I feel musicians tend to make the best traders. And yes, I mean musicians in a very androgynous way. Trading is much more art than science. A lot of engineers pinpoint and factual people tend to over-complicate trading and want it to have all this concreteness that simply isn’t there. Understandably, engineers, if you build a bridge, pipeline or dam, you really cannot afford to be wrong.
I was racking my brain, trying to figure out why musicians in particular make the best traders. I didn’t want to say “Oh, well, it’s because they are creative and musicians can peer into the soul of life.” That is a little too deep and whimsical. I will likely stumble upon a lot of stereotypes about musicians in the next few paragraphs.
Yes, if you are a singer, I will classify you as a musician because your voice is your instrument. At my last place of employment, 40% of the employees are musicians. As in professional musicians. We even have one of the top cello players in the world (based on my opinion). He is much more humble but what do I know, I’m a simple pedestrian in our highway of talent in our office. I only play one instrument quite effectively: the FM dial.
LOOK AT THE LINES
Have you ever seen sheet music? Now, if the image below contains a horrible song or any profanity, I apologize. This might as well be hieroglyphs smeared in mustard to me. Look at the page for a moment though. It oddly resembles support and resistance lines, right?
LIKE A BAR CHART
And the notes resemble bar charts. Again, this is all my opinion, but maybe those who can read sheet music can pick up on technical analysis very quickly. I’m not sure if this is ignorance or not, but if you claim to be a musician and you can’t read sheet music you’re not a true musician. Now you might be incredible performer but you are not a professional. That’s like claiming to be a chef and not knowing the menu of your restaurant.
TAKE IT EASY
Musicians also tend to stress out less than most. Music heals the soul and calms the beast inside of us all. Therefore they tend to work and live with a sense of enlightenment and calmness.
That same gift can also be a curse for some musicians. As a general consensus, musicians tend to procrastinate and rarely develop a sense of urgency and proper time management skills. There is always the exception. And as a dichotomy of traits, you know a great musician has the ability to really put time and energy into learning something. I tried playing the guitar for 6 months. I liked it at first and comparing the initial struggles to beginning traders, it was the conditioning that I lacked. The simple discipline of doing it over and over until I mastered the craft. (As a separate excuse, for a man’s man, I have very weak thumbs. I know that’s quite an odd statement to make at this point in our relationship but it’s the truth.)
LOOKING WITHIN
In my past interviews, anytime I was asked “Jerremy, what would you say your two biggest weaknesses are?” I reply “my thumbs and my spelling.” I am a horrible speller. At times it takes me a solid three to four minutes to just get close enough so Google knows what the heck I am trying to spell. Last week, I couldn’t figure out how to spell apropos and at some point, I asked the famous cello player who sits next to me in the office. He’s quite good at spelling and well, everything else really.
Without digressing much further, musicians have a real knack for picking up trading quickly and becoming quite good if enough time is devoted. I think this does boil down to certain cognitive abilities, the ability to be semi-patient and potentially have an initial leg up on other traders when it comes to learning line drawing and the basics of technical analysis, due in part, to their work with sheet music.
For now, I will continue to be the greatest, most innovative air instrument player you are likely to ever meet. I have a wide range of musical instruments that I will “air jam” on, quite diverse indeed. I will still adamantly suggest to struggling traders, as a professional musician will to a pupil, if you want to master the craft, master the art. To master the instrument you have to condition yourself to do so. This can sometimes take the better part of one year to solidly feel comfortable with your lines, analysis, and confident in your decisions.
ITS ALWAYS CHANGING
The market moves every day, every hour, and every second. It’s always changing, adapting and moving in an organic way. If you, as a trader, do not change, learn, grow, adapt and condition yourself every day, hour, or second, those who do will make the market their play ground.
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