Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Relationship Between Musical Ability and IQ

My son recently started piano lessons (and loves it,) and it made me curious about the experiences of gifted children learning musical instruments. (I have very little musical knowledge.) Is there a relationship between some part of IQ (verbal or nonverbal) and musical ability? I assume that a certain level of IQ is needed to learn music, but I am curious whether higher IQ translates to higher musical ability or if musical ability is a separate area entirely. Just curious... It's new to me...

Well, my daughter is quite musical. She is more verbally talented, and is just a bit above average in math. My son on the other hand is my "identified" gifted child who is very visual/spatial and more mathematically inclined. He is not very musical, but will remember the key lyrics to some of his favorite songs. Perhaps I just need to give him time to develop musically.

There seems to be some evidence suggesting that musical training increases IQ: http://www.parentingscience.com/music-and-intelligence.html

I don't have a study to refer to, but based on my personal experience my guess would be that IQ and musical ability have only a weak correlation.

I suspect we'd have an innate/growth model issue here and would have to be careful to define our terms and question carefully. For example, my DS is doing well with piano at present and gets described as "talented", but I suspect that, like me, he will turn out to feel that he "really" has only very moderate musical talent - enough to enjoy music socially but not enough to make a career out of it, for example. In the early stages of learning an instrument, a combination of high general intelligence (problem solving ability, applied to decoding music and producing the sound your teacher asks for!) and greater-than-average willingness to work hard (and/or a parent who is willing to enforce it) will let you advance fast, for a while. However, it won't necessarily let you keep up for ever with the person who had typical general intelligence and age-typical application skills but who seemed to know instinctively what sound to produce and how.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you looked at people with say under 5 years of instrument learning, I think you'd find a strong correlation between academic and musical performance levels; however, I think if you looked at the same people 5 years later, you'd find the correlation much weaker.

(All scare quotes in this post are deliberate :-)

One, there have been controlled studies. Piano or string lessons given to average students in a middle to lower class neighborhood in LA, increased IQ 6-7 points in one year and continued to increase the second year. The length of study. It also had a strong correlation with math ability.

The Special Music school, in NYC, doesn't give homework the first year and I noticed their first year math was behind DD's curriculum in regular public school, yet by 6th grade, their math scores outperform every other school in the city.

Ren

I use working memory reason for DD to practice. The gross motor skills, the fine motor skills and the reading of the music combined make for working memory increases. (went to the lecture) And why only piano and strings have the increases. Not brass, or drums or vocal lessons. They tried acting lessons too in the study, which improved confidence but nothing for IQ.

On a side, DD happens to be a bit of prodigy on the piano and math is definitely her most gifted part. And she is visual spatial. And for many of the noted "genius'" they do have the piano ability and tend to be math/physic gifted, like Kit Armstrong, Per Enflo. And did you know that Terrance Tao has a brother, Trevor, with double degrees in music and math. He is an autistic savant. I think that is really interesting if you want to look at a developmental connection.

Ren

Music is really numerical patterns translated into sound right? Or perhaps you should say sound translated into numerical patterns? I would think that mathematically gifted kids might excel for this reason, but things like tone and expression might not be different for them than for others.

I wouldn't be able to answer for brass, but:

- Vocal music requires very little understanding of music. You don't have to understand keys, chords, or scales, since these things pretty much take care of themselves by ear. The actual notes, intervals, and rhythms can also be learned entirely by ear and repetition, with sheet music providing some relative hints. You don't need to know that an interval is a third or a fifth, though... the sheet music can be just a guide, like "up a little here" or "up more here."

- Drums are more a physical activity than a mental one.

I find this very interesting as our string obsessed almost 4 year old seems much more interested in language/sciences and shows little interest at all in math (so far).
He has been learning violin and loves it. I love it because apart from any other reason he has to practice and actually work (a little) at something. His IQ has allowed him to concentrate for longer periods, read music etc but many in out family are musical so he may have learnt an instrument without the high IQ but we wouldn't have started at 3!