There is ample evidence that a person may have an innate musical talent. According to research, about 50% of musical talents are inherited. But this is by no means a necessary condition for success.
Also, even if you were born into a musical family, you will still need to learn and practice playing an instrument to play well. Overall, according to Brian Nichols, associate professor of music and conductor at Pennsylvania State University, musical excellence comes from a combination of lots of practice and quality education.
What role can genetics play in success? Many great musicians are indeed relatives of other famous musicians. There is also such a thing as absolute pitch. It allows you to easily identify which note you hear and is also inheritable. However, this is not a necessary condition to be a great musician.
Many people are actually born with certain musical abilities. According to talents, the author of the article understands that he has the talent or potential to achieve success in music. There is also mastery gained by working on the development of abilities.
To acquire musical skills (required to play an instrument), you need to have at least some basic musical skills. For example, having a sense of rhythm, distinguishing the pitch of sounds. However, in this context, people exaggerate the role of genetics, as many, with rare exceptions, can set the pitch and feel the rhythm.
A study of children’s musicality by Nichols found that singing skills tended to be somewhat distributed among the population. Most people can be called “average” singers, and only a few sing poorly or perfectly. The same goes for the sense of rhythm.
At the same time, the more you improve any one skill (for example, a sense of rhythm), the more you will improve in some other musical skills. This is most likely due to the fact that musical experience in principle develops musical abilities.
Success in music also depends on innate talent, but only before you start mastering the instrument. After that, the development of skills can be influenced by lessons in playing a musical instrument, frequent lessons, a musical family.
At the same time, a large amount of practice cannot change a person’s potential. But if you do something over and over again, you’ll eventually get better at it. And that can be very important to most kids.
Socio-economic factors can also affect the success of a musician. For example, a study by Brian Nichols found that high-income college students who grew up in high-income families and had more musical experience outperform their low-income peers.
Source: Ferra
