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.

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.

I must have missed this first time through the thread...that is very impressive!!! hope she is writing more music