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

Do you get it? Perhaps not.

The point is, you constantly assert that everyone here is a hopeless idiot. I won't repeat the question.

Lol! I have never said (nor implied) that either. There is definitely some failure to understand some governing factors of our world by a select few members, but that doesn't mean that "everyone here is a hopeless idiot".

You must be one of those people who like to constantly victimize themselves by extrapolating outrageous conclusions. Pity

Blah, blah, blah. You've no way of supporting such a claim. Period. I understand, however, that we all want to close the gap in some way...

I already have.

No, I'm sorry, you have not. You may BELIEVE it to be "evidence", "support", whatever you want to call it, but it's nothing more than a bunch of blah, blah, blah. There's one like you every six months or so, Atrys. Give it a rest.

I've shown you the evidence, yet all you can do is plug your ears and whine like a small child

It's ok if you disagree with me. I can't force you to be right.

This topic is so stupid, just like musicians.

Now you're starting to sound like another Atrys.

But you are correct that this is not the greatest conversation topic ever conceived....

Quite true, since I already am.

Yet another snipe! Keep going, you're on a roll!

+1

You didn't detect my sarcasm?

[citation needed]

Nice try though. It's cute how, in the face of undeniable evidence, all you ever do is think you're "right" when you have nothing to support your claim, and all the evidence is against you

Ah, the irony...

you tried to convince us that valentina is the most amazing pianist.

Don't babble too much about statistics. Just because you have a few college courses in the subject doesn't make you an expert. You're 20, so relax. No one is expecting you to be some engineering mastermind. Are you well on your way? Maybe, we are not hating.


Back to the original topic...
It's a strange question. I'm sure in some forum about model train building there is a similar thread "are the best model train builders highly intelligent?"

Well, to be the best in the world at anything probably requires some amount of intelligence. Even being the fastest 100m sprinter would require intelligence to be able to understand the analyzed data explained to you by your engineers because you have potentiometers all over your body during practice.

One thing we know for sure, is that it takes persistence and ambition. I can't think of any "best in the world" at any subject that relies on sheer talent. Hard work and ambition is perhaps the biggest culprit.

Starting very young and having being a pianist mapped out for you is probably just as important. The fastest motogp (motorcycle) racers were basically born on a motorcycle. It is part of them and their reflexes and instincts are one with the bike. There is no one competing in motogp who hasn't started as a child.

Same with piano. Sorry for late starters, including me. You can get close, but it will never be like 2nd nature which is required for truly polished playing I think.


Well spoken? Good at math, history, physics,street smart, I don't think have anything to do with it. Musical? Not necessary either. definite advantage, but not required. A truly musical person would end up composing, not playing other's music.

I have heard very young kids performing some of the most emotionally deep pieces. They have not suffered enough in life in order to understand those pieces they are playing, but, their playing was 100% convincing. Musicality can be learned, and mimicked! An excellent teacher is required for this.

I am literally the only person in this thread to support my claim with hard evidence. Your silly confirmation bias coupled with your hunch is not evidence.

What we know with the evidence provided so far: there is no reason to believe pianists of any skill are especially intelligent.


I never tried to do that either. What is wrong with you? You're inventing straw men and putting words into my mouth. No where did I ever try to convince anyone that Lisitsa is the "most amazing pianist".

Define "young".

I didn't think it was likely I would ever do this, but....


+1


Atrys: We could call it "evidence" if we want to, but you have to understand, "evidence" doesn't necessarily prove something; it's merely one indicator. If you think "evidence" necessarily does prove a thing, you must have slept through part of whatever you learned on evidence and proof.

AND EVEN BESIDES THAT.... a few things:

-- Unless I don't know where to look, that thing you linked doesn't give anything about "professional pianists"; it gives a figure for Arts-Performance & Studio majors. I think it's a fair guess that the ones from among them who become PROFESSIONALS are higher than the average on just about anything we might mention, including intelligence.

-- ....and anyway, the average IQ even just of the college majors is pretty high. Yeah, it's below most of the other majors, but it's a number that I would indeed call "highly intelligent."

-- And finally.....As has been said, there are different kinds of intelligence, and they get manifested in greatly varying degrees on IQ tests. Two of my close friends (musicians) have been people that I know to be extremely intelligent, on anything that I'm sure most of us would regard as important, but never did particularly well on those tests. Their standardized test scores and class standings were so mediocre that they were funny, if you knew how intelligent these people really were. I would guess that it's probably unusually common among musicians and other kinds of artists to fare worse than their actual intelligence level on those kinds of tests, as it is among various other groups also, like (I think) athletes. The 'test' kind of stuff just isn't how their minds work, or how they want their minds to work. And BTW this isn't to say that those tests aren't meaningful or useful, just that what they measure isn't as synonymous with "intelligence" as you're trying to make it out to be.

But as per the above, even if it were, you still wouldn't be right.

I listened to a girl - probably no older than 8 years old - playing Liszt's valse-impromptu with tremendous technique, nuance, and clarity. While not the most emotionally-involved piece, her expression and phrasing (with an immaculate technique) was incredibly mature.