Klarinet Archive - Posting 000509.txt from 1998/04

From: George Kidder <gkidder@-----.edu>
Subj:
Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 10:07:19 -0400

On April 9, Kevin Bowman wrote:
<snip>
>There are
>a couple of interesting things I have discovered: 1) a surprisingly large
>percentage of engineers are also fine musicians, and 2) the analytical skills
>I use for engineering are closely related to the analytical skills I use in
>teaching students.

In my experience, you can probably generalize that to include scientists -
and the "harder" the science (i.e., the more mathematical) the higher the
percentage. Many of these are "lurkers" - at least in academics, doing
one's job requires about 18 hours a day, at least at the start, and there is
little time for anything else. Moreover, there is a feeling that having
"hobby" interests means you are not sufficiently dedicated to your career,
and this doesn't help in obtaining tenure, etc. ("Spectator" interests such
as attending concerts are thought to be OK, however.) These feelings often
conspire to produce very long gaps in our musical interests, as well as
making us less well rounded than we might be.

I would be interested in comments from the professional music side of the
list as to whether the reverse is true - that professional musicians have a
strong amateur interest in science, math and engineering. I have a theory
about it, but let's see the data first.

George Kidder
gkidder@-----.edu