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. 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) - Some composers came from musical families, others did not - Some people have a sense of rhythm, some don't (can this be learned?) - Some composers started late in life - Some composers were also good at drawing - Some composers were obliged to follow more rules of music than others by attitudes of the time. - Some composers were very clumbsy at other things - Most composers tend to be a bit rebellious - Some had easy lives, some had hard lives. Now, if nature, what natural skills are needed (that can't be learned) - natural sense of rhythm, natural sense of form and architecture, etc.? What percentage of the population has these traits? Now, if nurture, what must be learned learned, experienced or suffered through to become a great composer? 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? 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? What have great composers said on this subject? Is musical talent just a reflection of one's knowledge about music theory and internals? I would exempt one aspect of music from this and that is so called "muscular intelligence" and natural co-ordination, which may or may not be learnable (I think it can be). But that more rightly applies to the question "Are great performers born or made". We might do that one later. 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 Pirkle