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

No, give us a break.

Besides that being a theory and guess (with which I don't totally disagree, BTW), we don't know what other great or greater music he might have written if his hearing hadn't gone.

I would agree that it almost certainly would have been different.
But less great? We can't say.

P.S. On the more general issue, I agree that hardship and distress can lead to greater depth and greater greatness.

I also agree that better circumstances during childhood (and beyond) usually give people a better chance to do well, including doing better on IQ tests and SAT's, and seeming more "intelligent."

Which gives a better chance for someone to be a "genius"?
Either and both.
You could argue either way.

I don't see why his deafness would've made his orchestration any different. He still heard the music in his head.

That's why this is is a nothing argument. One can make a case for both sides and it's impossible to prove anything about what might have happened, because it didn't.

I'm interested whether you realize that what you said in no way contradicts what I said, nor does it involve given anyone a break.

Do you understand that Beethoven could have both chosen poor instrumentations as a result of his deafness, AND have written his greatest music as a result of his deafness? Does that make sense to you? Or is that level of reading comprehension above you?

I do, in case you're still interested. I disagreed with your post first, and then made a separate point.

One thing good composers do is try instruments in different combinations, experiment with new sounds, things that have never been heard before. For example, you might have the idea that five clarinets combined with two violins playing the same part might have a mellow, romantic sound, but unless you can hear it, you won't be sure. There might be some kind of subtle interaction between the instruments that you never noticed before.

That kind of thing is harder when you are deaf. Beethoven's music is great, but his instrumentation is rather standard.

Good, that's good you understood it. So you disagreed, didn't give any reason for your disagreement, then changed the topic. I'm going to say, you need to give us a break!

See Joel's post above. I don't see a single weakness in scoring in any of Beethoven's later symphonies. Can you point out a passage which you think is badly written and how Beethoven could have "improved" it?

I didn't say Beethoven's instrumentation is weak.

An example of creative instrumentation is Ravel's Bolero. It starts with a single flute playing the melody, with a drum playing percussion. Then the flute switches down to play percussion with the drum, while the clarinet picks up the melody. The whole song, the melody and harmony don't change much, it's an experiment in different instrumentations.

And since people here are allergic to Google (and won't even click on links to read them), the Ravel Bolero can be found below:

Implying that Beethoven's isn't, so indeed you are saying Beethoven's instrumentation is weak.





But Beethoven, unlike Ravel, wasn't trying to write an experiment in instrumentations. That wasn't the purpose of his symphonies. You can't accuse the symphonies of not being something they aren't meant to be.

Hey, maybe he just has a leg up on you on the evolution of vocabulary!

It's like NYC cell phone area codes.
It used to be that people with "917" were the elite. Anyone with anything else was a wannabe-come-lately.
But now, when someone has 917 (that includes me), he probably seems like a dinosaur, a relic. The cool people are the ones with 646 and 347!

You might wonder what that has to do with calling Bolero a song, and you wouldn't be entirely wrong.

If he composes a piece he can call it whatever he wants. If he's referring to a piece by a master of the past, it's not appropriate to call it a "song."

PS - I have 646.

Well, to be fair, if something fits the definition of a song, then it is okay to call it a song. See below for definition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song

My original point is that IQ isn't something fixed to yourself, and can be improved with time through motivation and hard work, or you can get an IQ "boost" (at least initially) by growing up in the right circumstances. Rough circumstances can provide the motivation to excel. Comfortable circumstances can give your young brain a better start and therefore an initial advantage, may it may also mean you lose some of your initial advantage later if you don't push yourself.

Both points suggest that intelligence is not some fixed trait, but rather heavily dependent on environment and individual determination.

Why don't you understand that something can be less than its full potential, but still not be weak?

I'd have thought that if you want Beethoven's orchestration to sound like Berlioz's, you'd be better off listening to Hector himself - plenty of dazzling colour and glitter in his Symphonie fantastique, for example.

Harps and percussion galore, even an ophicleide and a serpent - why didn't poor old deaf Ludwig thought of that? Surely the chorus in his 9th needs reinforcement. Not to mention the Storm in the Pastoral.......

Curie was born in 1867. IQ tests became "reliable" and gained currency around 1916. I very much doubt that Curie ever took an official intelligence test.

Precisely. Ravel's Bolero does not fit into the category of "a composition for voice or voices."

Is anything ever at its full potential?

Restoring this thread to its better topic of baseball ....

Rocky Bridges, scrappy old ballplayer and then minor league manager, when asked if he felt he reached his full potential as a player: "I think I might have gone beyond it."