My DH is extremely musically talented and won many competitions as a child and teen. It's been hard for him to see that our DD does not seem to be musically talented. In fact, he was worried she was tone deaf. She absolutely is not--she simply is an average singer. He just doesn't understand that an average child takes a while to learn to sing on key--but she improved dramatically from say, age 6 to 9. She also doesn't seem to have much rhythm.

However--and this is interesting--she has been composing music since she was tiny. She had us write down songs when she was two. She was in a music camp this summer where they formed bands, and her band's song (music and lyrics) was written almost entirely by her. The counselors also commented on her songwriting.

I've given her access to my MP3 player, since it has a recording feature, and she records musical snippets all the time. Again, her singing voice is average at best, but when you can hear what she's after, you realize it's good.

So this is all kind of interesting. She's an extraordinarily creative kid, though.