Does anyone have any information regarding musicality and genetic inheritance?

Question

Any help would be great!!!

Answer 1

Genetics definitely plays a role, but so does one's environment. I trust you've heard about the "nature vs. nurture" debate? Well, here are two quotes I pulled from two scientific papers:

<< It is no longer nature versus nurture, but nature via nurture, and in the process it may grant training a new lease on life and perhaps a new future.>>
http://www.clomedia.com/content/templates/clo_webonly.asp?articleid=332&zoneid=78

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http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/bb/neuro/neuro99/web3/Tucker.html

Both papers discuss Howard Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences, in which Musical Intelligence is one of the eight. You can do a search on "Multiple Intelligences" if those papers are too difficult for you.

Answer 2

I am a music educator. I think it's more of a learned thing than an inherited thing... I think you can inherit having more of an ability than other people (Mozart, for example, came from a musical family and was a child prodigy.)
However, it is proven that parents who mimic their children's sounds from birth will have children who are better singers. It teaches them to match pitch when you repeat their sounds back to them even when you think they are too young to learn anything from it. If you keep repeating sounds back to them, they'll start repeating them back to you again. It's really cool.
Also, I had a music teacher who was a vocalist in a production while she was pregnant. She sang ALL the time. By the time the kid was 2, it was able to play simple songs on the piano by ear.
So I think it's a little nature, but much more nurture.

Answer 3

One could be a "natural" at being musically inclined, where they could learn easier than others. But I don't think genetics has anything to do with it.