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Musicians are better at decision-making and problem-solving, study shows.

Doodski

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I've known maybe a couple dozen musicians in my life and noticed that they think differently. I attribute that to their musical training and the practice of playing their instruments and what they learn from that practice.

"Researchers noticed that people who played an instrument were able to respond more quickly to a problem they encountered and fix it with accuracy. Individuals who played an instrument were also less likely to develop an illness related to brain degeneration."

“Our findings could have important implications as the processes involved are amongst the first to be affected by aging, as well as a number of mental illnesses such as depression,” Jentzsch added. “The research suggests that musical activity could be used as an effective intervention to slow, stop or even reverse age, or illness, related decline in mental functioning."

"According to the research, musicians have higher neural connectivity than non-musicians in the default mode network, the nodes of which play a key role in higher cognitive processes."
 

Fregly

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Ability or excellence in any area correlates to higher intelligence. I doubt this is particular to music. And about musicians thinking differently......well I find engineers think differently than I do with my arts background, and I find them more interesting instead of my same old mind patterns.
 
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Doodski

Doodski

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Ability or excellence in any area correlates to higher intelligence. I doubt this is particular to music. And about musicians thinking differently......well I find engineers think differently than I do with my arts background, and I find them more interesting instead of my same old mind patterns.
I agree that a high level academic study, being a artist like a painter or a high level of functioning in sports teaches a person things they otherwise would not have acquired. Study after study states that there is something different about learning to play a musical instrument and being a accomplished musician.
 
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Doodski

Doodski

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How did they control for selection bias?
"Nevertheless, in an attempt to reduce potential sample biases in our study we chose a very selective participant sample: all participants were drawn from our university population (students or employees) with a comparable educational background and no significant differences in general mood. This of course strongly restricts the generalizability of our findings, but we feel that the benefits of investigating group differences within a highly homogeneous population outweight (sic) potential costs. In addition, there is no obvious reason to propose that the cognitive mechanisms we investigated in this study should be specific to our particular sample."
 

Midwest Blade

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Over the years there have been some speaker companies that use musicians to test and voice their speakers. Pearl Accoustics seems one of newer ones on the scene along with System-Audio years ago (I own two pair of their bookshelf speakers currently). I wonder if there is any corelation, after years of practice, has a musicians ear become trained or maybe even deteriorated. Do they acquire the necessary understanding to be able to judge a speakers performance.
 
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Doodski

Doodski

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Over the years there have been some speaker companies that use musicians to test and voice their speakers. Pearl Accoustics seems one of newer ones on the scene along with System-Audio years ago (I own two pair of their bookshelf speakers currently). I wonder if there is any corelation, after years of practice, has a musicians ear become trained or maybe even deteriorated. Do they acquire the necessary understanding to be able to judge a speakers performance.
I knew a accomplished classically trained flutist. She was selecting home speakers and she proved to have a very keen ear. I did the switching and level matching for her in a sound room with about 40 different pair of speakers in it. She quickly selected the MB Quart speakers of the time. They where the sharpest most accurate speaker that we had in that specific sound room. She bought the MB Quart speakers and when I gave her a audition of the B&W 801 Matrix, the Infinity Kappa and the JBL 250Ti she did not like any of them. She said they where missing detail and information in the music. She wanted a revealing accurate sound so she could analyze the musicians playing and then translate that into her playing of the same pieces of classical music.
 

Blumlein 88

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Why do professional musicians have a shorter lifespan? Most genres do. Jazz musicians have normal lifespan and blues slightly more than normal. All others are less.
 
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Doodski

Doodski

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Why do professional musicians have a shorter lifespan? Most genres do. Jazz musicians have normal lifespan and blues slightly more than normal. All others are less.
Where are you getting this information from?
 

Zensō

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Why do professional musicians have a shorter lifespan? Most genres do. Jazz musicians have normal lifespan and blues slightly more than normal. All others are less.
Sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll :cool:
 

Blumlein 88

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Where are you getting this information from?
Studies done a few years ago. Don't have links at hand at the moment as I am posting via a phone. Easy enough to Google.
 
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Doodski

Doodski

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Seriously, I think the most interesting takeaway here is the potential for musical activity to fend off cognitive decline.
Yes, I thought that was very intriguing too. Dementia, senility, loss of function all apparently decreased. I've noticed some pretty old good musicians that apparently are very lucid.
 

Fregly

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I agree that a high level academic study, being a artist like a painter or a high level of functioning in sports teaches a person things they otherwise would not have acquired. Study after study states that there is something different about learning to play a musical instrument and being a accomplished musician.
Chicken and egg thing, or the swimmer's body fallacy. I think the Mozart effect has largely been debunked.
 

nerdstrike

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I'm good at problem solving but I sure as heck can't make decisions!

There is also some evidence to suggest that dance and other physical disciplines also contribute to extending well-being with age. I find myself wondering whether application is the key to mental health retention, as opposed to any particular activity.
 

Robin L

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Why do professional musicians have a shorter lifespan? Most genres do. Jazz musicians have normal lifespan and blues slightly more than normal. All others are less.
Including Classical? Because there are performers I recorded 30 years ago who are still performing. Conductor Herbert Blomstedt is still getting paid at 94. It seems as though Classical genres require exceptional skill. I'm not knocking the rock, but I've witnessed more burn-out there than among classical performers.
 
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Doodski

Doodski

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I'm good at problem solving but I sure as heck can't make decisions!

There is also some evidence to suggest that dance and other physical disciplines also contribute to extending well-being with age. I find myself wondering whether application is the key to mental health retention, as opposed to any particular activity.
Is it the pursuit of artistic endeavors that makes for a longer quality of life or it is just music is what I want to know?
 

nerdstrike

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Is it the pursuit of artistic endeavors that makes for a longer quality of life or it is just music is what I want to know?
There is a high degree of happiness that can be achieved through expression of self. I don't think it credible that music has some super power, but perhaps music is particularly good due to the immediacy of expression and ready repetition. It also isn't hindered by physical mobility so much as dancing or wing chun or whatever.
 

Inner Space

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Yes, I thought that was very intriguing too. Dementia, senility, loss of function all apparently decreased. I've noticed some pretty old good musicians that apparently are very lucid.
I recorded Vladimir Horowitz during his post-1985 swansong. He was nuts. As mad as a box of frogs. He was totally convinced he had never been any good, which was also really sad.
 
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