Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Age or Ability Specific Forums music ability and visual spatial giftedness

Kit Armstong is scheduled to play at our club next month so I was reading about him. And he seems your stereotypical PG++ that was protrayed in that movie Vitus or Little Man Tate with the natural prodigy talents at the piano.

Since DD has been noted as gifted for music, with inclinations towards piano, I was wondering if it was just an adjunct of visual spatial giftedness. Why the stereotypical protrayal of these PG kids that are also piano prodigies?

I was wondering if anyone had the correlational studies? But I think it may not be available, since in our case, we were in a situation in NYC where the piano lessons were pushed. We just wanted her in Music & Movement and then group piano. But gave up after 2 lessons in group piano. So if you were not in the environment, maybe you wouldn't expose your kid. Although DD did stand at her Barbie piano at 2 and play the scale, seriously from C to C, just slowly listening, we didn't see her just start playing Mozart or something. We knew there was interest and some ability.

Anyway, just curious how much people have noticed a correlation.

Ren

What I have observed with my own children, it's not that their gifted at one thing, it seems to be if I put them in something they like, they learn it well (not to a professional level accept maybe dance). Dance, art, paino, iceskating. So I'm thinking if their gifted and they have an interest, all you need to do is put them in a class with a good teacher and they learn it. Also with their personalities once they are in something they like they are obsessive about learning it well.

Interesting. As another data point, my DS6 (untested, crazily mathematically precocious, but I would guess much more audio-sequential than visio-spatial) has been learning piano since September. He's doing well, but not, I think, exceptionally well. (That is, he seems to be further on than other children I know who started at the same time, but he still sounds like someone who started less than a year ago!) FWIW, this is the same experience I had as a child - people always say that maths and music go together, and for me in terms of enjoyment they did, but in terms of performing ability not so much! I always felt that what I was missing was some kind of motor skills element - I just couldn't produce exactly the sounds in my head - but perhaps it is about the audio-sequential/visio-spatial axis.

It's been my (very limited) experience that intelligence and ability to learn music are very highly correlated. Sometimes there is musical ability w/o high intelligence (or perhaps a very uneven intelligence - such as an intelligent child with a learning disability) but rarely is there high intelligence without an above average ability to learn an instrument.


I think a lot of the math = music thing has to do with how you learn those things. Both require practice, practice, practice and both are typically taught at a very low level in most schools. So you are going to see math and music achievement paired in the same children because they are from families who create the necessary environments.

I think this is an excellent point.

I had a son start piano at 5, and it took a while for those motor skills to develop. Once they did, he took off. For him, he enjoys piano but does not choose to practice on his own even at 9. He does play on his own - he composes, improvises, pieces together music from video games. But he wouldn't necessarily pick up his Clementi Sonatina books and start cranking them out. He did eat up a book of Harry Potter movie music about a year ago though! He does have certain songs that he eats up, and we do go in phases in terms of highs and lows (he just hit the 4 year mark).

I also consider him highly VS (although, he does seem pretty balanced in his GT-ness. I'm too cheap to have full testing done but suspect he could be a DYS candidate on a good day.) Anyway, he is precocious as a piano player. A lot of his work in piano has to do with hand size and technique.

All that being said, we go to a large, somewhat intense and competitive music school. There are a few kids DS's age where he is at. Some are clearly very gifted across the board as well. But some of them are just very intense and are working twice as hard. We practice a low to average amount for our demanding instructor for DS's level. But the teacher has pulled me aside and assumed we were practicing a lot more than we are. Anyway - it's interesting to think about. And clearly the GTness has given my kid an edge in learning piano. But he doesn't have the passion for it some other kids have.

Yes, me too - it certainly is!

Just another example to add to the mix. My dd9 is moderately gifted with her strongest quality by far being verbal skills. She has picked up the piano very quickly but interestingly, and not surprisingly, it is the "reading" of music that comes easily to her. Her rhythm is not very good but her reading is so good that she comes out ahead.

Kids are funny!

From our perspective, it's one of those sayings that you wish you had a dollar for every time it was said. In the case of our DS, brilliant at maths, not remotely interested in music.

Ha ha ha
In our case DS9 is brilliant at piano with math being his weakest area!

He didn't have a burning desire to start piano a year ago, but I thought it would be good for him based on the whole "math = music" idea. I also think that I started him on piano based on his intelligence rather than a natural talent. Now he composes his own simple songs and like Kimck's DS, pieces together theme music...Star Wars is a favorite! I don't think it's a passion for him, and it comes easily, but he will sit at the piano and plunk out a song he heard someone else play until he has it mastered.

His verbal skills are much stronger than math, but he also has perfect pitch and timing, which helps. I think it's different for every child.