Musicians and IQ

[Rsachi]

I have known musicians to be very intelligent, quick to learn, and keenly focussed in whatever they do. They have the right mixture of introspection and observation, left brain analysis and right brain creativity. Memory, spontaneity, improvisation, are all linked to what is normally described as intelligence.

There is in fact a cult belief that CM is for cerebral people.

People talk of how music itself is the best form of yoga, pranayama and so on.

I am almost sure many here would be able to expand on this, and quote references.

Guys, please do so!!!

[varsha]

During one of my memorable chat sessions with Lalgudi Sr , the conversation turned to the subject of the first time I had listened to the Maestro.
I replied that it was in my hometown forty years ago in a choultry that would double up as drama theatre as well . He had refused to start on that day because of the drama theatre like (poor) accoustics and had to be cajoled into it . He did give a brilliant concert . But on this day he exclaimed :
Ah ! Yes it comes back to me . There were some glass panels too at the sides, on which green colored glass painting was done . I had not liked the sight of it , but Yes I went on to play with some discomfort .

And yes that place did have the stuff he referred to . What a memory !!!!
----
On yet another occasion , we had a meeting when I had gone to request GJR to accompany Tanjore Sankara Iyer for a concert .Lalgudi senior interrupted the conversation to say that he too had accompanied Sankara Iyer .And called for his immaculate diary . GJR went through the book , over and over again and kept saying . I dont find a record here .
Senior kept insisting that he had played and rains had cut short , the concert .
1961 - look there , he exhorted .
Bang on , it was there . GJR had missed it because the entry said Thanjai Sankara

Suras , these artists are ... with the powers of Asuras . 8-|
IQ and all that stuff is for common people like us

[VK RAMAN]

Varsha, you hit the nail on the head. Nice

[vasanthakokilam]

There is in fact a cult belief that CM is for cerebral people.

While I think such a cult belief is not quite right, I think this aspect is on a different axis to your main subject of this thread which can still be true. Or it may be just be my personal wish that CM is not restricted to cerebral people, on the rasika side or on the performer side.

Interesting topic. It will be interesting to know if there is indeed a correlation.

[VK RAMAN]

Nobel Laureate Chandrasekhar, Dr Radhakrishnan, Rajagopalachari, CV Raman were all Carnatic music lovers. Others can give a few other examples to show that music and high achievers have some correlation. Is this true?

[Nick H]

I'm a Carnatic music lover.

I think that disproves that theory! )

[vasanthakokilam]

) Count me in as a counter point as well.

Seriously, I think there are two kinds of dabblers in music in general and CM in particular. The cerebral and scientific types are attracted by the strong underlying physics of sound and the associated fascination of the aesthetics and good rasa it invokes and on the rhythm side the mathematics of it all. That is their entry point. But without the innate musical ability they have to sweat that much more than the musically gifted, not that it is a walk in the park for the musically gifted. Rare are the people who have both inclinations. The cerebral types who don't have that top notch artist's mind become musicologists? ( ooch.. just kidding ). Well, at least they tend to post more in the Technical Section of our forum

[Nick H]

All music is difficult. Perhaps the difficulties vary a little from genre to genre, but whether it be to do with understanding raga or chord structure, it is not easy for almost everyone --- and I suggest (with suspicions that there are exceptions!) that innate creativity, by itself, will only get a person so far.

On the other hand, I wouldn't argue with the proposition that certain kinds of music attract a more "cerebral" audience than others. Certain other kinds of classical music do; certain kinds of jazz do. Joking aside, I may not be very clever, but I look around myself and see people who certainly are.

But... beware the one-upmanship: our music is better because we have cleverer audiences. That's a slippery slope!

[vasanthakokilam]

OK then, let us take some refuge in Mr. Bayes

Prob( Brainy person being a CM rasika ) : P(CMR|B)
Prob( CM rasika being a brainy person ) : P(B|CMR)
P( braininess in the population) : P(B) Let us use the Mensa cutoff of 130 as a working definition of braininess
P ( Rasikaness in the population): P ( CMR)

P(CMR|B) = P(B|CMR) * P(CMR)/P(B)

P( CMR ) is 5%, .05 ( let us be generous )
P( B ) is 2% .02 ( by definition )

So the chances of a brainy person being a CM rasika = 2.5 times the chances of a CM rasika being a brainy person.

Does this sound right?

The RHS probability is easier to estimate than the LHS. Go to the MA auditorium and throw 120 darts randomly at the people and ask them for their IQ

Once you have that info, you can setup a CM stall at a Mensa meeting in Chennai or Bangalore and have a pretty good idea on how many people will buy your CDs.

I know Sachi set up this thread for musicians and IQ. We can use the same formula.
P(CM Musician) is small. Let us use .0001 ( 1 in 10000 )

So the chances of a brainy person being a musician = 0.005 times the chances of a musician being a brainy person.

[Rsachi]

Research on If musicians are brainy

[srikanthj]

Research on the cognitive benefits of learning music - Harmony Project Research
as part of a community program to improve lives of inner city kids via music - PBS Newshour Interview

[cmlover]

VK
You are on a slippery slope :}
If you assume there is an asociation between CM and braininess that is what youwill prove through all the Bayesian Jugglery!
If the CM Rasikas are just as intelligent as general population (0.02) then
There is no association between braininess and being a CM Rasika.
Let us not pat on our back to claim that we are more intelligent than the general population.
All the references relate to WM and intelligence!
Hence Nick is far more intelligent than us
Rsachi raised the question whether CM Performers are more intelligent (not Rasikas).
It is worth doing some research!
There is an old adage that if one is useless ask him to learn Music!
It does not apply to present generations since most of them have other avocations!

[alpajnani]

Music and the scientific community seem to go hand-in-hand (particularly classical music forms that have complex structural rules/complex interplay/harmonics). From personal experience, a majority of the top notch researchers and scientists I have seen/worked with/heard of either listen to some form of structured music (indian/western classical, jazz etc.) or actually play themselves. During my PhD days I noted (with great satisfaction ), the entire faculty in my department at the university here could together (almost) form a full blown concert-quality western classical orchestra!!

Coming to the subject at hand, any half-decent ability in performing carnatic classical music requires a strong arithmetic base: the more complex laya one has to handle, the sharper the mental math requirement (no wonder LGJ was very good at arithmetic puzzles and was accordingly also good at handling any laya complexity thrown at him) - hence a sharper mind is, I figure, is a fundamental necessity!

[Rsachi]

I made a friend of a staunch Israeli jew in Sydney. I asked him a lot of questions about Israeli culture and Jewish choices in social matters. He told me interestingly that every Jewish parent wants his son to be either a doctor or a violinist!

Einstein was big on music. He played the violin quite well, as recorded.

[kvchellappa]

Is intelligence an all-pervasive attribute that one will be able to grasp anything? Is there such a person? I was told that at the time Einstein proposed theory of relativity, only a handful could understand how it was derived. Does it mean all others are unintelligent? A person who is able to sing well, say, CM, is obviously quite sensitive to its intrinsic values and is intelligent in CM, as I understand. He may not be intelligent in the sense he will be able to pass an IIT entrance test. Is there more to it I miss because of my low IQ (The probabibity for which tends to 1)?

[venkatakailasam]

I was thinking that carnatic music is about more of listening and practice...with an average IQ..

[vasanthakokilam]

CML, no sir, no slippery slope. On the contrary, I made sure not to imply that correlation implies causation. I think my number works for selling CDs at the Mensa meetings Charsur, take note!

And it also tells you not to go to Mensa meetings expecting to meet a musician. This fact may be useful for marriage brokers

More seriously, all the studies quoted are quite interesting. Interpreting such results require some care since the causation can go the other way . That is, the two hemispheres working together ( an a-priori condition ) is what helped them to be musicians in the first place. Not saying that is necessarily the case, but that experiment alone is not enough to decide the direction of causation ( assuming there is a causal link).

[cmlover]

Intelligence is correlated with success in life. We cannot assess it from the handful of successful musicians we know of. There are hundreds of music teachers in TN in abject poverty. In fact we discussed about helping them through this Forum!
CM by itself is not a viable occupation (read as performing) for an individual. Have you not heard of "thEngAi mUDi katcheris"?

[Nick H]

Most of what is talked about really refers to any sort of music and musical skill and ability, but here's a suggestion of a skill which, whilst obviously not unique, perhaps figures more strongly in carnatic music. Varsha's post touched on it without naming it, for it is not exactly the same as "intelligence." ...

Memory!

The practice of honing the memory is undertaken by every carnatic music student right from the start. Other cultural aspects suggest that those learning carnatic music will have been used to memorising other stuff even before they become music students.

It is not that musicians from other genres don't have to memorise stuff. Many of them sing and play without notation, but possibly (I don't know) many of them don't carry hundreds of pieces in their heads that they can recall and perform on request or whim.

Of course, memory does not make a person worth listening to --- but it is required of a carnatic musician.

And that's another reason I sit in the audience!

[cmlover]

Nick
You hit the nail on the head!
CM training improves memory and repetetive performance.
It is doubtful whether it improves crative skills which are part of intelligence!

[Nick H]

But it is one of the building blocks. Without it, even in this day and age, I don't think an aspirant would get far as a performer.

[vasanthakokilam]

Other such necessary building block skills are stamina and patience for the umpteen hours of practice that is required, self-motivated to do all that even when the prospects do not look that great etc.

Creativity and intelligence are separate things, though they are special cases of creativity that is enhanced by intelligence. One such thing is creating new things by observing patterns and connecting the dots. Skills such as pattern recognition, matching and connecting the dots are measured by these intelligence tests. I would call that combination of creativity and intelligence as 'engineering new things'.

The more 'artistic creativity' seems to happen internally and speak to the gifted artists in a way they themselves can not explain in words.

Then there is something in the middle. These folks create things out of nothing alright, but not all they create need to be good. But they have an excellent aesthetic sense to quickly judge what is artistically meaningful and discard the rest. The great film music directors fall into this category.

[cmlover]

Intelligence and creativity is something which we still do not know to program!
Aesthetics is also one but it depends on "human" taste.
The kaNakku we talk about can easily be programmed on the computer and it
does not take lot of intelligence. But the aesthetics is a different beast...
And about memory, the computer has plenty of that