{"id":30848,"date":"2022-08-31T00:18:00","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T00:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=30848"},"modified":"2022-09-02T05:56:07","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T05:56:07","slug":"excelling-as-a-musician-takes-practice-and-requires-opportunities-not-just-lucky-genes-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/excelling-as-a-musician-takes-practice-and-requires-opportunities-not-just-lucky-genes-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Excelling as a musician takes practice and requires opportunities \u2013 not just lucky genes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Bryan Nichols<\/a>, Penn State<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What makes talented musicians so good at what they do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s plenty of evidence that people can be born that way. Research findings suggest that about half of musical ability is inherited<\/a>. Even if that\u2019s true, it doesn\u2019t mean you must have musical talent in your genes to excel on the bass, oboe or drums.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And even if you\u2019re fortunate enough to belong to a family that includes musicians, you would still need to study, practice and get expert guidance to play well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a music professor and conductor<\/a>, I\u2019ve seen the role that practice and experience play in propelling musicians toward mastery and success. There are some factors that help a musician get started \u2013 and heredity could be one of them. But musical skill is ultimately a complex interplay between lots of practice and high-quality instruction<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role genes can play<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of course many great musicians, including some who are world famous, are related to other musical stars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Liza Minnelli, the famed actress, singer and dancer, is one of the late entertainer Judy Garland\u2019s three children<\/a>. Jon Batiste<\/a> \u2013 \u201cThe Late Show\u201d bandleader, pianist and composer who has won Emmy, Oscar and Golden Globe awards \u2013 has at least 25 musicians in his family. Saxophonist Branford, trumpeter Wynton, trombonist Delfeayo and drummer Jason Marsalis are the sons of pianist Ellis Marsalis<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Singer and pianist Norah Jones<\/a> is the daughter of Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar<\/a>, though Jones had little contact with her renowned father while growing up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Absolute pitch, also known as perfect pitch, is the ability to recognize and name any note you hear anywhere. Researchers have found that it may be hereditary<\/a>. But do you need it to be a great musician? Not really. https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/b9-0oq6Zz5g?wmode=transparent&start=0 Judy Garland and Liza Minelli, mother and daughter, singing together.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most people are born with some musical ability<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I define musical ability as the possession of talent or potential \u2013 the means to achieve something musical.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then there\u2019s skill, which I define as what you attain by working at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You need at least some basic musical ability to acquire musical skills. Unless you can hear and discern pitches and rhythms, you can\u2019t reproduce them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But people may overestimate the role of genetics because, with very rare exceptions, almost everyone can perceive pitches<\/a> and rhythms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My research regarding children\u2019s musicality suggests measures of singing skills are normally distributed<\/a> in the population. That is, pitch ability follows a bell curve<\/a>: Most people are average singers. Not many are way below average or excellent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My team\u2019s most recent research suggests that this distribution is true for rhythm<\/a> in addition to pitch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not surprisingly, some musical skills are correlated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The more training you have on specific musical skills, the better you\u2019ll test on certain others<\/a>. This is probably because musical experience enhances other musical abilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To sum it up, an emerging body of research indicates that practice doesn\u2019t make perfect. But for most people, it helps a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Violin
Violin teacher Ellen Kim says jelly beans make a great motivational tool for her students. Stormi Greener\/Star Tribune via Getty Images<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Lessons and practice are essential<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What about people who say they they can\u2019t keep a beat? It turns out that they almost always can track a steady beat to music. They just haven\u2019t done it enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Indeed, the last time I gave a nonbeliever our lab\u2019s test for rhythm perception, she performed excellently. For that and for singing, some people just need a little help<\/a> to move past assumptions they lack talent: You can\u2019t say you\u2019re incapable of something if you haven\u2019t spent time trying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some researchers and journalists have promoted<\/a> the idea it takes 10,000 hours of practice or training to master<\/a> a new skill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Innate ability puts people at different starting lines toward musical mastery. But once you\u2019ve started to study an instrument or singing style, skill development depends on many other factors. Getting lessons, practicing often and being in a musical family may make those more likely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, Lizzo, a hip-hop superstar and classically trained flute player, had the luck to grow up in family of music lovers<\/a>. They all had their own taste in music. Her success is a microcosm of why a well-rounded musical education for young people matters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The singers in the choir I lead at Penn State have a range of experience, from a little to a lot. Yet soon after they join it, they develop the ability to pick a good key and starting pitch<\/a> as they get to know their own voices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Practicing more doesn\u2019t change your baseline potential, it just changes what you can presently do. That is, if you practice a specific song over and over again, eventually you\u2019re going to get better at it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jonathon Heyward, the Baltimore Symphony\u2019s new conductor, who has no musicians in his family<\/a>, has worked really hard to excel. He started taking cello lessons at age 10 and hasn\u2019t stopped since, playing and practicing and studying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Privilege can play a role<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Socioeconomic factors can also enter the equation. While conducting research, I\u2019ve seen high-income college students from high-income families, with more years of musical experience, perform better than their classmates who have lower-income backgrounds and had fewer opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Genes can give someone a head start. At the same time, having a quiet space where you can practice on an acoustic instrument or a digital workstation might make a more decisive difference for the musical prospects of most children. The same goes for having money for private lessons or access to free classes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even so, many of the best musicians, including jazz greats Louis Armstrong<\/a> and Billie Holiday<\/a>, grew up facing many hardships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the right conditions for practice and gaining experience, who knows where the next Liza or Lizzo will come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bryan Nichols<\/a>, Associate Professor of Music, Penn State<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bryan Nichols, Penn State What makes talented musicians so good at what they do? There\u2019s plenty of evidence that people can be born that way. Research findings suggest that about half of musical ability is inherited. Even if that\u2019s true, it doesn\u2019t mean you must have musical talent in your genes to excel on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":30849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[293,292],"tags":[3006,269,12332,12331,53,5975,12330,5884],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30848"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30972,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30848\/revisions\/30972"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}