Music and Programming

Music is ancient, old as the universe maybe. Although we can’t hear it, there is music hidden to our ears with different frequencies. Software programming is new but programming is old as human history. These two different areas are actually relatives in our culture more than you think.

I’m a software developer and a guitar player, get my hands dirty with both of my skills mostly everyday for the past several years. When I am fed up with one, I easily pick up my other skill and continue with the progress. Learning music and coding are pretty similar. In both fields, the aim is to express yourself. They both have languages and logic behind. When you stay long enough in that world you are starting to realize there are patterns and rules in every corner. Music is more flexible in my opinion but their power on our culture and society is incomparable. So let’s see some of the fields they share;

1. They both have their unique languages. (We know music language A, B, C etc., and programming languages like PHP, Java etc. — And we know that these are tip of the iceberg. These are the languages we created to communicate with that world but we know that music is more than these letters and computers actually does not communicate in English phrases.)
2. We use different architectures to ease our way in that world. (Scales in music, Design Patterns in coding)
3. We use frameworks (In music there are some schemes and rules for pop music for example.

And in web development we use MVC frameworks for example.)

4. Various using techniques (Alternate picking, fingerstyle etc., psr2–3 4 for php)

I can go on giving examples but you get the idea. But what am I trying to say? Is one better than the other?

Mozart Effect

In 1991, Pourquoi Mozart? (Why Mozart?) by French researcher Dr. Alfred A. Tomatis was published. He stated that listening Mozart would help with the development of the brain. Long story short, in the following years with some experiments and some media coverage, this myth found some roots in our culture. But is it really proven that listening to classical music will make you more intelligent? There are no scientific proofs to that and unfortunately listening to a specific genre will not differ your brain from others’. Music can change your mood, help you focus, make you emotional, or give you different sensations but boost of intellect is a different thing.

PLAYING AN INSTRUMENT VS CODING

These two feed each other. Like in every skill development, learning something will make you intelligent. It will boost your confidence in other areas of your life. Complexity in them are enormous if you dig deeper. When you learn new rules, different aspects of that field born before your eyes. One of the most important things is even if you imitate something, you produce something. This pleasure is not found easily in other areas of life. For me, biggest advantage of learning to play instrument or coding (or any other skill-based development), you become more patient. You don’t give up that easily. It is hard to play the solo of ‘Stairways to Heaven’ for a while but then you get the idea. Or you can not wrap your head around with a bug that occurs randomly in your code. But with time you start to realize if you use more than one server you must definitely use a queue system.

Learning something is the reason humans are still in this world. We don’t have any other choice than learning and expanding our skill sets. This can be just for our own purposes or for the better future we won’t even see.

This was a ‘Hello World’ before starting my coding articles. But time to time I’ll try to write something about music, history or just random things I stumble across.

See you next time.