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That right there is the problem. Again, motor function is a property of the CNS which is bounded by genes.

Go do your homework.

Motor function is about signals sent down nerves - there are physical laws dictating that which genes have no control over. There is myelination. That's about it. Enough of the rudeness please.

No, motor function is a function of the CNS which at the lowest level is a function of physical laws. If you sum physical laws from the lowest level upward, you will end up with motor function. Although these physical laws are identical for each of us, the genes that determine the emergent properties are unique to the individual.

We are bounded in every way by our genes.

You're grossly misunderstanding this material.

Buddy, you can measure how long it takes for a message to travel down your arm. For all intents and purposes it's constant.

Of course! That has absolutely nothing to do with anything at all.

Quite right, it's motor function.

No, it's not. It's the transmission of motor function, which is still subject to genes.

You really never did your homework in high school.

We can all insult. So long buddy.

Not necessarily the case. A lovely example, published in 2002 in Nature by Shin, T. et al showed a cat, CC (apparently short for Copy Cat!), that was cloned (from Rainbow) where the colour of the CC's coat was not a copy of its genome donor's. They are quite different in appearance.



This does not actually go contrary to the original paper the news article was reporting. Having seen examples of shoddy reporting in the past, I went right to the original paper by Hambrick, D. et al in the Psychon. Bull. Rev.. An interesting read, certainly more informative than the news article.

To quote from their abstract:



This to me suggests that other factors, such as practice also come into play. One my be genetically predisposed to be a good musician, but you must be properly nurtured to fully exploit that predisposition. But then humans are quite good at overcoming limitations be they genetic or physical, so to say that "genes may be key to great musicians" as the headline says, seems to me a bit of an exaggeration. While "good genes" (I use that term loosely) might be of benefit, even this paper would suggest it is not like the keystone of an arch, where if you remove it, everything goes tumbling down.

Interesting to note that the paper uses data form the National Merit Twin Study that looked at 850 same-sex twin pairs in 1962!!. They went through previous surveys for their data using self reported data though "there was evidence for their validity". Questionable data in my opinion, but to the authors credit they acknowledge this limitation, stating "[their] measures of both accomplishment and practice were fairly coarse" and that more research is needed to better quantify practice and degree of musical achievement as well as recognizing that accomplishment dose not necessarily correlate to skill.

They conclude with:



As I said, an interesting paper, which at best suggests there MAY be some correlation with musicianship and genetics and that if there is, it is a combination of genetics and the environment. But as the authors themselves write, the application of the results to what we would consider "great musicians" is questionable.

Surprisingly to me, the news article is not too bad. I have certainly read worse where the conclusions the article draws is literally contrary to the research it references. But it does seem to paint this research as "perfect" without at all addressing its limitations. Thankfully Hambrick and his team know better and discuss in detail limits to their results. A good example of why I take scientific claims in the news with multiple handfuls of salt.

UGH...this ended up being a bit long...

For those interested here are the journal articles. You may or may not be able to get at the full version as they are often by subscription (which my workplace has). I won't bother listing all the authors...too many.

(1) Shin, T, et al., Cell biology: A cat cloned by nuclear transplantation, Nature 415, 2002, p 859.

(2) Hambrick, D. et al. The genetics of music accomplishment: Evidence for gene-environment correlation and interaction, Psychonomic Bulletin & Review 20, 2014.

Yes, this is an example of something that is not controlled directly by the genotype, but this is not what I'm arguing.

I'm saying that even things that do not contain a definition in the genotype are still bounded by genes at higher resolutions than are totally understood. No human is ever going to grow angel-like wings from his back if he "practices" it enough; our genes do not allow for this.

Again, we are bounded by our genes.

But a genotype is the genetic constitution of a cell, an individual, or an organism. It can pertain to all genes or to a specific gene. Things that do not contain a definition in the genotype (i.e. a gene or set of genes) is bounded by genes?? That makes no sense.

"bounded by genes at higher resolutions than are totally understood." What does that mean? Higher resolution? Sounds like an argument from ignorance. Why not simply conclude there is insufficient evidence to form any conclusion and more research is needed?

Probably better to say, "bounded by our alleles".

You only say that because you're not understanding.

If something is bounded by genes, then it must contain a definition. There is nothing that any living thing can do that is not allowed for by their genes (barring obvious external influences). Doing so would mean that I could grow a 6th finger if I only willed it enough. You're very ignorant; it's as if you're not even thinking about the material and instead letting your mouth (fingers) do the thinking.

Quite right, I don't understand...and still don't. Perhaps a link to a website that can clarify this for myself and others would helpful.

Love the ad hominem!

Do you believe that a person can achieve anything they wish if they just try hard enough?

I like your idea here, to look at what your limitations are, and find a way to work around them.

When it comes to piano, there are many traits where 99% of people have good enough genes to achieve the top level.

For an obvious example, eyesight helps to learn the piano, but as long as you can read the music, having better eyesight won't help you more.

Another trait is muscle strength. As long as you have the hand-muscle strength of a 12-year-old girl, it's not clear that someone with stronger hand genes is going to have any easier time playing the piano. Once you hit the level of sufficiency, piling more on doesn't help.

As chopin_r_us alluded to, nerves signals travel down your arm in 6 milliseconds. As an imaginative experiment, do you really think it would matter if someone's nerves traveled even 20% faster? Then the signal would get there in 5 milliseconds instead of 6. This is another trait that is important (the signal does need to travel down your arm), but once you hit the crucial level, it is enough.

The real question is whether there are any traits that would actually limit piano potential. For example, I used to think that a top-level technique needed long fingers (like Horowitz and Cziffra). Yuja Wang and Wael Farouk disabused me of that notion.

Yes, there are; we know pretty much all of the big ones.

This is such a great post, I want to print it out and frame it on my wall. This is the kind of post that makes these conversations worthwhile, it is so full of information.

Even if I disagreed with you, I would still find this post worth reading.

Of course (having two hands is a good example), but don't you agree that there are also many traits where this is not the case?

Quite a large proportion of people have trouble learning much easier skills than playing advanced piano music beautifully (reading, writing, calculating, moving gracefully for example) and even after receiving much special education and support are not able to compete with an average person who learned such things almost with no effort. And research clearly suggests that many of such issues have genetic background as well.

I see top level pianism not as an ability to hit notes fast. Even that can be limited by one's physique, since not all hands "fit" our present piano keyboard as well and people have differences in their reflex speed and muscle tissue. Top level pianism is a mix of countless of extraordinary skills and not least musical understanding. To excel in all those skills requires a lot of work, but also a favorable genetic make up.

But I must point out that the same favourable genetic traits that help you become a great pianist, might as well help you develope into greatness in something else. It's not about having "pianist" genes, it's about having a suitable mix of genes that one can base all the work on.

The fascinating thing about genetics is that a very small difference in the actual genes may cause a very big difference between individuals. That's because the genes do not only affect specific traits, they do interact with each other in many ways. We are all full on tiny mutations that make us different. Some differences are clear from the birth, but some only become evident after more interaction with the environment. And since no two environments are completely the same either, even a very small difference in genes can have a large effect. All this is not under control of the individual and when they reach a point where they are able to start making their own decisions about how to work on something, much will already be set. One can still develope and change in many ways, but no-one is a blank canvas when it comes to learning.

Sure, things like reflexes might be a limiting factor that some people can't overcome (I don't think so, because I can't see how reflexes are very useful for piano playing unless it's to dodge the fallboard when the cat knocks it closed).

However, it's better to find the limit rather than just assume that it's there (which is what you are doing now), otherwise you are preventing yourself from reaching your potential, unnecessarily.

Exactly. This is why I hate when people say "you are so talented!"; it implies that there's something innate about a skill, when it is 99% learned. I spent thousands upon thousands of hours practicing, I would hope that my playing sounds at least somewhat good. If you can feel improvement, then your limit is a long ways off.

This even goes for "prodigies", their skills might be exceptional for their age or for any person, but if you took everyone and gave them the same amount of training, a lot more people than you might expect would be able to reproduce those results or get close.