Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Are professional pianists highly intelligent?

Do you think professional pianists are in general highly intelligent or even super intelligent?
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Any good artist is intelligent. A great one, highly intelligent. I personally have yet to see any exceptions - whether it's in music or any other art form.

I never said that IQ or any of the factors I mentioned were the "best" tests for intelligence or that interpersonal skils aren't useful. I said for the thread I created I wanted the particular kinds of intelligence I mentioned to be the ones discussed in their realtion to professional pianists. This thread is not supposed to be about what kinds of people one wants to have a conversation with.

How is it possible to answer this question "intelligently"?

One would have to know a great number of professional pianists - or, from having read, know about the intellect of a great number of professional pianists - to answer one way or another. For every "intelligent" professional pianist there may well be his/her opposite in intelligence; and many a fine, professional pianist may know nothing about anything else. Since the question can't be answered, really, what is the point of the question?

The only possible answer : "Some are, some aren't."

I was saying that being able to have a conversation with someone is one way I measure intelligence. And I'm sorry if that's not what the thread was about, but your original post didn't do a good job of explaining WHAT exactly this thread is about, hence the 3 pages of discussion.

Doctors!? Not my GP. You really are equating middleclassness with intelligence - it's a scam!

For example, I think many would say that doctors are in general highly intelligent in the way I described in my OP because of the complex nature of the material they must know.

You missed my point entirely. smile

I don't want to be the rotten strawberry on the forum's cake, but really, I'd like to politely disagree. Doctors surely are well trained, usually have a good memory, but is that high intelligence ?

I'll save BruceD the trouble. This thread is three and a half years old, etc, etc.

[...]I know that the re-upping of old threads annoys some people (for no evident reason).

If it annoys you, how about just ignoring them.

Occasionally, there is good reason.



If it annoys you that some people comment negatively on the reviving of old threads, how about just ignoring them?

If you feel the right to express your opinion, why can't others do likewise? Is it wrong because it disagrees with yours?

I am 51 now, but I still remember how I would shut down during piano lessons. I started at 6 and it took me several years to really get the notes down. It wasn't till I got into my late teens till I got fluent in reading music and sight reading. Now I live to sight read and there is nothing more exciting than getting a new piano book or piece. We all like to think we are more intelligent that the average bear. I think I was a slow learner because I didn't discover until my late 40s that I have had Asperger's Syndrome. Most people I meet now are in awe of my abilities and would say that I am highly intelligent, but growing up with an abusive mother who forced me into piano lessons, her pet name for me was stupid. Under stress I would shut down and freeze up. We are very quick to judge someone's intelligence based on social cues and IQ tests don't always tell the whole story either. I think through hard work and over time we can rewire our brain through playing piano and music literacy - we are forced to use such intense concentration on a regular basis, that is impossible to do without higher level intellect. People we sometimes think have it pretty much together socially or professionally can make some of the stupidest life decisions and when we watch the news we wonder how much of the population makes it to middle age. I really hate to have the elitist attitude, but there are some DUMB people in the world. My mother called me stupid when she herself had no more than an 8th grade education - had 5 children and divorced twice when she really hates children. I wasn't stupid, she was, but for a long time during my life I believed I was inferior. When a child comes to me for piano lessons I make no judgment about their intellect. I don't care how slow they learn. There may be other issues that get in the way of their focus and concentration that I don't know anything about. I believe that learning to play piano and to read music can change your brain, even if it's through the route of finding the confidence in who you are.

...analytical intelligence, verbal skills, IQ, or general smarts. Someone who would be thought of as very smart in school (but didn't necessarily have to receive good grades).

I don't know many professional pianists personally, but many of the ones I know seem super intelligent. (It's possible that it's hard for me to separate their very high musical intelligence from the rest of their intellectual ability.)

Based on their writings/interviews Hamelin, Chiu and Hough seem extremely intelligent to me(these are not the pianists I mentioned above as knowing personally!).