Two Types of Intelligence: Analytical v.s. Abstract

There are many types of intelligence that exist in this world. There’s social intelligence and academic intelligence, but I want to focus on two I am intimately familiar with; analytical and abstract intelligence.

Analytical Intelligence

We’ve all heard the saying “Think outside the box”. Well, analytical intelligence is the exact opposite of that. Analytical people will look inside the box, describe and break down every thing inside the boxes. They may even get lost in the boxes inside the boxes! This type of intelligence is great for understanding the nuances of specific objects. It’s like taking a magnifying glass and notating all the like cracks, crevices and colors. This lends well to math and science. The problem with this intelligence is that getting lost in the details is all too easy.

Abstract Intelligence

Abstract intelligence is the counterpart to analysis. Theses are the ones who “think outside of the box” and realize that all ideas are in one big box with infinite smaller boxes. Stated simply, abstraction is the act of generalization; stripping away the specifics and focusing on the similarities. For instance, “Color” is an abstraction of the specific colors “Blue” and “Orange” or “Sport” is an abstraction of the specific sports “Soccer” and “Baseball”. An abstraction is, like a big box that you fit other smaller boxes in to connect them together.  This lends well to poetry because you can abstract two unrelated words like, “bullet” and “shark”, into a simile such as “The shark swam like a speeding bullet”.  Abstract minded people usually are good at creative writing, art and music. The problem with abstract thought is that if the relation between the two ideas is too loose communicating the thought could be disastrous.

Final Thoughts

No intelligence is better than the other. I’d say analytical intelligence tends to be more practical, but abstract intelligence tends to be more beautiful. Although, in practice we use both simultaneously, there tends to be a preference for analytical over abstract. There’s nothing wrong wrong with this but without understanding the balance we miss one half of the equation that makes subjects like math interesting. Math is the analysis of an abstract concept called numbers. While writing composition classes are the abstractions of multiple pieces of writing. By framing school work or problems in this way it could help with finding solutions. If you know all the details and are still stuck, try to find a loosely similar situations that you relate to and try to tackle it that way (analytical to abstract). Or if you are confused on a dense concept, try to ground the idea in a metaphor, by relating the parts you do understand to something familiar. (abstract to analytical).

What do you think? Leave a comment. Thanks for reading.

Check out the new song I composed for the game I’m working on.

 

What I want from Xmas is…Circuit Scribe

So, When Radio Shack was falling out I went and bought electrical components because I wanted to create a radio transmitter or receiver. I even did loads of pre-research and bought a book some months prior and downloaded some schematics for some AM radios, but even after months of experimenting I’ve only been able to make a basic circuit with an LED and a switch. Why? because I lacked whatever tool I need to connect the wires together for the circuit and some of the piece broke for over-handling when all I need was to reconnect to wires that I didn’t know were disconnected, but with this I would need wires I could just draw it. It’s pretty inexpensive basic sets start at 20 bucks.

I’d recommend this for an nerd in your life who likes electronics or science in general!

Advanced Music Theory – Granular Synthesis

Lately I’ve been trying to find some deep and obscure music theory techniques and facts. Today I found this thing called “Granular Synthesis”.

When a sound designer combines two or more sounds (usually called synthesizers) to make a new sound it is called “synthesis”. Granular Synthesis takes short 1-50 millisecond samples of a sound called “Grains” and layers them on top of each other with different types of alterations to create a new sound.

I have only lightly dabbled with this technique but it’s something I may gradually add to my repertoire so below is an example I found from YouTube

Daily Music Making Challenge

For those who don’t know I make short compositions to hone my music composition skills. My dream is to make Video Game/TV/Film Music.

There’s a poll above the video embed, Let me know what you think I’d love to hear from you.I post en masse so Subscribe to get the latest piece sent directly to your YouTube feed and not miss a beat!

The Oldest Song Ever

So, After some hours of boredom I thought to  myself what is the oldest song known to history. The answer is the “Hurrian Hymn”, which is circa 1400 BC from Mesopotamia.

Daily Music Making Challenge Day 30 – Adventures

After a week of taking a break to letting idea summer I’m back with day 30 – Adventures. For those who don’t know I make short compositions to hone my music composition skills. My dream is to make Video Game/TV/Film Music.

There’s a poll above the video embed, Let me know what you think I’d love to hear from you.I post en masse so Subscribe to get the latest piece sent directly to your YouTube feed and not miss a beat!

Ear Training Tips

So, you want to be a musician or a listen who want to take their music appreciation to the next level with ear training. You also want to do it as effectively as possible. Here are some tips to help you achieve that.

What is Ear Training?

The best way to describe ear training is “music theory for the ears”. It trains your ear to recognize crucial music theory elements such as intervals,chords,scales,etc.

Tips & Tricks

Here are some tips I found online and from experience.

Consistency over Quantity: They say it’s better to 15 minutes everyday for a week than cramming about 2 hours of practice into 1 day.

Variety is Key: There are a variety of types of ear training each one giving your ears a different set of skill so it’s best to cycle between them to lessen fatigue as the training progresses

Have Fun and Ignore the Score: Most ear training sites or apps keep track of your training results and scores. Ignore them! It’s fine to post up the results because I do it occasionally, but don’t take them to heart because a 90% one day cause be a 70% tomorrow. What really matters is the test itself, not the result.

Ear Training Sources

Musictheory.net has not only ear training exercises, but other music theory exercises as well.

“My Ear Trainer” is an app for Android and iOS that is an awesome ear trainer that I use. It may only do ear training,but has more test types for ear training than musictheory.net.

If the Music Industry Crashed…

After writing about the decline of the platinum album and my prediction of the future of music, I wondered what would it be like if the music industry crashed and people stopped buying music, attending concerts etc. due to over-saturation. Here is my theory.

Decline of the Record Label: I believe the biggest to be hit by the crash would be the record labels since they have the biggest stake in the industry. Labels will either close or focus their services on shows for revenue and create less CDs/Vinyls.

The Price of Physical Media will Rise: With the labels making less physical media the price of such media will rise. They may begin discontinuing content from older artists that don’t sell cause that artist physical to rise in price due scarcity (or decline in price depending on the artist’s obscurity)

The Revival of the Indie Scene: With the current vacuum created by the declining record labels this gives the independent artist a chance to fill the empty venues on the local level, but there’s one problem with that.

Artist Compensation: Due to the horrible state of sales, Label bound artist will cause a lot more than they used to book.This will translate to the ticket prices and will cause the venues to eventually lose money so they will seek lesser known independent artists, BUT the indie artist may be payed scraps based on said artist’s popularity and performance ability.

There goes my ideas about “if the music industry crashed” What do you think about them? Accurate or absurd? Leave a comment on what you think.

My Plan for 2016

Here are some plans I have for the rest of the year and upcoming year.

• Taking a break from the daily music making to let thoughts settle and will start back in a week or so.
• Working on mixing down songs for some friends.
• Writing more article and opinion pieces.
• Having more fun.

Music Creation Challenge Day 29 – Rhapsody 3

So I’ve decided do a daily music making challenge where I try to make a short 1 to 2 minute theme daily. I then create a visual version using the program Synthesia for my YouTube channel. After a day of technical difficulties here’s Today’s piece is titled “Rhapsody 3” .

There’s a poll above the video embed, Let me know what you think I’d love to hear from you. Subscribe to get the latest piece send directly to your YouTube feed.