Science & Music

I Don’t Care How Good You Are — I Care About the Trajectory You’re Willing to Set

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I was not born talented at the timpani To wit, there’s Mrs. Gustafson’s entirely accurate assessment. I was definitely weak due to lack of consistent practice. I was not a committed music student. This is partly because my entire career as a timpanist traces back to random occurrences. The first was in 1988: “Beverly Hills Cop” was in theaters, and for some reason my 4th grade music teacher created a version of its famous theme, “Axel F,” to play on his (then-brand new) Ensoniq synthesizer. I heard that tune and thought it …

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Well-Documented Failure

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One of the funny things about being a former scientist in the orchestral field is encountering musicians’ perceptions of a “scientist.” Among people already in scientific fields, this really isn’t something that ever comes up — we intuitively understand the basics of what we do, and the day to day machinations of our jobs. And this cuts both ways: among orchestral musicians, there are lots of things we can assume as understood when it comes to the rhythms of our lives that are non-obvious to outsiders. Thankfully, I see a growing number …

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Why did MUSIC win the “cagematch”?

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Okay, so as discussed last time, my “science vs. music” situation wasn’t really a “cagematch”…or even Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out. I did not experience my education as a zero-sum competition for my identity, with one field’s gains necessitating the other’s losses, ultimately leading to “victor” and “vanquished.” Instead, I’ve always found science and music to be overlapping and mutually reinforcing. They augment each other. They are cross-pollinating. I wrote that, for me, music and physics “are really just different directions on the same axis. We seek outward on that axis of curiosity to …

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Science vs. Music: the CAGEMATCH

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(or, “Being a Liberal Arts Human-Venn-Diagram”) “So…do you miss science?” I get asked this question a lot. Which I totally understand. I’m a “human venn diagram” after all, with seemingly disparate skill sets that overlap in unusual ways. Specifically, I’m one of a small handful of players in major orchestras who’ve had full and totally different careers prior to winning a big audition. I currently know of four others: Mark Almond, the recently-appointed co-principal horn of the San Francisco Opera who previously practiced medicine in England; Steven Hendrickson, the former principal trumpet …

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