I wonder if the theory that musical training can greatly enhance a kid's ability to learn and more fully comprehend instruction, applies to rap. The thing is, we've long known that music is linked to mathematics but we've only recently realized that it helps develop brainpower.

It has been said that people who play a musical instrument will usually score higher than those who just hum along at rap concerts, which, I suspect is because rap would only teach them one numeral repeated over and over and over -- not that there's anything wrong with that. I mean, why be greedy?

Oscar Wilde once expressed his definition of a gentleman as "someone who knows how to play the accordion and doesn't." Well, we all know that Oscar was a pretty smart guy. For one thing he was smart enough to change his name to Oscar Wilde from Fingal O'Flaherty Willis, a name that would have made him friends in a pub called the Shamrock Inn but was unlikely to get him a refill of Moet et Chandon at a stately home in England.

Anyway, while the bubbly was flowing at one of these posh dinners, Oscar made one of his pithy remarks. Of course, everyone was amused, and the man sitting next to him chuckled, "Oh, I wish I'd said that." Oscar looked at him, took another sip of champagne and said, "You will, you will." So I think it's safe to say, that musical or not, nobody considered Oscar a slouch, intellectually.

Let's examine a few other examples. As far as we know, Einstein was not very musical. He liked to dance a lot but only because he would get to hold girls. So it makes me wonder just how smart he would have been if he had learned to play the harmonica instead of inventing the atom bomb. I guess, it's all relative, isn't it? Especially to Einstein.

We all know that the emperor Nero was an ardent musician but there's no evidence that he was particularly smart -- unless you want to be cynical and say that the guy who gets a lion to eat someone is smarter than the one who gets eaten. But it's common knowledge that Nero played the lyre or fiddle or something else with strings attached.

Well, whatever it was, he must have played so badly that the Romans burned Rome to the ground just to divert his attention but, as we know, he kept right on playing. Perhaps if the Roman population had been more musical, they might, at least, have been able to count on their fingers if not on their emperors.

Unfortunately with Roman numerals, you had to know your alphabet before you could count on anything at all because all the numbers and letters are mixed together. A kid's report card could have read: VI XXV MMIX. Followed by "Jane came IX out of a class of XXVIII but she might easily have come VI out of a class of XXIV." It's not surprising that they burned the place down.

And talking of counting on fingers, Mark Antony was another famous Roman who was quite smart. In spite of never having the chance to learn the tenor sax, it seems he was keen on math. When he ran out of fingers and toes he asked the Romans to lend him their ears.

But the populace just shuffled their feet and looked at each other quizzically and yelled, "What? What? I can't hear him, what did he say? And when are we going to bury Caesar and not praise him so we can go home to watch 'Roman Idol'?"

Well, kids I hope this has helped you in your quest for knowledge. It's true that things were good for smart kids in the old days. I mean they always received the rewards they deserved for all their musically-attained astuteness, but what about those who goofed off and got an F? Well, they were told they were failures not just lesser winners as they are today. Winners on the other hand were not made to feel they were just better losers that the lesser winners. It was an unfair system where self-esteem had to be earned.

(Aug. 1, 2009)