by Win Wenger, Ph.D. and Mike Estep, Ph.D
published in The Stream, July 2007
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For this month’s feature, we bring you a few notes on how involvement with music and the arts may affect IQ and intellectual achievement, with excerpts from a recent correspondence between Win Wenger and Professor Mike Estep.
Introduction – Win Wenger
It appears increasingly evident that involvement with music – at least classical music with its unique structures, architecture of detail, accumulation of the most compelling of music over the past few centuries, and richness of expression within the music – improves intelligence and intellectual performance. I’m not talking about the so-called Mozart Effect, which looks to be temporary. I’m talking about permanent changes in intelligence and in the very structures of the brain most closely related to intellect. I imagine that some forms of progressive jazz have some of the same advantages, and possibly other forms as well.
I cite, for example, work by Gottfried Schlaug and his colleagues at Dusseldorf University, demonstrating that, within their brains, the organ responsible for the core of our intellects – the left plenum temporales in the middle of our speech centers – in persons with perfect musical pitch is TWICE THE SIZE of that organ, physically, in the rest of us.
Music and the arts, especially their aspect in aesthetics or our sense of beauty, are predominantly far to the right in the brain; but key aspects show up all over the brain, including in the conscious, word- processing “left side.” The left plenum temporales is the core of our intellect and verbal intelligence, as “far to the left” as you can get in the brain; its primary function is to sort out and discriminate nuances in word meanings.
Five or ten percent difference, on average, would be awesome. For the left plenum temporales to be fully double the size, in physical volume, in those of us who have perfect pitch, shoots right off the seismograph in its implications.
Recent studies have suggested that most children are born with perfect pitch, but most of us lose it early on for lack of experiences which develop it. In our own experience, children who were taught at least the beginnings of how to sight-read and play music, by a method devised by Susan Wenger, all appeared as an accidental by-product to have perfect musical pitch.
It is also my conviction that the practice of Improvitaping builds intelligence and, indeed, does so rather strongly and rapidly. I think it can do so even in people who are initially totally without musical ability. See how to Improvitape, with its rapid sensory perceptions, responses to those perceptions, and flow-with-feedback phenomena. Then read how such flow-with- feedback phenomena improve intelligence.
Mike Estep:
For the last 22 years in private music instruction, I’ve allowed myself to use and develop a form of Imagestreaming (even though I didn’t refer to it this way nor know of Dr. Wenger’s work in the beginning).
I always viewed my private instruction as a testing ground to experiment with ideas and techniques. I didn’t constrain my thoughts strictly to musical structures, either. I’d incorporate elements of the habits of geniuses (Mozart, da Vinci, Einstein, Tesla, etc.), personal development, and brain science/psychology. I would take a broad range of subjects and allow myself to improvise concepts and answers to students. I wasn’t afraid of making errors, as I felt the cream of ideas would rise to the top, just as it does through trial-and-error with playing an instrument or working with computer technology. The repetition of this process allowed me to entertain ideas not commonly thought of and become very philosophical in my approach.
The only censoring that took place was in regard to using language or a few concepts that might be offensive to students. Other than that, I let my mind roam freely, while extracting ideas verbally. The images, ideas, and words would just flow. I also incorporated this with Socratic questioning to help the students feel some sense of involvement in the process.
I didn’t discover Dr. Wenger’s work until I read the Einstein Factor in 1999. I was so thrilled to see such work taking place. While I haven’t incorporated verbatim every one of his techniques, I believe there is great value in his work.
After using my imagestreaming processes for several hours per day (4 to 6 days per week) over the last 22 years, I’m absolutely positive that it has changed me as a person. I commonly come up with solutions to problems now where I’m not consciously searching for the answers (it happens at the subconcious level). I’m also confident that my students continue to come to me because of my incorporating this into my teaching. I believe it reaches to students on levels that are much deeper than the intellect alone. I’m convinced it is one of the reasons why I’ve had over 2500 private students in the last 22 years.
I believe it is important to “draw out” the genius within my students. Unfortunately, I also know that most of my students would never encounter such thinking if it weren’t for my instruction. However, I still proceed, because my efforts (and the efforts of like-minded individuals) could help produce another da Vinci with insights that literally change the world.
Win Wenger:
Mike, from your description, one question: Did you have, and do you have, a recorder going while you are giving these lessons? Capturing your improvised insights on at least audio recorder greatly accelerates progress because it frees you to go on beyond where you went before. Maybe you already have that going for you.
ME:
I do use some of your techniques, sometimes with my own twist. For some time now, I’ve been intrigued by your putting on of heads and seeing through the eyes of geniuses. Several years ago, I wrote a browser-based javascript subliminal tachistoscope that I run on my computer while attending to other things. … As a long-time ear-playing musician, I have learned to highly trust my intuition. It steers me correctly most of the time.
I don’t go around discussing this freely with everyone, as most people would not understand. However, I regularly discuss aspects of these things with my students and help them to see that, as a species, most human beings have no clue what their real mental capacities are. To some degree, I believe there is a da Vinci in all of us.
WW:
There is always a next higher level, for each of us. From all you have described, I believe a very well-defined next-higher level awaits your practice of recording while you teach, especially of the sessions where you let fly and sometimes surprise yourself with the insights which come forth. As “dangerous” as you already are, this could be fun.
The tachistoscope sounds like a good idea. For years I’ve been wanting to set up a tachistoscope-based program for making an interactive page with our High Thinktank process, only no one with the needed skills has emerged. Beyond that, just simply developing the ability to quickly perceive a scene and identify and make sense out of its elements, would be a good thing to do for training our mostly unused link to our own perceptions. See, for example and for educational use with young children, the “Sherlock Holmes” suggestion I made some years ago in www.winwenger.com/archives/part17.htm (and some of the perceptual- development ideas I offered in the article that preceded it, www.winwenger.com/archives/part16.htm ). No one has ever taken up anything near this approach to things, though as I write this, it occurs to me that people involved in training athletes might find this to be of interest.
Where our efforts here could be most helped would be to get some sort of publishable, quantifiable comparison measure of the effects of this kind of process on (your) students. I mention quantifiable for obvious reasons, though building up a stock of ready anecdotal evidence would also be helpful at this stage. Publishable, point-to-able evidence “creates permission” for other educators and trainers to dip their own toes into the waters, generating more such data and more such “permission.” That’s where our efforts here could be most helped. How may we best help your efforts there?
Thank you very much for writing and sharing.
ME:
Actually this is rather ironic. I have much expertise with music/ multimedia/sound reinforcement technologies (36 years). But in 22 years of private music instruction, I have never recorded my imagestreamed discourse. I have had students who videotaped me showing particular playing techniques, but not my philosophical “drawing out”. I would consider doing this, just to be able to reflect later on how I’m using the imagestreaming process (for personal feedback/reinforcement/ improvement).
…now I’m ready to resume academic teaching and research. If this occurs for the Fall, it will include a move. That will mean having to re-establish my private music instruction clientele.
I have also used my version of the imagestreaming process in university instruction of groups. But even with academic freedom, it hasn’t felt quite as free as with my private instruction. However, I would not be opposed at some point in the not-too-distant future to doing some kind of research study incorporating such techniques.
WW:
It’s great that you’ve been able to develop as far as you have without such a direct volume of personal feedback. I expect that when you get a chance to start recording yourself in action, your further progress will totally amaze everyone, especially yourself.
ME:
… If you hire a college music student to transcribe your pieces, I would recommend one that is pursuing performance/education in commercial or jazz music as opposed to someone who is pursuing classical training. The reason for this is that, as a rule of thumb, most musicians pursuing formal classical training do not play much by ear. I’ve played by ear since I was 10 and play professionally in country and rock bands, but my bachelors in music ed was a traditional classical program – so I’ve seen both sides. Although ear training is emphasized in classical theory classes, students who aren’t pursuing it on their own outside of school don’t develop their ears much (sad but true). Their pursuits are geared mostly toward music reading, which is a different animal. Commercial and jazz students who go to schools like Berklee College are highly skilled ear players and readers.
WW:
… That is very interesting, what you mention about classical-training Students’ not being much involved in working by ear. I see that as a lack, yet clearly something is working in classical training to the point that we seem to be living in the Golden Age of Performance. Of course, not everyone is an Evgeny Kissen and maybe great performers come through despite, rather than because of, various aspects of the standard training, but I have to wonder at this aspect. …
ME:
On the ear thing… As far as musical balance goes, I believe more of this goes on in commercial music (jazz, rock, pop, etc.) performance schools like Berklee ( www.berklee.edu ). Although the styles are not as much classical, what is emphasized is a balance of sight reading, performance, theory, history, ear training, ear transcribing, ear playing, composition, and improvisation. Musicians that finish training from these schools are able to do studio work, play with national acts, teach, etc.
Musicians receiving training from traditional classical schools will generally not have near the amount of exposure to ear playing, ear transcribing, and improvising. They can develop enormous technical playing and sight-reading skills. I’m not saying they never use their ears, but they don’t regularly learn pieces by ear. The classical repertoire is generally learned (phonetically, so to speak) through sight reading.
There is a world-class concert pianist from Africa who was an artist-in-residence at the University where I used to teach. She was nominated for a Grammy a few years ago for a classical CD she recorded. I had a short conversation with her after I finished my ear-training dissertation study there. She informed me that she really had trouble with ear and related theory training, which took me somewhat by surprise, because she is truly a virtuoso when it comes to technical playing and sight reading. She plays with much feeling also.
I believe the aversion to ear playing sometimes starts in early formal music training. I have regularly seen students who go through public music school band programs or private classical instruction encouraged not to play by ear, as this is looked at as a possible crutch to not learn to read music (which is true occasionally).
It is ironic that many of the classical composers we revere played by ear often (as well as sight read). For instance, it was common for Bach to write out chord progressions (no standard notation, just chord symbols), hand them out to musicians, and then the musicians would take turns improvising in fugue styles, much like jazz, rock, or country musicians would improvise solos today. The majority of professional rock, pop, and country musicians I have personally known in the last 28 years do not read standard music notation at all (yet, some of these players are virtuosos). Accurate and current note-for-note transcriptions for much popular music (as performed in recordings) are not readily available, so these musicians have to learn to play by ear to work up most of the songs.
Here are my personal feelings about ear playing vs. sight reading… Learning to play by ear is analogous to learning to speak a language by imitation. Learning to sight-read music is analogous to learning to read words. We don’t teach our children to phonetically read their native tongue before they can speak it. However, using the previous analogies, that is exactly what is happening with much formal music training in private instruction and in schools. We usually consider it a form of ignorance for people to learn to speak (or play by ear) but not learn to read (or sight read). I think that a different kind of ignorance occurs if a person doesn’t learn to speak fluently (or play by ear fluently) before, or at least during, learning how to read fluently (or sight read fluently).
The best situation is to learn equally to play by ear and sight read. However, if I were forced to choose one skill over the other, I would hands-down choose ear playing over sight reading, just as I would choose speaking words over reading words (because trying to read words phonetically without being able to speak the language really doesn’t make sense). Fortunately, I’ve developed skills in both areas.
One thing is very clear to me. I have developed a very strong intuitive sense of thinking, imagining, and feeling that are directly related to my learning to play by ear starting at age 10 (I’m 47 now). Just as I use my intuitive ear in every musical endeavor (many times doing so as habit without realizing it’s happening), I now also attempt to use intuitive and feeling perceptions in every endeavor.
By the way, in the last decade, your work has contributed greatly to my outlook in the matter of “connecting the dots” and tying such perceptions together. Thanks.
Footnote – Win Wenger:
Regarding great composers playing by ear and improvising: Definitely not only Bach – In the year 1800, Daniel Steibelt, a rather full-of-himself Franco-Prussian musician and composer, came to Vienna to attempt to take over music there. He challenged Ludwig von Beethoven to a piano-playing duel. There he took a theme from one of Beethoven’s pieces and did some improvisations on it to show how he thought Beethoven should have handled it. Beethoven’s turn at the piano, he took a sheet of music at random from one of Steibelt’s pieces, turned it upside down, and for a half hour ran off variation after astonishing variation. Steibelt slunk out of town and spent the rest of his life safely out of the way in Moscow. By the way, what Beethoven built out of Steibelt’s music sheet turned upside down became the basis for Beethoven’s great Third Symphony, the Eroica, which broke the back of classicism and launched the romantic movement in Euro-Western music.
Ironically, it was Beethoven’s own impatience with fellow musicians and performers of his age that led to the death of improvisation in classic forms of Euro-Western music. All composers used to designate cadenzas where the performer would go flying on his own, expressing his own special take on the piece he was playing. Beethoven couldn’t get any of the performers of his time to come up with satisfactory cadenzas on his pieces, so he ended up writing in his own cadenzas into his musical scores, a practice which other composers thereafter followed.
Summary comments – Win Wenger
The topics of music, perceptual rapid flow-with-feedback, improvisation, and effects on parts of the brain having to do with intelligence and intellect are an utterly rich field in which many important discoveries are waiting to be made. Meanwhile, regardless of whether you are musical now, you can significantly improve your intelligence and your intellect by strongly involving yourself in music, and by practice of Improvitaping.
Computer game designers are being sought for our game program on music. Musicians are sought who are willing to test various of our procedures, not only Improvitaping. In this context are easy points of leverage through which to work major effects. And yes, music and the arts should be especially a key part of the experience of every child. Economizing moves that struck the arts from most public schooling have done most terrible harm to our country and to most of us living therein.