In general I agree with you, Valores. A friend of mine who got a silver medal at the IMO couldn’t decide whether to pursue math or music because he was a very talented musician as well as excellent mathematician. However, there are exceptions. A friend of mine is a very talented musician who won many international competitions and is currently getting her PhD in Music Performance from the Northwestern. She doesn’t know much about math but is undoubtedly a very gifted musician. To summarize: math and music have something in common but they are not equivalent.
brain_wash_your_face Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Musicians are mostly idiots or drug addicts. Just > look at T Pain or Kid Rock. Analysts are mostly idiots or drug addicts. Just Google Finance Message boards
Maratikus, What do you mean by “knowing math”? If you mean basic math skills and logic, then i am surprised. But in any case math is useful when studying music, i am not talking about statistics, probabilities,etc. And studying music, esp. If one does not have a born sense for music which is called “absolute hearing” or something, can train you analitical skills, not teach you math though
akanska Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > Analysts are mostly idiots or drug addicts. Just > Google Finance Message boards Nah, real analysts are mostly influenced by crime, addicted to ballin…miss you 2pac.
>If one does not have a born sense for music which is > called “absolute hearing” or something She does have absolute hearing. We talked about what she is learning when she goes to her musics teacher but that has more to do with understanding and expressing emotions than counting and logic.
say, harmony is all about math. Music math, it’s rules and formulas and numbers. We know exactly which formula produces which emotion. They talk about “trained ear”, the ear is not a muscle, it does not change physically. The person trains his “music” math skills, not literally his ear.
Mathematics and music help peripherally with general analytical capability. But developing a strong conception of history and the social sciences may be of more relevancy.
I have a “trained ear” in that I know how to tune instruments. It came to me through mentorship and repeatedly hearing recordings of the right notes.
Of course musicians don’t talk to other people about “formulas”, as we don’t explain ratios to non-prof… They even don’t use math slang, I just translate it to finance terms. I even don’t know these terms in 2nglish, they are quite specific, as i don’t know names of fin.products in my native language. A phd in statistics would most prob say I have no math skills.
Of course musicians don’t talk to other people about “formulas”, as we don’t explain ratios to non-prof… They even don’t use math slang, I just translate it to finance terms. I even don’t know these terms in 2nglish, they are quite specific, as i don’t know names of fin.products in my native language. A phd in statistics would most prob say I have no math skills.
To answer the original OP - I’m a musician. However, my story is slightly different. My accounting / finance background made me enough $$$ for me to be able to afford the lessons so that I can become one. Ironic thing is that I don’t have a formal music degree (yet), but I’m doing better than many musicians out there as far as student count and revenue from music are concerned. (Case in point, I’ve had this one music teacher that pretty much devoted her whole life to music and got a MA in performance. However, I have at least 5x more students than her… ). Mmmm… As far as the assumption that music makes less money than finance… I would say it really depends. If you’re a successful musician, you can make more money. I know on an hourly basis, I’m making more money off of music than I am at the day job. I also know monetarily successful musicians as well, however - they are the best so this may not be indicative of the “typical” musician. I’m also assuming that the accounting / finance jobs are capped out at 100k for most people given the 40 hours a week schedule. There are correlations between math and music. However, it’s at a very basic level. Also, some people have mentioned the relationships between music & CFA - honestly, I can pretty much make up some B.S. about how anything can be a transferrable skill. ex: Making money from babysitting -> learn how to deal with crying/annoying babies -> transferrable skill in finance to learn to deal with annoying A-type people. My take is that if you’re smart and/or work hard, then you can master anything. It’s harder to master different areas because it requires different skillsets, but it can be done. I know for me, making money in music was easier (compared to let’s say, said music teacher), because I know the business aspects to it and also am pretty good with interpersonal skills developed and refined at my day job. Musician -> CFA is a hard transition compared to business related backgrounds, but believe it or not, I think CFA -> musician is much, much harder. For the CFA, all you need to do is study the concepts and apply it. Music is different - you can study it all you want, but especially if you’re starting out as an adult learner, you are not guaranteed to “make it” or get to a certain standard.
It really surprises me how the tuners don’t have a proper education in harmony, but well, some time ago traders were trained at work repeating by others, not just without finance education, CFA, etc., but without any education at all. And still some of them were good. I guess tuning is not art, but without good ears initially it’s hardly possible to be a very solicited tuner.
Ocean Mist, I specifically mentioned I was talking about classical music education, not adult learner guitar classes or the sort. Tell me if you think your musical education is on par with Netrebko, who also does not have a formal degree, however nobody in the world would doubt her musical skills. Monetary reward is not good measurement here. Nobody compares spears and conservatory professor, as Spears wins, however for me her musical professionalism is doubtful. I might be wrong, let me know if she studied in a prestigious classical conservatory.
^I was actually not referring to your post. I was responding to the OP and giving my 2 cents. I’m talking about classical music education too. And yes, my music education is on par… my previous teacher is now going to Julliard, and another one was directly taught by a musician that regularly plays for the philharmonic that is now attending a conservatory. Currently, one of them received a Ph.D. in music performance at a top-notch music school. Honestly though, who cares? You can have all the degrees in the world, but your performance and teaching ability matters. Monetary reward can be a barometer of talent. If you’re really talented, people will pay top dollar for your services - whichever field it may be in. Even with your example of Britney Spears, although you might not consider her to be a “classical trained” musician, who are you to say she is less-than-par? Anyways, my main point is - I was addressing the OP and the original points.
Of course spears is not on par with netrebko, not even close. Even netrebko is netrebko because she is a good marketer and hard worker, there are many more on par with her, less lucky. When I say classical education, I don’t mean classes of whatever instrument. It’s overall musical education, music history, harmony, composition, rhythm, singing in choir 6 voices a cappella, at least basic classical dancing, playing instrument: large form, polyphony, étude, short form, a quick piece, accompaniment, and changing this program up to 4 times a year, and giving concerts at least twice a year. And this way for 15 years, after which you are either a teacher of music (not musician) or a musician (giving concerts). I just tried to translate the terms, prob. I got them wrong. I am definitely not on par, cause I studied for 8 years, after which I am capable to play music for myself/ family/ friends or in the restaurants/ hotel lobbies.
Numi, props for being a fellow music/econ major! I thought I was the only one.
Woa… I didn’t know about this thread until just now. > Why are yo u taking the CFA? Why do you want to transition to finance. It’s weird, I know. I was making music for living, but it wasn’t a lucrative business. I need to change. Because my music was an accompaniment to video, I got into video production, then on to Flash animation, then on to web-technologies/programming/database and got hired by the current employer as a system engineer. I’m now writing applications for fixed income sales/trading. So it’s not all that weird now, eh? I’m taking CFA because I think it’s a great learning experience. When I first saw the word “instrument”, I thought it was talking about “musical instrument”. That’s how bad it was. But I guess every day practice makes perfect. Now back to studying… wish me good luck on Level III. Grrr.
> just hate to see an artist go into something that is the opposite of what they have been doing their whole lives. It’s very interesting that you imply music being opposite of finance. I agree. No music, No Life; but No Money, Life goes on.
I’m not sure if this applies to the topic but I think it does. I manage a small team (8 or so people). Whenever someone leaves, I have to replace them which means I have to filter through the resumes HR brings me and interview people. As with most of you, the job we do requires an in-depth knowledge of Excel and the ability to write well. In order to test the candidates for these skills, I put together a fairly rudimentary Excel excersise and a writing test which consist of the candidate writing two pages on one of five topics. When I look over the essays, I’m judging content, structure, grammar, and formatting (generally speaking, people can’t freaking format worth a crap). As expected, the typical finance, accounting, econ person does well on the excel portion and not so well on the writing. Those with less conventional backgrounds often do well on the writing but it is clear they have never opened a spreadsheet or heard of multiple linear regression(even though they claim Excel knowledge on their resume). I’ll interview approximately 10 candidates and about three will be sufficient in both areas. I typically put more weight on the excel side of things because I review ever report my team writes and it is much easier to edit for grammar and content than it is to teach someone excel from scratch. People usually have some base of writing knowledge built through their primary education whereas a person can make it all the way through many undergrad degrees without having ever touched Excel. You’ll have to take my word for it but you would be amazed at the people with finance degrees from top tier schools who don’t have a solid grasp of Excel. I’m floored each time I have to go through a round of interviews and a person with a background which should have a heavy analytical component clearly can’t handle the rudimentary analysis of a dataset.
panda4126 Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > > just hate to see an artist go into something > that is the opposite of what they have been doing > their whole lives. > > It’s very interesting that you imply music being > opposite of finance. > I agree. No music, No Life; but No Money, Life > goes on. I play an instrument semi-pro for years, and in finance now. Did you mix up that last line? Life goes on with no money?