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

This discussion has become really timely for us. Yesterday we had a conference with our piano teacher. This is a once a year event. Our piano teacher just raved on and on about my DS and said he is very naturally musical and one of 2 students of his that is consistently a joy to work with (out of 50 very good students). He has great aspirations for him as he goes on and where he'll be at when he reaches high school age (my eyes glaze over at this point - I'm on the 6 month evaluate plan ). Every time I talk to him, I have to remind him about the whole GT thing because DS is so nonchalant about the whole thing. My DS is also very non-competitive. He could care less what other kids are doing or playing. He just does his own thing and races along at his own pace quite comfortably. Again, I had to tell him he's practicing a very average amount and I don't tie the kid to the piano.

Anyway - hearing someone else talk about my child like this definitely pops me out of my happy GT denial bubble momentarily! It's so easy to stay in it when you homeschool. Back to regularly scheduled denial.

For the record, my DS is very mathy. I have a math degree and he figures out multi-step problems in his head I need paper for. But I am also proof happy!

This caught my attention, because I was just doing a math riddle book with my highly verbal DS5, and when we came to a page that had music notation on it, I discovered that he was able to read much of it. I don't know the first thing about music and had no idea he had learned any of this, but apparently it's part of his kindergarten music curriculum and he has soaked it up. I'm now thinking of starting lessons this year.

Follow up.

We found out that DD did not get into the Special Music School. Terribly upset about the "rejection" but after 5 minutes, I realized that I am glad she didn't. Although it is a good gifted school, I really couldn't see me making the decision to center DD's life around the piano. You have to sign a contract agreeing the practice schedule. Starting with 30 minutes in K, progressing 30 minutes each year until you get to 3 hours a day. And have two 45 minute lessons a week.

DD is obsessed with ballet and wanted to try out for the NYC ballet school though they also have a 9/1 DOB cut off so she has to wait until next year when she will be 6. She loves her gymnastics and she takes Mandarin. I cannot imagine how she would fit in the practice and still have that time to hang upside down in the playground with her friends.

How that rationalization for the rejection?

My second reaction was to check out Speyer but again they have the 9/1 cut-off and DD would have redo K.

So we are still waiting on OLSAT but won't get those results until late April. Even if she scores well, you go into the lottery for the few seats available.

And this is when I say I am glad for this board, because I now have a back up plan. We are in the zone for one of 2 best public schools in NYC for K-5. And we are just hiring someone and set up an EPGY program to keep her math advanced and supplement with Mandarin, science, music and the other.

Ren

Ren ... really sorry to read that. NY has so many great resources but the downside is the amount of people trying to get in. From my understanding it is a stressful situation to say the least and from the list you provided you are probably right that the commitment would be a lot for her. I'm sure you will find a great program for her. Crossing my fingers for you.

I love that she is learning Mandarin. It is on our list for our DD but right now we are focusing on Spanish and she will also be learning French starting next year. Not sure when we should add Mandarin.

Our 4.5yd old son is PG and there's certainly musical ability evident. I think memory plays a key role in this as he's got absolute pitch which allows him to learn faster. We gave him an electric keyboard as he'd been playing with a cheap one which sounded bad. Figured if he's playing with it, let him hear clear notes. It has a little screen. Within a week he'd taught himself the notes and was moving onto chords.

We've started him on violin (Suzuki) as learning something hard seems a valuable lesson. It's been extremely tough to get him to practice but he's developing his own enthusiasm for it. He'll sometimes play a tune he's not practiced at all - just by listening to the notes he remembers, but getting him to do that on command, or even play the simple things can be almost impossible at times.

In the long run we don't have aspirations for him to be a career musician, but music seems like a great way to meet other similar people and it's usually a group activity.

He does LOVE maths. I personally think it's important to say to yourself that if your child decides they want to be a ticket collector at the opera rather than the lead violinist, and it's what makes them happy, great. Happiness is the real achievement.

We're not sure but think he's visual spacial. Is there a straight-forward way to figure this out?

There's definitely something to the math-music correlation that goes beyond just practicing a lot. My son has a love of math and a love of music too, but love isn't even quite the right word. It's almost like his brain is obsessed with notes. He will hear classical music and then hum the notes repeatedly afterwards that almost seems like OCD. He tells me that when he can't sing notes, he 'sings them in his mind'. I haven't put him in music classes yet, just bought a radio/CD player and when he's had a hard day I tell him to chill out with some music.

I have a mathy visual learner who has good rhythm in his mind. His piano playing sounds ok, but I think it may be rather affected by his slow motor abilities. That's just a guess.

Oh my gosh, Clementi's Sonatinas were my favourite!!

My DD7 is PG and we just started her in piano last year. She 'gets' it, as her piano teacher says... she just doesn't care too much about it. She memorizes the notes in about 2 minutes and then plays without looking at the music. Sometimes she gets note value and rhythm right, sometimes not. But she picks up on new concepts really quickly. She wants to play the violin so badly. We had hoped to get 2 years of piano before viloin but now we are rethinking that. Maybe that would motivate her? Who knows?

I try really hard to stay away when she is practicing piano. It drives her crazy when I point things out and it drives me crazy when she won't read the music. It is better all the way around if Dad practices with her!

My daughter, 12, who hated piano lessons is now in band. She is also in a percussion group in town. They had a concert and she ended up lead on bells with a beautiful piece that my husband with a huge music background did not recognize. He asked the instructor and he said that she wrote it. She never told us. She does not say as much since puberty hit. We were floored. She must have picked up something along the way regarding composition.

DD14 isn't really a visual spatial person, but more of a "numbers" person as far as mathy things go. (Numbers=Words>Pictures is kind of how her abilities go)
She is, though, musically gifted. She writes beautiful music, plays popular songs by ear, and can play 6 instruments, and that's just because that's all we let her get . Trumpet is coming up once she gets the money...
She isn't, though, a "classical music" person. She is above average on her ability to play classical music, I'd say, but compared to her "by ear" side, it hardly even compares. Then again, that could probably be because she spends an hour or an hour and a half playing piano every day, and no less than 95% of that is spent playing things she *wasn't* assigned (By her piano teacher), and just improvising things, so that could be a reason she doesn't ever make too much progress on her piano lessons stuff.