at 07:08 AM.
I would be a pirate ninja.
I would be a ninja pirate dinosaur pirate ninja, uh, thingy. With teeth.
Beautiful. Just. . . beautiful.
STOP NOT ASKING ME QUESTIONS
Geez, a man just can't have a post padding thread to himself around here, can he?
Last edited by fachverwirrt; 07 Sep 2010 at 06:39 PM.
Please tell me the winner of the World Series in 2063 and the Superbowl in 2013.
The 2063 World Series will be won by the Havana Cubanos, who will join the league after the end of the embargo in 2025 and proceed to win every year hence. Fuckin' commies.
The 2013 Super Bowl, as a result of a bizarre industrial accident involving an excavator and a lame marmot, will be won by the Toledo Mudhens.
Why do fools fall in love?
Alcohol.
Why do birds sing so gay?
Sophmoric Existentialist
I don't know, but I know that they're destroying traditional birdsong.
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