Take people for example; ask a dozen people the same question and they all could determine their answers differently, but the meaning of the question and the form of the answer would be the same. The private mental process is different.

As I learn to play the piano, I am struck again and again by the similarity between music and programming. Music is a language, just like Java or Python, and it has its own syntax, rules, and constructs, just like Java or Python. Take chords, for example. (For the sake of this discussion I’m only going to talk about three-note chords. I haven’t learned any chords with four or more notes.)

In programming a function is a set of instructions that performs a task and returns a value. The function may or may not accept an input value (or set of values). A chord is a musical function that accepts the scale as it’s input value and returns a set of notes as its output. To use object oriented nomenclature, the scales are objects, and the chords are messages sent to those objects to perform some function.

The Major Scale object has 8 attributes, one for each scale degree. From Wikipedia:

• 1st – Tonic (key note)
• 2nd – Supertonic
• 3rd – Mediant
• 4th – Subdominant
• 5th – Dominant
• 6th – Submediant
• 7th – Leading note
• 8th – Tonic (or octave)

Chords are named using Roman numerals (for the most part), so you have the I chord (one chord), IV chord (four chord), and so on. The I chord always returns the 1st, 3rd, and 5th scale degrees. The IV chord always returns the 4th, 6th, and 8th scale degrees. The notes assigned to the scale degrees vary based on the scale in question.

Again, to use object oriented concepts; the Major scale class would define the eight scale degrees, and methods for each of the chords (I, IV, V, V7, et cetera). Each instance of a major scale (C, G, D, A, et cetera) would inherit the scale degrees and chord methods from the Major scale class. Something like this:

The C Major scale is comprised of the following notes: C D E F G A B C. So a I chord in C Major would return C-E-G as the notes. A IV chord, F-A-C.

A G Major scale is comprised of G A B C D E F# G, so a IV chord would return C-E-G, just like the I chord in C Major.

The chord functions (I, IV, V) are polymorphic. They respond to the same question in different ways. Ask a D Major scale the IV chord question and you get G-B-D, ask the same IV chord question of F# Major and you get B-D#-F#. The chord function always returns the same scale degrees, but the result is polymorphic in that the scale degrees vary based on scale to which they are being applied.

Those who were interested, and whose parents could afford to rent or buy an instrument, started learning how to play.  My mother was able to borrow from one of her friends, Mrs. Lamb, a cornet, which I played for the remainder of fifth grade and all of sixth.  Midway through the sixth grade I started what would become four years of braces on my teeth and playing the cornet wasn’t fun, as its mouthpiece was small enough that I didn’t like the sensation of my lips pinched between the mouthpiece and my braces.

In seventh grade I switched to baritone, which had a significantly large mouthpiece.  Heck, the instrument in its case was nearly as big as I was.  Which led to its downfall.  Miss Mathesson, the band leader, was unhappy about the lack of practicing we were all putting in at home, so she sent home practice sheets to be signed by our parents.  Thirty minutes of practice each and every day was the requirement.  Riding the bus too and from school every day with the baritone case perched in my lap was uncomfortable, and I soon talked my parents in to letting me quit band and join the rest of the non-instrument playing students in music class. 

At some point in the next couple of years I talked my way into getting a guitar and lessons.  The instructor was probably only a few years older than I at the time, with long hair and not much patience for a bumbling beginner.  The hurdle that I could not overcome was tuning the guitar; this being long before electronic tuners were available, you had to tune the strings by ear to each other.  The instructor was never able to help me understand what “in tune” sounded like.  I was also not motivated to practice.  Something I now understand isn’t an innate ability.  Good teachers not only cover the material, they cover how to learn it as well.

The peak of my guitar “playing” was being able to fumble my way through three or four songs I learned through sheer memorization – all with the same finger picking pattern.  I didn’t even know the notes I was playing, beyond a vague mention of the chords.  In college one of my roommates, who had played piano for nearly a decade already, grew tired of my endless repetitions of the same few chords and volunteered to teach me music.  I had no idea what that meant, and when he presented me with the music theory I once again recoiled from the work involved.

I have always wanted to play an instrument, to be able to make music.  Watching Sibylle play is beautiful; seeing her hands gracefully coax such wonderful passages and sounds from the piano brings me great pleasure.  I want to be able to play, I want to be able to produce music.

Sibylle has been teaching me about music, almost from the beginning of our relationship.  Through her I have learned that practice isn’t something I, or anyone else, should just know how to do.  Watching her teach, and having her answer my questions, has shown me how to go about learning this thing called music.

In the little that I know already I see parallels to the martial arts (posture, natural technique, breathing, tension and relaxing) and parallels to computer science (polymorphism, re-use, and functions).  I am intrigued intellectually as well as musically.  In my own way, with her loving assistance, I am starting to take my first steps into the world of playing music.