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>>>...Musical ability is related to aptitude for mathematics...>>>>

Couldn't disagree more. Fifteen years ago a very small group of students did better on a test after listening to music. This exploded into a pop phenom called the "Mozart Effect," which roughly translated as "listening to Mozart makes you smarter." The people who did the original experiment pointed out several flaws in this conclusion:

The test was not a test of general intelligence. It was not a test of talent. It was not a test of math. It tested a very narrow set of skills having to do with spatial sense and preconception.

The test group was very small, and the observed effect lasted only a few minutes. The measured effect was small enough that people who understand statistics argue that the results are not meaningful.

To which I will add: Music is not math. You can give numerical equivalents to various notes and describe a piece of music by counting. This is not even arithmetic, and certainly not advanced math. There is nothing in music that corresponds to, say, long division - much less algebra or calculus.

Last edited by flatfoot; 08/11/09 12:48 PM.
Flatfoot sez: Call me when 'Talent-in-a-Box' is ready to ship! -- [8{>

Got some tunes on You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/user/flatfoot50
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http://jdwolfe0.wixsite.com/learnbiab