Great Musicians and Great Intellect

In an earlier post I talked about the correlation between musicians and bipolar disorder. This post will cover another connection between the mind and the musician: intelligence.

I recently read this scholarly article:

http://search.proquest.com.proxy2.cl.msu.edu.proxy1.cl.msu.edu/docview/916872402/fulltextPDF/139A1C7CE6B1B630E40/4?accountid=12598

Titled, "Correlation Between Intelligence and Musical Talent Among University Students", the article covers what role intelligence plays in musicians. It has not been the first time I've heard of this connection. I have heard many times that learning a musical instrument increases intelligence, especially in science and math. 

Many people would assume that intelligence and musicianship went hand in hand -- if an individual has a high IQ, they are cut out to be a good musician, and if an individual is a good musician, they were very intelligent as well. The study shows this is not the case, however. 

The focus of the essay was on college age students. The students were divided up into IQ groups between 70 and 134. They were given general intelligence tests to determine these IQs and then music tests that focused on six groups ( pitch, intensity, time, consonance, tonal memory, and rhythm) were also given.  The correlations between IQ and test results were not clear. The biggest correlation between intelligence and IQ was found in the "pitch" test.

The best words about the findings were those of  C.E. Seashore, that it is "possible for a person, strong in other capacities, but with relatively low intellectual powers, to assume fairly important roles in music within restricted areas or fields of music activity, but the great musician is always a person of great intellect."  

I will note that this is a study from 1928 -- pretty outdated. But it seems to me and my experiences to be still valid. The best musicians I have met are usually very intellectual, intelligent people. They read and write. They are literature or history buffs. Have photographic, uncanny memories. Sometimes they're extremely good at math or science as well, but I find more of a correlation between history\English\literature and musicians rather than the sciences or maths. The science and math type have the capacity to be good at music, but I find that those types of people do not have much of an emotional attraction to music.  I have also, reversely, met people who were highly intelligent but were not good musicians or did not care for music. 

However, the grey area of this study is, what even is intelligence? There are many types of intelligences, and I include music as one of them. A more accurate and apropriate study may be the correlation between musical intelligence and word intelligence or number intelligence.  Or, this study could be redone with a specific definition of what intelligence means in this case.

Works Cited: 

Fracker et al, "Correlation betwen Intelligence and Musical Talent Among University Students." Psychological Monographs. 39.2 1928. 157-161 print.