Home The Nature and Objective of Aesthetics Art and the Artist The Art Work The Art Work in the Making The Creative Mind The Nature of Musical Talent The Mind of Genius The Personality of Genius Genius, Intelligence, and Temperament Artistic Genius and Temperament Genius, Disease, Drink and Drugs Genius, The Child and The Woman Art and the Artist Art and the Layman The Experience of Beauty Beauty in Music Painting Poetry	THE NATURE OF MUSICAL TALENT Investigations on the nature of musical talent are based upon two facts amply supported by the experiences of those who train the prospective musical artist, namely, that artistic musical performance rests, in the end, upon an innate equipment which is bestowed by nature upon human beings unequally, and that this equipment, or talent, is not a single power, but consists of a cluster of specific powers, all of which one must possess to a high and somewhat equal degree in order to attain any position above mediocrity as a performer. Thus, one of the greatest violin masters and teachers of this generation expressed himself to the effect that: "One great mistake lies in the failure of so large a majority of those who decide to devote themselves to music--to learning some string instrument, the violin, for example--to ascertain at the very outset whether nature has adequately supplied them with the necessary tools for what they have in mind." What these tools or innate powers are has been derived from three sources. Piet Mondrian The first source that shed some light on the factors of musical artistry was the examination of children of outstanding musical endowment. These children were subjected to various tests in order to determine what were their outstanding qualities as potential musicians. A concrete case will serve to illustrate this procedure. Pepito Arriola was a noted Spanish prodigy. When three and a half years of age he played twenty piano pieces from memory, having learned these by ear. He could play a selection after two or three hearings and would also reproduce on the piano that which had been sung to him, and supply the melody with an accompaniment. What he once played he never forgot. He readily improvised on the piano, and his productions of this type showed a marked feeling for form and structure, while his interpretations of musical works showed unusual musical insight. Intellectually Pepito was developed far beyond his age. When six years old he learned to speak German in a few months, and read German and Latin script with ease. He solved problems in addition of two and three figures orally, never having had any instruction. He learned his letters and numbers by spelling out the names of streets on street corners and by reading the numbers on house doors. During the tests that were given him he was constantly on the alert and on no occasion could the purpose of the test be hidden from him. He delighted in the apparatus and wanted to manipulate it. He was very temperamental and restless. On entering a room he seemed to be everywhere at once. At one moment he would be elated, jubilant, and the next moment would come anger and tears, to be followed soon by smiles and joy. On the psychological tests, Pepito showed himself to be the possessor of the following musical powers: 1.  He could easily judge pitch intervals.   2.  He possessed absolute pitch.   3.  He had a wonderful musical memory.   4.  He could transpose a musical composition with great ease and apparent joy.   5.  When a few measures of an improvisation were played for him he would readily continue the musical suggestion and carry it to a logical conclusion. Music seemed to be to him a natural medium for emotional expression.   6.  He would reproduce difficult dissonant chords with much ease and with but few mistakes, and he would also easily reproduce a succession of four unmelodic unrelated tones.   7.  His ranking in pitch discrimination was very high.   8.  He exhibited a keen sensitivity for the purity of intervals.   Another source from which the inventory was derived, was the pronouncements of master music teachers on artistic musical production. For instance, Professor Leopold Auer enumerates the following essentials: A keen sense of hearing is, above all, one of the qualities which a musician needs. One who does not possess it in the highest degree, is wasting his time when he centers his ambitions on a musical career. Of course, one may perfect one's musical hearing if the faculty exists in even a rudimentary form--though the student will have to be quick to improve it by exact attention to the advice given him, and by unremitting watchfulness while he is at work--but there must be a certain amount of auditory sensibility to begin with. (Furthermore) . . . one of the qualifications most important to the is a sense of rhythm. Together with the sense of hearing, it is a sine qua non for every one who wishes successfully to devote himself to music. The more conspicuously nature has gifted the young musical aspirant with a discriminating sense of hearing and a strong feeling for rhythm, the greater are his chances of reaching his goal. There is still, however, one more quality which the promising student must possess. It is what the French call l'esprit de son metier, the feeling of the professional man for the detail of his profession. He should have, by intuition--by instinct--the faculty of grasping all the technical fine points of his art, and an easy comprehension of all shades of musical meaning. The third source from which the inventory was obtained was from the comments of great artists concerning their own performances. Thus, according to Elman, the fundamental of a perfected violin technique is perfect pitch: Many a violinist plays a difficult passage, sounding every note and yet it sounds out of tune. Many a player has the facility; but without perfect intonation he can never attain the highest perfection. On the other hand, anyone who can play a single phrase in absolute pitch has the great and first essential. Few artists, not excepting some of the greatest, play with perfect intonation. Its control depends first of all on the ear. And a sensitive ear finds differences in shading; it bids the violinist play a trifle sharper, a trifle flatter, according to the general harmonic color and the accompaniment; it leads him to observe a difference when the harmonic atmosphere demands it, between a C sharp in the key of E major and a D flat in the same key. Another factor stressed is tonal quality. On this point Professor Auer expresses himself as follows: The problem involved in the production of an entirely agreeable tone--that is to say a tone which is singing to a degree that leads the bearer to forget the physical process of its development--is one whose solution must always be the most important task of those who devote themselves to mastering the violin. Another item emphasized is that of tone inflection. To quote Professor Auer again: I regard nuance in music as a specific application of Nature's variability of mood and tone to musical ends and aims. Nature is never monotonous--the violinist who realizes the fact, and gives his playing those qualities of nuance, which diversify Nature's every mood and aspect will never play in a stilted, tiresome fashion. His interpretation will never be conceived on a dead level of uniformity.  A further factor mentioned by artists is that of virtuosity or technique. In the words of Mr. Ysaye: At the present day, the tools of violin mastery, of expression technique, mechanism, are far more necessary than in days gone by. In fact, they are indispensable if the spirit is to express itself without restraint, and the greater mechanical command one has the less noticeable it becomes. All that suggests effort, awkwardness, difficulty, repels the listener. With this inventory of the tools of musical mastery as determined by master-performers and teachers, let us now see upon what equipments in the make-up of the individual each is conditioned. First comes tone production, which includes intonation and tone quality. It is evident that intonation depends first of all upon a keen ear-an ear that is sensitive to the fine differences in pitch, an ear that discriminates readily and accurately slight pitch deviations. A person whose pitch discrimination is poor, might play off pitch without being aware of the fault, since he does not hear it. A second equipment functioning in correct intonation is motor or muscular, which is conditioned upon the proper conformation of hand and fingers. Poor motor control, coördination, and adjustment mean that a performer might be aware of producing faulty pitch, and yet not be able to make the necessary muscular adjustments to correct the fault. The fingers refuse to obey the dictates of the ear. It is only when ear and muscles are both keenly sensitive and working hand in hand that correct intonation is possible. Tonal quality, like intonation, depends upon sensory as well as motor capacity. The ear must be sharply sensitive to differences of timbre before the hand can produce them. In other words, when the performer does not feel a need for a singing tone or his conception of a singing tone is crude, the hand naturally will not produce any better effect than the ear calls for. On the other hand, the ear might call for a beautiful tone, but the hand be unable to produce the desired effect because of muscular defects. The items, then, that function specifically in the production of tonal quality are first of all, an ear sensitive to timbre, and the muscular control that enables the performer to produce the desired effect. A second main factor is tone inflection. This implies the ability to produce such musical effects as piano, forte, crescendo, diminuendo, and all other intensity variations without which a performance is dull and monotonous. The factors upon which the production of these effects is conditioned are, as in the previous cases, a sensitive ear, an ear that can detect very fine dynamic inflections, and secondly, fine muscular sensitivity plus coördination of ear and hand. The third factor is phrasing. The phrase is the structural aesthetic unit of music; the interpretation of a musical composition resting upon the performer's conception and rendition of its constituent phrases. As the phrase, so the entire composition. Now, a phrase is a rhythmic unit, made up of a sequence of tones of varied pitches and durations, all combining to produce a symmetrical, balanced, aesthetic whole, and yet also arousing an expectation for a sequential phrase. Each phrase has an individuality all its own, and yet is not sufficient unto itself. It is an individual in a society of individuals, having its own earmarks, its distinguishing characteristics, and yet depending for its full realization upon the other unities or individuals that constitute the composition as a whole. Furthermore, some phrases are more important than others, have a more important place in the composition than others. From the point of view of phrasing, then, an artistic rendition is conditioned upon (1) the performer's musical understanding of, and his aesthetic response to, the musical composition as a whole; (2) his evaluation of the constituent phrases of the composition as regards their relative importance and significance; (3) his aesthetic response to the individual phrase; (4) his response to every tone in the phrase as regards its intonation, duration, intensity, timbre, consonance; (5) his ability to produce the above effects. The fourth factor is virtuosity. Deduced from the expressions of artists, the following specific equipments are the sine qua non for an adequate technique: muscular control and coordination, speed, accuracy, flexibility, precision (having the right finger in the right place at the right time), unrestrained movements of arm and wrist. In the above analysis we have a picture, incomplete of course, but nevertheless suggestive of the inherent make-up of the musical mind. The picture tells us definitely that what differentiates the musical genius from mediocrity is not the kind of powers possessed but the degree of the same powers. And what is true of musical genius applies to genius in all the arts.