Nature vs. Nurture: Understanding Sources of Musical Talent Essay Example
Nature vs. Nurture: Understanding Sources of Musical Talent
Patrick Usher
Penn State University
December 14, 2010
Nature vs. Nurture: Understanding Sources of Musical Talent
As a major in music composition, I spend a great deal of time meeting with many musicians of various musical disciplines. It is an obvious fact that musical talent is diverse throughout different musicians, and between these musicians and students in different academic departments, but the source of such diversity has been a mystery for decades. What causes musical talent to flourish in some, while others find different areas of expertise for their education? The study of such intangibles has been defined as “technical achievement”, which can also be applied to skills other than musical, other popular trends in research being talent in mathematics and athletics. As Levitin (2006) points out, scientists seeking an answer as to whether these talents are scientifically justifiable “define talent as something (1) that originates in genetic structures; (2) that is identifiable at an early stage by trained people who can recognize it even before exceptional levels of performance have been acquired; (3) that can be used to predict who is likely to excel; and (4) that only a minority can be identified as having,” There have been some interesting studies with musicality. More specifically, with a trait called perfect, or absolute, pitch. Perfect pitch can be a great trait for musicians; it gives you the ability to identify any musical note. Research suggests that this trait may depend on genes ("nature") and a young exposure to music ("nurture"). It turns out that nearly half of musicians who started music before age four end up with perfect pitch, while those that are starting musical study after age nine decrease their chance of having perfect pitch to three percent (Shenk 2007). But throughout all of these divisions of scientific inquiry, the same question arises: What
Patrick Usher
Penn State University
December 14, 2010
Nature vs. Nurture: Understanding Sources of Musical Talent
As a major in music composition, I spend a great deal of time meeting with many musicians of various musical disciplines. It is an obvious fact that musical talent is diverse throughout different musicians, and between these musicians and students in different academic departments, but the source of such diversity has been a mystery for decades. What causes musical talent to flourish in some, while others find different areas of expertise for their education? The study of such intangibles has been defined as “technical achievement”, which can also be applied to skills other than musical, other popular trends in research being talent in mathematics and athletics. As Levitin (2006) points out, scientists seeking an answer as to whether these talents are scientifically justifiable “define talent as something (1) that originates in genetic structures; (2) that is identifiable at an early stage by trained people who can recognize it even before exceptional levels of performance have been acquired; (3) that can be used to predict who is likely to excel; and (4) that only a minority can be identified as having,” There have been some interesting studies with musicality. More specifically, with a trait called perfect, or absolute, pitch. Perfect pitch can be a great trait for musicians; it gives you the ability to identify any musical note. Research suggests that this trait may depend on genes ("nature") and a young exposure to music ("nurture"). It turns out that nearly half of musicians who started music before age four end up with perfect pitch, while those that are starting musical study after age nine decrease their chance of having perfect pitch to three percent (Shenk 2007). But throughout all of these divisions of scientific inquiry, the same question arises: What