Learning Music & Learning Art & Learning Computer Programming & Learning Math

I’ve read numerous articles on “how formally taught musicians make great programmers”, this is always explained by the pseudo science reasoning that music is very “mathematical”.

Why is it then mathematicians and math students don’t necessarily make good programmers? You can forget about artists all together!

About seven years ago I was forced to learn some database programming. I hand coded all the queries from the book and read the chapters repeatedly. I wouldn’t skip ahead unless I fully understood the theory, practical and could fully repeat the code from memory. You know what happened then? It changed the way I learned about art. I started applying the same logical procedure to the holes I had in my art education, no more getting by with tricks, faking it or shortcuts.

This is called learning in the Psychomotor Domain. Imitation, practice, and habit.

That’s how visual art was taught before the modern movement, impressionism, and photography… very regimented, logical, methodical…. not the more modern paint how you feel school of art.

Now if you are a musician with formal training this is how you were more than likely taught. So the transition to the logical steps of programming and programs are natural. Hence, it isn’t the fact you’re a musician that could make you a future programmer, it’s your ability to learn in a certain logical method.

My next rant will be about the Art and the Psychomotor Domain of learning.