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As I said, the conclusion drawn was "similar", and it is.

Also, the paper isn't just about sight-reading - that's just one of various studies mentioned. And for something largely gone the way of the dodo, there sure are a lot of threads about it here.

Here's a link to the publisher's site for that paper. It hasn't been published yet, although they make it available online behind a pay-wall.

There are also a lot of threads about learning piano without a teacher. I would say neither applies to the discussion at hand.


Awesome, thanks!

The true secret of genious finally revealed! But the world will never know: it's just too expensive!

Chime! Chime! Please do, by all means!

Your assertion (that sight-reading is going the way of the dodo) doesn't particularly apply to the discussion at hand, either.

I think those members here who actually earn money from doing collaborative work would probably not agree with you. IIRC, some of them have said that sight-reading skills were important in their work.

Regardless of all that and how it may or may not apply to the discussion at hand, the point of the sight-reading study seems to be that the level of sight-reading ability is connected to a inheritable trait, i.e., "nature" rather than "nurture". On that basis, it does relate to the discussion at hand. And it is, after all, a particular musical skill, no matter what your opinion is about its current importance.

Absolutely essential, in fact. (speaking as one who earns money from collaborative work)

If you would like to change the subject from "talent" to earning a living playing the piano, then yes. I would agree with you that sight-reading skills are extremely important. I rather thought we were discussing "talent" as it applies to virtuosity. (Which leads into the next point you brought up...)


I agree, as a separate skill, it can be discussed and may indeed represent the biggest hole in the "no talent" theory yet. However, it is not required in spades to become a virtuoso or even to play at that top level. I don't think I've ever heard Kissin, Argerich, Horowitz, or any of the others sightread on stage. I believe it was said of Josef Hoffman that he was a very poor sightreader, and I'm sure there are others in that category.

As to the previously mentioned "hole", it has, of course, been mentioned in this thread that it takes "talent" to get to the top, but even people without talent can get pretty far up the chain. So, now I'm not so sure that the ability sightread gets us anywhere in terms of the "talent" discussion referring to the ability to play the piano at all.

More succinctly, what I mean to say is, if we have more than one variable, but only one equation, we cannot say what the value of either variable is.

That sounds suspiciously like the uncertainty principle, Schrodinger's cat and all!

I hate that cat.. hahaha

The latest thoughts on quantum uncertainty is that the uncertaintly exists only in the mind of the observer before he/she makes the observation, and, in fact, the cat is actually dead, or alive, as the case may be. (Quantum Bayesianism)

I made that argument nearly 15 years ago in college, and was told I was wrong. Nice to know I wasn't, even though they can't change my grade now.

From "going the way of the dodo" to "extremely important" - hmmm.

I was talking about talent, although in my mind I didn't think of it as necessarily applying to virtuosity. I still am talking about talent, and the sight-reading study demonstrates that a facet of musical talent is inheritable, i.e., innate. The connection to the discussion seems fairly clear to me.



It's not math.

The sight-reading study isn't necessarily connected to virtuosity, per se, but is about musical talent in the larger sense. As I said in an earlier post, using virtuosos as examples is just a convenience, AFAIAC. As examples, they have the advantage of being publicly known, and often their bios are also known and easily found on the 'net. But I don't think that innate musical talent is limited to virtuosos, so I when I talk about musical talent, I am not referring exclusively to virtuosos.

From my point of view, the Finnish study and the Hambrick studies are all that should be needed to establish that there is good reason to believe that at least some aspects of musical ability can be innate and inheritable, rather than purely resulting from environmental factors. Regardless of the complexities involved in the making of any given virtuoso, it's clear that at a more basic level, there are aspects of musical ability that can be innate, rather than environmental.

As always, studies need to be replicated and refined before being accepted as iron-clad proof of anything, and even then, there's always a chance that something will eventually come along that messes with well-established "reality". But it looks to me that as it currently stands, given this recent research, it should be impossible to say that there can never be any aspect of musical ability that is innate to the individual, but that the entirety of it is always and forever more purely a result of environment.

This is a very good argument, and quite different than the ones previously used (that virtuosity can only be obtained because you have some special "talent"). I will have to think more about this, but you certainly have ample solid ground to stand on here. Perhaps someone else will think of a rebuttal I have not yet considered, but I will need some time to think before I respond, so that my response is meaningful and not simply a, "Not uh.."

Good morning.

It is clear, Derulux, that you have no greater desire than to join the talent crowd! So don't keep beating around the bush, just do it! Come out and say it! Get down on your knees and bow your head before the talent goddess, she will forgive you for having doubted her, she knows that you will believe in her all the more deeply having rooted out and cauterized your doubt before the witness of the entire (piano) world!

And I will know how to hold high, sole, the standard of human culture and education, of choice, of knowledge and of art, of the Enlightenment itself.

Of course, the Muses! It's neither nature nor nurture, it's inspiration!

I 'learned' to sight read when I was five, after I learned the alphabet and was told the letter names of the lines and spaces relative to the treble and bass clefs, and this was before I learned to read. Trouble was, nobody mentioned that the shape of the notes also had meaning. Sight reading got me my first job at 14 as organist of a church and at a liberal synagogue, and paid my way through university and gave me a career choice.

Practice, proper practice, gave me technique, and, without a doubt, made my runs better.

Musicality, however (if one believes my listeners who say I play musically), was innate. How else does one explain the ability to sight read a work musically, that is to say, without training, sense the line and arc of a piece before you have first played it?