New study: Musical talent linked to "Open" personality

[Jace-BeOS]

Oh I don't doubt that there's a neurological benefit in some people, and yes, traits tend to clump together. I personally have a disability toward maths and calculation, so I am crippled in terms of notation and music theory. I get the basics, but I have to rely on "feel" more than working with numbers. It's VERY frustrating, as I've blabbed on about elsewhere on this forum. But I can pick up forms and patterns better than the average. I also was/am hyperlexic, which benefits writing. Is it all genetic? I don't know. I think a LOT of our ultimate behavioral makeup and performance has to do with nurture, but nature certainly is a required foundation.

I just think that there's too much focus on people with beneficial neurological makeup ("innate talent" and "genius"), when neither are a requisite. So long as the best case scenario talent continues to be the focus, it suppresses the interest and learning of others that feel lacking in special ability.

As to Mozart, he wrote a lot, sure. Plenty of people are prolific creators. Not always is their output recognized as valuable. Mozart was an uncommon person for reasons beyond skill with musical composition. If any number of situational variables had been different, he might be unknown. If he was born today with modern technology, would he be recognized? If today's successful "genius" was born in Mozart's time, would they still succeed?

And was he really as wild as dramatized biographical stories suggest? It all depends on context.

[jancivil]

I don't think raw talent is wildly overrated, and I think there are people that are never going to be musical. But I think the tendency to look for the prodigy as a model for genius is not the whole truth of it. I think genius can be cultivated from what may appear to be a middling 'gift'. I think a grown person can turn out to be what the people that envy 'talent' consider as having had this 'unfair' head start that in fact proceeded more slowly than imagined. However I think that the recognition of 'advantage' is not really wrong, but the degree of the difference can have been exaggerated. I think there is no simple equation for it. I think part of aptitude for an art is aptitude for cultivating skills and another part is desire, & the predisposition for the addiction to the work. I don't necessarily mean lazy vs the hard worker, I mean a tendency to the behavior. So that is probably personality; and I don't know, but I think that is inborn.

[jancivil]

That's more the nature side of it and I believe the nurture side of it is extremely crucial.

[stillshaded]

I think you're pretty spot on jancivil

[harryupbabble]

As to Mozart, he wrote a lot, sure.

There's speculation that he wrote some and maybe even perhaps all his compositions using dice.

And not only Mozart but other composers before his time. And maybe even today's composers are doing that and maybe they just don't like to admit it.

If the speculation is true then this suggests that Mozart didn't like "tendencies" and preferred working with chaos and randomness.

But of course, in the end, it must have been Mozart's musical taste and musical knowledge and musical ear that determined what to keep and what to throw from the results of the dice.

http://www.amaranthpublishing.com/MozartDiceGame.htm

[jancivil]

"All possible choices were given by Mozart in such a way that by any selection the resulting melody is a pretty minuet fulfilling the harmonic and compositional requirements of minuets of that time." But you read a desire, nay a preference for randomness and chaos into it anyway.

[harryupbabble]

"All possible choices were given by Mozart in such a way that by any selection the resulting melody is a pretty minuet fulfilling the harmonic and compositional requirements of minuets of that time." But you read a desire, nay a preference for randomness and chaos into it anyway.

But why use dice at all, assuming that the speculation is true.

[jancivil]

He was bored? He liked the challenge of creating a puzzle which would nonetheless produce a useful and properly generic result? From that statement it's a typical minuet of the time. By Mozart's time Minuet was a quite involved form. A random selection from modules that were clearly designed to fit in every case is not chaotic at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuet#Rhythm_and_form

[harryupbabble]

He was bored? He liked the challenge of creating a puzzle which would nonetheless produce a useful and properly generic result? You want to argue for randomness and chaos even after I emphasize that? From that statement it's a typical minuet of the time. By Mozart's time Minuet was a quite involved form.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minuet#Rhythm_and_form

But the thing is Mozart music is not really regarded as generic and typical and perhaps the use of dice is part of why that is.

[harryupbabble]

And who is to say that Mozart only applied dice use to Minuets, if he did use dice, that is.

[jancivil]

Apparently you don't understand what I'm talking about at all. Mozart can be said to have contributed to a refinement or and advancement of this particular form, but a minuet is a minuet because of the form being met. I mean 'generic' as, the genre *Minuet* is satisfied in every result here. The game here would have to involve composing the 16 sections in advance. You cut 'em up just like regular chickens. The reason Mozart will be considered the more advanced composer of his time have to do with actual, concrete innovations and novelty in harmony, and to some extent (albeit nothing very radical) formal innovation. EG: Turning a modified A, known as A1 into more of a C section.

[harryupbabble]

I am off to play speed scrabble. But I think chaos and randomness should not be excluded from the "ways to compose" bag. Bye for now.

[jancivil]

But the thing is Mozart music is not really regarded as generic and typical and perhaps the use of dice is part of why that is.

The minuet is absolutely a type, and the result your page described is a typical minuet. Full stop. You really want this to be something it isn't. It's a mistake to substitute this notion (which you evidently don't really grok) for the fact of the formal thing the minuet is and which type of thing Mozart as a professional, commercial composer (and not at all a John Cage) had to satisfy.

[jancivil]

I am off to play speed scrabble. But I think chaos and randomness should not be excluded from the "ways to compose" bag. Bye for now.

I did not say that (it should be excluded) at all, or remotely imply it. You reached for this and found this page speculating Mozart had created a game in order to promote or discuss 'chaos', but it doesn't really apply. Mozart's music is completely formal, is the actual point.

[harryupbabble]

The minuet is absolutely a type, and the result your page described is a typical minuet. Full stop. You really want this to be something it isn't. It's a mistake to substitute this notion (which you evidently don't really grok) for the fact of the formal thing the minuet is and which type of thing Mozart as a professional, commercial composer (and not at all a John Cage) had to satisfy.

The resulting music may not be chaotic but the output is drawn from chaos, even if only 16 modules are used.

Pretend those modules are scale notes. Major scales only have 7 notes but if you assign one note per side of a 7-sided dice... I don't know the exact formula, but the result for permutations must be super-huge, about 14 million possibilities, I would guess. Lottery ticket odds.

Also, maybe Mozart had dice modules for harmony, rhythm, etc. The dice method doesn't have to be used for John Cage type music. I read your comment as "minuets = pop music". So if it works for minuets it might work for pop music (pop music as defined by Wikipedia).

I am going to try to get some sleep, in vain, most likely. Ciao.