President Obama Is Looking To Extend The School Year

OhioStater said:
To put it in perspective, height carries a heritability estimate of about .8, meaning about 80% of your height comes from your genes.

What does that even mean? Does the other 20% come from stretching?

Late to the party as always, but I definitely disagree that math is uncreative. At the lowest levels it's uncreative in that there is a right answer. In the same way, music is uncreative in that there's only one right way to play a C-major scale. However, it's taking all the basic tools to create something that is more than the sum of it's parts (e.g. musical composition or mathematical research) that is where all the action happens. The proof of Fermat's Last Theorem (and I don't even get most of it) was one of the most creative things I've ever seen, it just happened to use the language of math.

Does the other 20% come from stretching?

I'd imagine nutrition, etc. "Smoking stunts your growth, kids."

As someone who doesn't enjoy dividing and multiplying, I can't even begin to understand you point, Andy. I'm not saying that it's not a valid point.

There's a lot of "math rock" that I really enjoy listening to (Tool Meshuggah, MASTODON, The Dillinger Escape Plan), and I understand some of it enough to "write" a math rock song, but don't expect me to explain it to you though, because I can't.

Wait.. Page 17 and we have yet to solve the school crisis? Im highly disappointed in all of you ;)

I'm not much of a Tool fan (sorry, LK, but I do listen to some SOAD), but my biggest encounter with what we are calling "math music" was playing Stan Kenton's "A Time For Change" with a local jazz band. The song is written in 9/4 and is an absolute bear to play. It is almost impossible to count it (especially through the solo sections), so you really have to know the song, and you have to have that bass line grooving. The bass line is the key to that entire song (we once tried practicing without our bass player there, it was an absolute train wreck).

More recently I encountered a...charming (that's what we'll call it for now) classical piece called Variations on America by Charles Ives. Though not really a piece of "math music," it certainly has some very interesting qualities that make most musicians cringe (almost no one in the ensemble liked it, including our director), though I suspect if one were to use math on it, it would "make sense."

Someone I thought of earlier - when the topic first came up and someone mentioned math being essential to music - was Charlie Parker. The guy was a high school dropout (only one year) and went on to become a jazz legend. I dare say he likely didn't have a very solid academic foundation, but was able to pick up some of the most complex parts of music theory and astound people. He played insanely complex riffs and melodies in keys that most sax players look at with disgust (C# anyone? I balk at anything more than 3 sharps or flats) and throw out.

While technically math may be present and even a foundation of music, I don't think an understanding of math is needed to succeed in music. Like LK mentioned a few pages back, I think concentrating on the math aspect too much creates either a musical block, or music that isn't as...emotional or free. It may be theoretically interesting, and even sound interesting. But I don't know if it really does what music as an art "should" do. I think the best summary of what I mean was said by Paul O'Neill, prolific composer and producer of Trans-Siberian Orchestra fame (amongst a very long list of other great groups), when he said the following in an interview:

The reporter asked for a definition of "art," and O'Neill, whose 30-piece band has become a Christmas staple, said the purpose of art is to elicit an emotional response from a person who's exposed to it.

"To me, there's three types of art--there's good art, there's bad art and there's great art. Bad art is a painting on a wall that you don't even notice. You just walk past it as if it was wallpaper. It's a song that you hear on the radio that just becomes background noise. It's a movie that you go to that just becomes a good excuse to eat buttered popcorn," O'Neill explained.

"Good art will elicit an emotional response from the listener or viewer that they felt before. You see a picture of forest, and you remember the last time you went fishing with your dad. You hear a song about driving fast in your car, and you remember when you were 16 and you got your driver's license and you went over the speed limit. You hear a love song and remember the first time you fell in love. That's really, really hard to do.

"But great art--and this is the hardest thing to do--elicits an emotional response from the person who's exposed to it that they never felt before."

http://www.livedaily.com/news/10925.html

Great post maXairMike! System of a Down is pretty good, but I don't find most of their music too complex, as far as math goes. maybe I didn't notice.

Thanks for putting some of my ideas into different words. that helps me to better understand how I feel.

More recently I encountered a...charming (that's what we'll call it for now) classical piece called Variations on America by Charles Ives. Though not really a piece of "math music," it certainly has some very interesting qualities that make most musicians cringe (almost no one in the ensemble liked it, including our director), though I suspect if one were to use math on it, it would "make sense."

That's been around for ages--in the 1960's I had a record (yes, an LP) of E. Power Biggs playing it on the organ of St. George's church in NYC. I've heard it in person as well: audience giggled and enjoyed it.

Roz

I know its an old piece, and it was indeed originally written as an organ piece. The band arrangement is rather more interesting, if that's even possible. Just listening to it is a joy, yes, but when you get in front of the music and play it, it puzzles, confuses, and at time frustrates you musically (my personal experience).

And since you mentioned LPs...I'm still working on growing my Chicago collection. Got the first album cover signed by Danny Seraphine when I went to a drum workshop he put on here in Fort Wayne (I do some percussion work besides my sax playing). But that is a whole different discussion. :)

On second thought...it was music education, so I guess it does apply. Seeing him play and break down some of his most popular rhythms was a real treat. The thing I will remember most from that is what he said about "swinging." He told everyone to think about swing not as a particular rhythm style/pattern, but rather simply as a musical attitude. He then went on to give some examples, which when played out really blew me away. As a jazz musician, I have this strongly developed mindset that swing is a style/pattern, and trying to retrain myself to treat it as an attitude is actually difficult.

Although music definitely has math and physics components, it doesn't mean a musician or composer has to rely on formulas to read or write music. A lot of what is taught as theory is "classical" theory. But those rules don't have to apply to every piece of music being composed-- stuff like no open fifths or unresolved chords, and having to follow certain chord progressions.

If you want to hear some definitely crazy rhythmic patterns you should (force yourself if necessary to) listen to some Balkan music. There are Bulgarian folk tunes with crazy time signatures like 9/8 and 13/16. They're interesting to listen to, but they'll drive you crazy if you tried counting them out while listening. And the thing is, those songs probably weren't "composed" and written down. Somebody just came up with them and passed them down and people learned them by listening and "feeling" the music, not understanding things like music theory and counting out measures.

What does that even mean? Does the other 20% come from stretching?

Someone above nailed it. It simply means that 20% of your height is influenced by the environment.

Regions of the world, and parts of the United States, that are characterized by moderate to high SES (socio-economic-status) have populations that are getting "taller" every year (about one centimeter per decade).

Nutrition, pollutants, availability of regular medical care, exposure to disease, etc...all impacted how tall you are.

Intelligence has a very low HE of .5. Research consistently shows (even twin studies) that the simple act of putting a "poor-performing" kid in a better school improves test scores, GPA, etc. Your intelligence (at least in how we have agreed to define it in the U.S.) is greatly impacted by the environment around you, whereas height is not.

Interesting article, eh?

The author said the research proves “that supports education as aneffective means to enhance adaptability, a valuable characteristic in achanging labour market.”

LINK

rollergator said:
Even though you may not gain employment in your chosen field of study, I have to believe that having a "well-rounded education" leaves you a little more prepared for the unforeseeable circumstances.

I think the author just read what I said on page 16... ;)

^ I noticed that as well...and now you can say there is a study (and this isnt the only one) behind those words. :)

The author said the research proves “that supports education as aneffective means to enhance adaptability, a valuable characteristic in achanging labour market.”

Somebody with a well-rounded education should try diagramming that sentence, because I don't think it's one. But to be serious, the article doesn't state whether the type of education made a difference; a well-rounded education with exposure to many disciplines, or a specific course of study in one field.

The article linked above says that the author says that the research "proves" that education is an effective means to enhance adaptability. But in the inbedded article, the author is noted as saying that the research offers evidence which supports that conclusion. So the authors of the study do not believe that the study goes as far as the author of the linked article claims.

But neither one offers any evidence which actually supports the conclusion. Seems to me you would need to look at the various reasons why people found or didn't find re-employment. It may be the case that in many instances, adaptability had little if anything to do with the result. Maybe the study looked at such issues but the author of the linked article just didn't report on the results.

The article (and the study to the extent it didn't go beyond what is stated in the article) isn't very helpful. There is no attempt at distinguishing between types of education (beyond secondary/post-secondary). I doubt that all types of post-secondary education showed the same 2-3% changes per year. Why not look impact that different types of education have on employability rather than just looking at education in general? And to the extent you just telling folks to get more education because that will increase your chances to find jobs you are doing folks a disservice. As the NYT article from a page or two back indicated, we need more people with the right education than just more education.

And its interesting that you need 9 to 13.5 years of post-secondary education to equal the increased rate of re-employment that a high school diploma produces. Would also be interested to see how the numbers would look in the current environment as the study only appears to have gone through 2001.

**edited -- Sorry, RGB beat me to the punch.

What evidence do you seek? The study simply states that people with more education have a higher rate of "re-employment" (I think they're speaking Canadian :)). That's the statistic, and you can interpret it as you wish, but it seems like a reasonable correlation to me.

Someone could do research on re-employment rates and preferences of pizza toppings or beverages. And those studies would result in one preference or another having higher or lower rates of re-employment. It would be a statistic that one could interpret as they wished. And I am sure you could find pizza shop owners and beverage makers who would find any correlations to be reasonable. Doesn't mean that the correlation or actual causation exists. A lot of things are counter intitutive.

And I already stated what I thought would have made the research more meaningful and why.

It seems to me that when looking at a rate of employment or "re-employment" as it was stated in the article, it matters less about the kind of education or even the skills (adaptability) that the person has. Those things are important for employment retention, but to get hired it only matters what a potential employer perceives the applicant will or won't be able to do. I believe this study is trying to indicate that the employers in Canada base their perceptions/assumptions largely on the number of years of education an applicant has.

GoBucks89 said:
Doesn't mean that the correlation or actual causation exists.

Are you suggesting it's just coincidence?