There is a quite important book, Wechsler, Judith, ed. ( 1978 ) ON AESTHETICS IN SCIENCE, Cambridge: MIT Press. Note what a top science publisher MIT press is. The books comprises studies of scientists who are good creative problem solvers and have made important discoveries, a small percentage of all scientists. One point is that many of them have a creative hobby in the Arts, which implies that skills learned in the Arts can help scientists make discoveries when applied to science. Also, the book notes that those scientists who make discoveries find scientific theories to be aesthetic. They especially use the term "elegant". That gives rise to a question?. In what ways might the aesthetic feelings and understandings of a scientific theory be the same, and in what ways different, from the aesthetic feelings and understandings involving classical music?
similar talents probably originate from the same brain function...I've read children who become proficient in music show improvements in math scores, one study surmised there might be as much as a 7 pt increase in IQ from music, which may transfer to math proficiency...this is anecdotal but wyly jr is becoming an adept guitar player since he began 3 yrs ago, this may be coincidental but his math scores have risen from barely passing to b+ a- range in that same time period... artists have better than average spatial awareness and creativity skills, both would be very helpful for a scientist as well...not that every scientist is an artist or every artist is a scientist but how both envision and solve problems may be the same...
Scores on creativity tests have very little correlation with scores on intelligence tests. There are people who are both highly intelligent and highly creative, people who are highly intelligent but uncreative, low in intelligence and low in creativity, and low in intelligence but highly creative. Creative thinking is subtler and more delicate than highly structured intellectual thinking. The music and math relationship could be expected just from the fact that variations on a theme in music is something which is fairly mathematical. The proficiency in music in those studies doesn't necessarily mean the right kind of proficiency. The right kind of proficiency is subtle, and I don't thing I can explain it in words very well. The difference is something one has to hear. For example, many people can play a piece in a mechanical way which is perfect, even though difficult. That is one kind of proficiency. The other kind is being able to play the same music with expression, so that it almost sings. In my experience, ordinary music teachers don't teach this to their students. I don't know how serious he is about his guitar playing, and if he has an ordinary teacher, mechanical playing might be adequate. I don't know whether or not all of you listen to the best guitar players in the world, who can play the guitar so that it sings. If not, you should buy a number of recordings of the best guitar players in the world for him to listen to. One example of such a musician is Segovia.
he has an excellent teacher ex professional musician, with a degree in mucic, competent with many genres, classical, metal, rock, jazz, country, blues...and from that wyly jr developed his preferred love, blues... I didn't see that coming from a 14 yr old, I'm quite relieved I wasn't a big fan of his Metallica phase...
Then, the next step is for him to take the blues in some new creative directions, at least writing his own music. It would be best if he could write the words too, but if he isn't skilled with words, he could collaborate with someone who can write well. He might start out by asking for blues song words from any student in the various high schools in the area. Perhaps he could put the request into their school newspapers.
That isn't research I have seen. Could you supply some more information? I actually don't see how sex would help creativity. It does involve focusing on things other than ideas and works in the Arts. In addition, if sex increased creativity, then everyone should be much more creative than they are. However, I can always be wrong about something.
Scientists with an interest in the arts, especially music, are quite common in my experience as a physicist - much more common than great scientific breakthroughs. When many scientists have an interest in the arts, it's unsurprising that particularly successful scientists do so too. For me, music is such a nice way to get one's mind off everything else for a while. I play pipe organ and piano, but haven't made any huge discoveries yet. I must have been doing something wrong. Oh well, I love my work as an engineer too much to give academia another shot. By the way, there is a strong relation between music and math. Beautiful patterns found in music have their mathematical roots. For example, here's a fun little visual representation of some musical patterns. [video=youtube;Av_Us6xHkUc]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av_Us6xHkUc[/video] This famous scientist is clearly feeling the music. [video=youtube;HKTSaezB4p8]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTSaezB4p8[/video]
