Comments on: New Study Shows Professional Musicians Have Higher IQs Than Non-Musicians

By: Frank McQuade. Australia

Frank McQuade. Australia — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 06:25:14 +0000

Reading the above blogs there does not appear to be too much intelligence in the music world. At school, didn’t many of the above contributors study plain old English?

I’m generalizing of course. With what I have read above no wonder so many musicians throughout the world work for nothing. They lack the intelligence to realize some smartie is cashing in on their creativity.

Intelligent musicians one and all. Don’t ever forget to put your hand out to collect that stuff called money at the end of a gig.

By: Rodrigo45

Rodrigo45 — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 14:32:24 +0000

I don’t think musicians in general are smarter, because I’ve come across musicians who trained at schools such as Juilliard and who can’t play “Happy Birthday” or “Here Comes the Bride” without having the music in front of them. That puts them in the same category as a roofer (I don’t mean that as an insult at all!), who just does his job on “auto pilot,” so to speak.
I think good jazz musicians do have that edge because of what is entailed when playing jazz, such as the whole idea of making good musical decisions in a split second. Somebody might argue that it comes with training but not everybody can excel at it.

By: robert drodge

robert drodge — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 00:03:53 +0000

hi. interesting stuff. believe that being very curious also helps.
not sure about classical people,jazz people always asking how did he or she do that, lets see what this sounds like etc.
i was able to do well in several fields of endeavor and at 73 yrs of age can probably say the music helped as it made me inquisitive.
robert

By: Graham Mintram

Graham Mintram — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:30:08 +0000

Perhaps you’re right, Jim. I don’t claim to be infallible. Maybe I’m actually brighter than I thought!

Graham Mintram.

By: Jim Martin

Jim Martin — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 16:17:00 +0000

Graham, I agree that most people skilled in any profession would say they are a cut above everyone else, but to say “It doesn’t take intelligence to make music, either on paper or in one’s head…” might be taking it to extreme, especially if you consider doing this at a high level.

I taught piano for 15 years and I could always tell how a student did in school by the way they assimilated music, from both a written standpoint and from an aural standpoint. The swifter kids always picked up music faster than the ones that had a harder time in school. I never met a kid that had a hard time in school and was a whiz at music.

I’ll bet you could ask most music teachers who teach elementary age children and they would tell you the same thing. The only exception could be the autistic savant that can’t use a fork to eat, but can sit down at the piano after one hearing and play a Mozart Sonata. That’s a whole other fascinating topic though.