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Re: Rethinking my psychology seminar project



Daniel,
I have a lot of thoughts on your hypothesis.
First, your definition of "more persistent" and "less persistent."  Are you basing this on number of hours practicing, number of years playing...?? What are your criteria?
Secondly, what will be your definition of great v. not-so-great?  You use the example of making the right sounds.  Do you mean playing the right notes?  If so, then you cannot consider Horowitz (or was it Rubenstein?) a great pianist because by his own admission, he hit a lot of wrong notes a lot of the times.
What about one's physical limitations?  WIll you consider these?  Example, I have a small hand and it was difficult for me to reach much beyond an octave on the piano.  Did that make me a less-persistent or less-good musician in your estimation?

Just a few immediate thoughts.  I'm sure I'll have more later.
Harriet

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Harriet B. Jacobster, Au.D.
Board Certified in Audiology
Lyric Audiology, pllc
"Bringing Words and Music to Your Ears"
hearingarts@xxxxxxx



Daniel Ladwig wrote:

I originally planned to do my project on intelligence differences between musicians and non-musicians..but I thought that was too fague and we already know that musicians have a bigger IQ then other people.
I decided to do my study on..well here is my hypothesis: More persistent musicians have higher IQ's then less persistent musicians.
So instead of looking at people who do and don't play music..we can look at people that both play but some musicians may be at reading, making the right sounds and putting a lot of musicianship into the music. Think of great musicians like Charlie Parker and Gene Krupa..just by listening to how they play, you must believe that they were geniuses.
I was think of taking 25 good musicians and 25 not so good musicians and give them some kind of IQ test and playing ability test..not sure what kind yet..got any tips on that? There are probably factors involved? (maybe being lazy, not wanting to practice or wanting to be the best...other than a not so good musician's IQ.) Maybe some physiological and mentel aspects involved.
If not that idea, do you have any good ideas around that kind of field?? 
If you have any tips or ideas and places where I can get some research on these narrow topic PLEASE let me know! If you have any other good idea also please let me know!
I'm a psychology major at CSU Chico working on my BA right now. I plan to go to a grad school to get my Ph.D in Cognitive Neuroscience.
Thank you!
~Dan T. Ladwig