Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Musical kids?

I have a question for those of you with musically talented as well as gifted kids. Do you feel your child is musically gifted or more generally gifted?

I have been wondering this about my 6 year old. She started playing violin at 4 and piano few months ago. We are not a musical family and it puzzles me that it seems like she is quite talented. Everything just seems so easy for her, like she was born with the violin. I'm wondering if it is mostly just her ability to learn (anything/everything) really fast or maybe she has more spesific musical talent as well.

We have not tested her so we do not know is she truly gifted or not. She has always been ahead and a really fast learner.

I have known every combination of intellectually gifted and musically gifted, from gifted in both, to gifted in one, to gifted in neither. Intellectual giftedness helps with the knowledge component of music (reading music for an instrument, memorizing lyrics, music theory and history), but it can't substitute for intonation, rhythm, and musicality (artistry and emotion). One can be a good musician with only the latter set, but not the former.

DD9 composed a piece of music that won an award. She impresses with her guitar play even though it's very much an off-and-on hobby. And she was recently selected to join her school chorus. I still wouldn't call any of her skills in any one area of music beyond "basic," but comparing with what's normal for 9, she's well ahead. So although she looks nothing like a prodigy (mostly because she's not willing to put in the hours, and we're not willing to compel her to), she definitely has talent.

The best term to describe our DD is "globally gifted," because she does a lot of things, and everything she decides to do, she does well.

My dd is much like Dude's; she seems to just be astonishingly good at more or less everything she tries, and really, whatever she turns her interest toward. She is certainly musically gifted, but I would say rather modestly so, comparatively. She isn't natural prodigy level, and also like dude's family, we aren't going to do what it might take to tap this particular well of ability.

When my youngest was a few months old, I took him along to the symphony when I was chaperoning one of the older children's field trip. Several people, including myself, noticed that he moved to the off beat in the music and responded to the different cadences. When he was walking, he would crawl up on the stool of our piano and pluck the keys and create simple songs. As he got older, they became more nuanced. We bought him a keyboard for his third birthday, and he's been composing music ever since. He chose percussion in band in middle school, so he has an electronic drum set as well. He doesn't like to practice, and I had no goal for making him practice or learn conventionally, so it's completely self-exploration.

Mine "looks" musically talented, but I have the feeling - which may be projection! - that he is so through general intelligence, rather than through "really" being particularly musically talented. I think he will be overtaken by more and more of those with more specialised gifts, especially as he reaches an age where his ability to focus isn't so unusual.

But like anything, achievement feeds enjoyment feeds effort feeds achievement, so who knows. I do see a very striking difference between how DS progresses in music and in maths, though.

I too wondered if DD's music teachers were responding to DD's general ability to learn quickly or if she's in fact actually talented in music. Her rhythm and intonation are flawless but I'm not sure it they were innately perfect or if she picked them up along the way. Her musicality really stands out but again, she could have learned that through observations and active listening.

I'm trying to maintain some balance in her life but it's been challenging. Even at the height of her math obsession, which was bad enough, she was never this extreme. With music, she seems possessed.

So, perhaps, she has some musical talent but, given her age, this interest of hers could be here today and gone tomorrow.

In my case as well as in my kids' cases, we looked musically talented but I believe it is an issue of effectively leveraging high intelligence in all our cases and an issue of superior fine motor skills for my DD and I. Of course, it helps that we are not rhythm or pitch challenged.

The difference between the two are clear to me although I recognize that not everyone has the same criteria. For example, I was great at sight-reading so just looked good out of the gate but would have to employ a lot of trial and error to correctly reproduce/notate a song that I heard on the radio. However, I had a friend who can listen to a song on the radio once and reproduce it on an instrument but can't sight-read to save his life. To me, he is clearly musically talented while me not so much.

My DS is musically talented - highly so - but, he is also equally talented at other things. So, I tend to think that he is using his intellect to master an instrument just as he is doing with other things.
For a gifted child, given the right opportunities, the right challenges and a lot of time to work on them, music also becomes something that they can learn at a high level using their intellect. My child scores highly on the "emotional" and "artistry" part of his music in his exams and auditions - this is not surprising because he has a good teacher who teaches these things - and DS uses his intellect to memorize her expressions and technique and is able to convincingly express almost the same things in his auditions. He is too young to understand lost loves, wars, treachery and tragedies - but, he has seen what the teacher expresses and he is a very good mimic But, give him Star Wars or Harry Potter, then he comes up with his own inspired rendition of the piece!

These girls are, in my humble opinion, musical prodigies. Perhaps, they are also intellectually gifted but regardless, they have exceptional musical talent.

I don't want to dismiss DD's musical ability because she isn't on a trajectory to reach their level by age 9 (that remains to be seen but I highly doubt it both in term of innate talent and parental involvement). Our goal was never to produce a prodigy but it was to encourage DD to believe in her ability to create something beautiful. So, while I am happy with whatever progress DD makes, our expenses are getting out of control. DD only had 3 piano lessons but her teacher is already talking about DD needing to practice on a high-quality grand piano in a near future. Right. Sure. Money grows on trees for us too. If music truly is her calling and she's going to pursue it seriously, I can somehow justify paying for her tuition (grand piano...not really) but if it's going be one of many interests then we definitely need to scale back so we'll have fund left for other enrichments. I wish we had a crystal ball to look into the future.

ETA: My point being, if we were to listen to DD's teachers, DD has enough talent to reach whatever goals she sets in her musical career but I still believe her general developmental curve is throwing them off.