Bill Pirkle wrote:

>This might be a good question for this well-informed list (see post
>subject).  Is there something about the wiring of the brain that
>facilitates becoming a great composer or is it their exposure to
>music and opportunity to explore it - nature or nurture?.
>
>If nurture, nearly anyone could be taken in hand at an early age, say 3,
>and given the knowledge to write great music.
>
>If nature, only a genetically endowed brain has a chance of becoming
>anything beyond mediocre composers.

Here we go again.  I've written at length about this this subject before
so my views are probably well know to most listers.  But, as I find this
an interesting topic it probably won't hurt to reiterate and consolidate
some of the things I believe in.

Firstly the answer to the question is clearly NURTURE.  Some people would
have you believe it is nature or genes but I think that such ascertions
are usually motivated in a personal belief in superiority of themselves
of someone they admire eg Mozart.

The search for an intelligence gene has been fraught with problems.
Although one researcher claims to have found one he had to correct (cook?)
his data after at first no result was detected.  Even the modified data
showed only a small correlation between intelligence (as measured by tests)
and genes as displayed by identical twins separated at birth.  Said twins
are incredibly rare and so the sample size is always very small.  This
researcher (name forgotten) admits that even if a gene is found it will
account for only a small circa 20% of the test result.

In the 50s a British researcher at London university (name again forgotten)
claimed to have proven a link between families and intelligence using
separated twins.  But later it was found that he faked the data after
suspicion arose because it was known that the number of twins was so
small.  Such is the desparation of these people to prove their superiority.

Let me also remind you all about Dolly the cloned sheep which has a quite
different personality from its twin and the warning given by pet cloners
in the US that owners should not expect their pet clones to behave like
the originals.  Surely this is damning evidence.

In the above reasononing my view is that one could replace the word
Intelligence with musical ability without spoiling the argument.

Another researcher has shown that peer groups have a huge affect on
childhood development.  So send your child to school of music if you
want them to become a musician.

Yet another education researcher has shown that it is possible to raise
the IQs of young deprived kids from the ghettos by many points simply by
repeating the ascertion to them that they CAN do well.


>Some criteria:
>
>- Perfect pitch, whether learned or inherited doesn't seem to matter (see
>previous thread).
>- Mozart wrote with ease, while others struggled. (It might be that some
>genres are easier to write than   others)

I have already pointed that Mozart was hot-housed by Leopold.  This
accounts for his apparent ability to write with ease also shared by the
priviliged Mendellsohn.

Whether one finds the results agreeable is another matter!

>- Some composers came from musical families, others did not

Yes and most doctors are sons of doctors.  Does this mean there is a
medical gene? Of course not.

>- Some people have a sense of rhythm, some don't (can this be learned?)

Undoubtably.  Just like any skill it is best learn't young.  But that's all
it is a skill.

>- Some composers started late in life

Yes and in general my own view is that these usually produce superior
music.  That is because IMO music is about emotion and a certain maturity
is needed before we can articulate our feeling well.

>- Some composers were also good at drawing

Hot-housing again.

>- Some composers were obliged to follow more rules of music than others by
>attitudes of the time.

Peer pressure again.

>- Some composers were very clumbsy at other things
>- Most composers tend to be a bit rebellious

These fit in with the idealised model which is more about a romantic view
of our heroes that reality.

>- Some had easy lives, some had hard lives.

Yes and this fact reflects in the music that they wrote.

>Is it both?.  Great composers were fortunate to have the right brain and
>the right nuturing.  If this is true the 2 questions above still are
>appropriate.  What are these things?

Let me remind you of another recent piece of research that showed that
London taxi drivers' brains actually grew to suit the task of holding image
maps in their heads.  So, now the question of "right brain" becomes one of
nuturing again.

>We surely know enough about past and present composers to get a sense
>of this.  Apart from a love of music, is there annything they all had in
>common?

Yes exposure to music at some stage.  But again as I have pointed out
before when it comes to the question of reverence for composers different
criteria are applied to different people.  So the quest to find a
commonality becomes futile when people are already bending the rules
to suit their own ends.

>I will start the discussion with this bold statement "A healthy virgin
>brain can be shaped to be anything including another Beethoven, Mozart, or
>Chopin.  Its the knowledge - stupid" (not offensively meant).  Am I wrong?

Bill you are spot on here.  But I suspect some people will not want to hear
the truth.

Bob Draper