May 15, 2008 at 5:59 am
Greetings..
Yes, I knew some ppl that are musician, or at least like a lot of music, specially Heavy Metal, lol...
About me, I play electric guitar for about 15 years, play bass but more for my own recordings and compositions. I sing too. Play a little of tin whistle, a little of pan flute, and being involved in play Great Highland Bagpipe too, lol... I like many Metal bands, and classical, medieval songs, celtic, spanish... I have a metal project that I´d like to record this year (in 2007 I said the same...) and a more "folk celtic" project.. many songs are "idealized"...
I´m sound engineer too, producer, have a little but (I think) nice studio in home in the same room that is my tech (sql/asp/aspx) home office ^^ But this room is connected to another accoustical isolated recording room.
Well... I don´t have any sound completed online yet but have this http://www.myspace.com/karlbrehme. Actually there are just an experiment of a recording, a cover from the band Savatage. Originally just piano and 1 male voice. I composed a female second voice that my girlfriend sang (she´s pianist and vocal but the only technology that she uses is the software for music recording, mixing and production).
😀
Karl
May 15, 2008 at 5:59 am
Val Byref (5/15/2008)
string together little black dots on a page (music) or string together little black dots (well, ANSI characters) on a page (code). It's really the same kind of skill set -- the ability to imagine a finished work and then construct all the minutely detailed components acting together in concert to make it happen.
I think you hit the nail on the head.
As the lead of a web development team and being responsible for the architecture of the sites, I've often thought of myself as a composer or conductor, rather than a programmer. I think the ability to see or hear the finished piece in your head before ever writing a node or typing a line of code is what seperates the top-notch programmers from the drones in our industry.
Also, while I don't play an instrument, I've been singing since high school and am just learning guitar. Two of my team members play instruments and a former employee actually had his degree in music.
May 15, 2008 at 6:01 am
Not having the funds for musical equipment back in the 70's, I built my own guitars and amps and ended up studying electronics. With the arrival of MIDI in 1983 I realised that the automated test rigs I worked on could be persuaded to output musical notes, and was immediately bitten by the programming bug, writing music software on the C64, Atari and Amiga before coming to the PC.
None of this paid the rent of course, so now I'm in IT.
It might of interest some readers to know that current professional music creation software now often uses SQL database technology, e.g. Sony's ACID Pro has used MSDE/SQL Server Express, while Steinberg's Cubase 4 uses SQLite to provide certain functionality; another example of a crossover development would be MusicXML.
May 15, 2008 at 6:13 am
IBM used to look specifically for music majors to hire them as developers. It might be worthwhile to ask them about that policy.
I think it has a bit to do with discipline. To sit there and practice 6 hours a day on a single passage is the same mentality necessary for success at debugging that irksome and elusive bug.
May 15, 2008 at 6:18 am
I did not think about this till now but most of the people on the motorcycle forums i visit are all IT guys. I ride with a big group of people from a few forums and i am sure 60-70% of them all ride motorcycles are from IT. I never really thought about this till now.
but the newest sport-touring mounts come with xm,gps and every gagets and i think being from IT we make perfect host as this segment is growing. I have seen more wifi hooked up systems for on the road blogging the last 2 yrs and ever before. Also, riding a sport bike in say a track is very technical with hitech technology which i love to tinker and work with.
May 15, 2008 at 6:22 am
I actually took the other direction. I started as a musician (since the age of six), and grew into a programmer in my late 20's. Computers were a hobby as I grew up (Vic-20, Com64, etc), and I really started getting interested when the first Macintosh's came about. I got my degree in Music, but am working as a programmer. I'm still a musician on the weekends for a little extra cash and fun, but my days are spent programming.
Programming and music have several parallels, but I think the most significant one is sequence.
Any computer program operates in a specified manner over time, sometimes on it's own, and sometimes in reaction to the user. Music, and musicians operate in the same manner, performing in a specified manner over time, and often performing based on a reaction to other musicians.
Events...over...time........performed...or....activated....sequentially.
The program is analogous to sheet music.
The execution is analogous to the performance.
The programmer is analogous to the composer
The user/developer is analogous to the performer.
I won't even get into the variety of styles available to both parallels.
Randy
May 15, 2008 at 6:25 am
My undergraduate degree was music. I found though that music is somewhat of a lottery in terms of income (the same is true for acting, in which I double-majored). For every person who "makes it" in music or drama, there are 100 people who are just at good waiting tables or finding other jobs totally unrelated to their main passion.
Somewhere along the line, while in an office job that I didn't like much, I found that I was the guy in the office that everyone came to when they had a problem with their computer. I decided to take a few courses at the local community college. It was by then the mid 90's, and you could get a job programming if you could spell "VB". 12 years and a masters in software engineering later, I have a job that I love and enough income to allow me to use my music and drama training in meaningful ways on the evenings and weekends.
Maybe someday someone will break down the functioning of the brain in more detail, but for me music is very experiential (and maybe a bit mystical) - you can learn scales and chords and such and how to make them work on your instrument, but ultimately something happens for me that doesn't happen for everyone - that being music. With computers, I can learn about the structure of the machines and the best practices with a programming language, but somehow I look at computer problems and the answer just pops into my head. Writing a song is somehow similar to writing a computer program. Go figure...
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May 15, 2008 at 6:28 am
Phil Factor (5/15/2008)
As you know, Steve, I'm a 60's blues (and folk) guitar player, though now I tend to specialise in playing the Uke. Perhaps I ought to record some backing tracks for your podcasts. I wonder what an electric band of DBAs would sound like? Would they all be good team players or might they be a bunch of prima-donnas? Would they sing from the same song-sheet? Would they stick to the standards?
I don't know how that will work. They'd all be looking for the fastest way to play the song....:)
"Hey - let's play this in a set-based fashion. I bet you we can get through Highway to Heaven in 5.7 secs that way...."
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May 15, 2008 at 6:38 am
Being a musician myself, this is something that I have taken an interest in, as my career has changed and progressed. In my experience there is about the same amount of people in the IT industry that are musicians, as in other industries I have worked in; such as retail and manufacturing. As for the quantity of people in IT that are musicians; I would say only about 10% are musicians (probably less).
May 15, 2008 at 6:38 am
I cannot agree more with the notion that computer programming and musicianship go hand in hand. There are many metaphors for this relationship; technical, emotional, and physical.
First of all, when you really really get to the nitty gritty, isn't the basic knowledge within the brain that translates into our ability to produce what we call music, just another "program" that we are then able to reproduce using an instrument, including other, well, computers? I won't go too deep there, since I am not a neurologist, but it makes a lot of sense.
Technically, yes MIDI revolutionized the way we record music - completely as metadata that can be reproduced through any MIDI-compliant instrument. Home recording studios filled with digitizing gear and powerful computers has changed our abilities from mastering an instrument and then having someone else master the recording arts, to a new breed of musicians who can craft their own works to near perfection at home. But, these advances forced musicians to learn a new "instrument", the computer; and a new language (which are already used to because we already did that when we learned to read music).
Emotionally, a programmer-musician is a no brainer. Both disciplines require creativity and patience to master, but they also require a good bit of personal impatience to feed the creative needs (always looking for a better way to make our code work, or a better way of making our music sound the way we want). We are all hurt (admit it, you know it's true) when someone is critical of our work - programs or songs. We try to be cool, but at heart, most of us are temperamental.
Physically, the programmer-musician used to have to have some level of dexterity. I realize that computer interfaces are now getting to the point where input can be performed even by people who do not have use of their limbs, and by some people who cannot speak. So, perhaps this is the greatest proof that sometimes a musician can be hiding in a programmer; and can be exposed via technology. But to actually play an instrument that is not MIDI compliant (or is, but cannot be played back via MIDI) one still must have dexterity that lends itself to learning the typing and key combinations (without looking at the keyboard) that makes it easy to work behind a keyboard and pointing device.
Let's not forget that the pedagogical aspects of musicianship lend themselves to making good programmers out of musicians who need a job. As I stated before, we already had to learn another language that uses symbols instead of words (and we often started at the same time we were learning to read written words). We sat or stood and played for hours on end, much the same way we are willing to plant our butts in a chair and work on finicky or challenging projects. Many of us learned to strive for perfection versus sloppiness (which makes for great coding and great music).
So, there was my opinion. It's how I went from a musician who was interested in pursuing the arts, and even medicine, into finding intellectual solace working in front of a flat screen, making way less money than a radiologist.
May 15, 2008 at 7:09 am
I think this may be a case of "mashed potatoes statistics". Lots of just about any demographic group are musicians, or at least want to be and play at it. Most likely, there isn't a significant connection between the two.
At the place I work, the CEO, one department manager, 2 salespeople, an accountant, and someone who has switched departments three times in the last 6 months, have a band and play and practice regularly. No point to this except to point out that people like music, just about universally.
Then, of course, there's me. I can't carry a tune in a bag. Tried to learn the clarinet when I was a kid - most people sound better when they're tuning up than I did when playing. 🙂
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May 15, 2008 at 7:10 am
Val Byref (5/15/2008)
It's really the same kind of skill set -- the ability to imagine a finished work and then construct all the minutely detailed components acting together in concert to make it happen. The ability to remember patterns doesn't hurt either.
I would have to agree. I actually started in a music education degree with my trombone and piano experience as well as vocal training. I had heard at that time that technology companies were hiring musicians and training them because they had a better ability to see the whole picture as well as the different parts at the same time. I don't play as much as I used to but I still sing regularly.
One interesting thing I have noticed over the years is that I am able to see a finished product well before completion as well as the steps to get there. My previous employer even made the comment several times that she just couldn't see where I was going with my ideas. Once finished, however, she was finally able to see what I had envisioned and commented that she would never have imagined what I ended up with.
One of my brothers is also a musician as well as my dad. They are both IT professionals as well so I suspect that there is something to this. I just never realized it was so big.
May 15, 2008 at 7:24 am
Sorry guys, I have to disagree... or maybe I am just the exception. I am what I refer to as "musically declined" the harder I try to learn an instrument, the worse I am at it. I would have a hard time believing that my musical deficiency is genetic, as I have excellent musicians on both sides of the family.
I think in terms of writing and appreciating music there may be a correlation; but I am naturally adapt at problem solving and understanding mathematics and programming, even gifted artistically, but I am a natural flop at anything musical.
Now something that I have heard is there is a correlation between good math + bad spelling = good problem solver / programmer. That one I could back up! 😀
May 15, 2008 at 7:25 am
I would strongly urge anyone interested in pursuing this subject further to read the book "This is your brain on music" by musician-turned-scientist Daniel Levitin (http://www.yourbrainonmusic.com/). Although a basic knowledge of music helps, everything is explained and should be easy to follow for non-musicians. The reason I feel it should be of interest to programmers is because it makes you think about the brain's cognitive processes -- and how little we appreciate what happens "under the hood".
May 15, 2008 at 7:28 am
John,
Thanks for the title -- sounds interesting. I will definitely have to give it a read.
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