The correlation of science and music
Thomas Edison played the piano. Albert Einstein played the violin and the piano. How common is it that scientists and engineers also have a passion for playing musical instruments?
Last fall, I was in a mandolin class at Old Songs where a chemist at GE was also learning mandolin. Every once in awhile I see a guy that works down the hall bringing in his electric guitar –probably for band practice after work. A materials scientist that works with me on solid oxide fuel cells plays guitar. I know of at least two banjo players (one plays bluegrass, one plays texas swing) that work at GE Global Research. There is at least one manager at GE that is a multi-instrumentalist. A band made up entirely of GE scientists (Procedure 19 is their name) rocks out at open mic (yes, we have monthly open mic nights just for the musically inclined GE Global Research employees!). For those that want to master voice, there is even a choral group that meets every Wednesday after work.
Now I am only a novice at mandolin, but it gives me a lot of satisfaction to play in my downtime (and maybe someday in the future I will even make my debut at open mic, but for now my family is my audience). It really makes me wonder – how many of you readers out there are also moonlighting as musicians? What kind of music and what instruments do you play?
Above is a photo from our 110 Anniversary Celebration that took place in September 2010 for employees. It is a picture of one of our employee bands called the Zombie Squirrels. A few of the members you have heard from on the blog before! In the back on the drums is Principal Scientist Radislav Potyrailo, on guitar is Mechanical Engineer Jonathan Janssen, and on vocals is Chemical Engineer Tiffany Westendorf!
Interesting observation, Kristen.
I don’t moonlight as a musician, but I did minor in music as an undergrad. I wonder if scientists and engineers have a preference for music composition or for performance. One more right-brained, one more left-brained.