What to Know About Musical Intelligence...

Why some people are so well-attuned to a tune

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We all have that one friend who is shockingly adept at all things music-related. Whether they do it professionally or merely whip out their violin on special occasions, you can't help but wonder where their innate talent came from.There's the years of practice element, certainly, but some people are particularly well-tuned (pun intended!) to even the most challenging aspects of rhythm, harmony, and music theory. We're talking about musical intelligence.The notion of musical intelligence comes from Howard Gardner’s theory of multiple intelligences. While the term is somewhat contested, it’s still a frame that some people, and some practitioners, see themselves and others through.In this article we’re going to look at the typical definition of musical intelligence, why it’s a complicated term, how you can identify your own relationship to music, and how it gets applied when it’s taken off of the page and into the world.Take The Intelligence Type TestDo you truly know yourself? Our free and fast quiz can help you determine what your intelligence style might be based on how you think, the kind of things you like to do, and areas where you tend to shine brightest.

Understanding Musical IntelligenceThe definition of musical intelligence isn't rigidly established. There are multiple ways people think about it. In 2001, researcher SW Mills labeled it, quoting others, as “[the] abilities to produce and appreciate rhythm, pitch, timbre; appreciation of the forms of musical expression” while other researchers have labeled its definition as being focused on “the development, application, and measurement of musical skills and abilities or cognitive processes needed to represent and manipulate musical sounds internally.”
TakeawayOne example of musical intelligence, as it's commonly understood, could be listening to a piece of music and being able to figure out which instruments are being played, hearing a piece of music and being able to match the tempo, or being able to identify why a piece of music, pun intended, resonates with you.
Jennifer Townsend, MMT, MT-BC, the manager of creative arts therapies at Houston Methodist, has another definition. “When I think about musical intelligence, I'm thinking about the ways that people think through music or connect with music. How much do they utilize music as a part of their everyday practices, everyday life.”As the term has developed, some have become skeptical of it. Erin Hannon, PhD, a professor of psychological and brain sciences at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, calls the term problematic.“There's not one kind of intelligence for music, there's sort of all kinds of different skill sets and aptitudes that are relevant.”In her research work with the UNLV music lab Hannon says she prefers to differentiate between all of the different factors that can make up someone’s relationship to music, a shift in the field that is front and center.“I think people are trying to move away from this field kind of being obsessed with music, training, and musicians, and really look at music as a human capacity that we all have, maybe to differing degrees…I think you really have to be careful. And I think the field is being careful about differentiating between actual skills that you may have acquired versus aptitude, which may or may not be related to your skills that you acquire.”
Related: How Listening to Music Can Have Psychological Benefits
Assessing and Building Your KnowledgeIntelligence and IQ testing have a complicated, and often ableist and racist history. While there are online tests, like a project from researchers at Yale and the University of Auckland, there are also specific measures you can engage with.One of those is the GoldSmiths Musical Sophistication Index. It’s a self-reported tool that, in the words of the creators “measures the ability to engage with music in a flexible, effective and nuanced way.” The index is available online and there is open access research available surrounding its use. Hannon says that one concern that is being tackled in research circles throughout child development is that a lot of the work that has been done has predominantly focused on not only American and European people, but also American and European styles of music.“We really have a strong Western bias in our scientific research on child development…The evidence that's out there suggests we do not understand this as human nature, because we haven't looked at it in different cultures.”Musical Intelligence Out in the WorldTownsend works in a medical setting and finds that creating a musical biography with patients, finding out how they use and relate to music, can help decide on what interventions she might lean on.For example, someone who is looking to regain movement after a stroke might be asked to listen to music that matches the intended gait of their walk, matching the toe and heel strikes as they go. In another situation, a music therapist might find out that a patient connects very deeply with the saxophone, allowing further discussion to help process the experiences that happen in a medical setting. "...Our heart beats in rhythm, our blood pumps in rhythm, we’re very rhythmic beings. And so there's the innateness of music in people."Jennifer Townsend, MMT, MT-BC
Townsend says that being able to broadly connect a person’s relationship to music with their current needs is a key part of music therapy. For her, that starts with understanding that a connection to rhythm is a key part of the human experience. “We also think about the way that music integrates with our physiology as humans, and this is all humans. Our heart beats in rhythm, our blood pumps in rhythm, we’re very rhythmic beings. And so there's the innateness of music in people,” says TownsendWhile musical intelligence, in the creative therapies world, is the domain of the music therapist. Alexis Steefel, MA, ATR-BC art therapy supervisor at Penn State Health Children’s Hospital, says that those using these various therapies, all of which are drawing on different understandings of people’s relationship to creativity, are connected.“We’re like ping pong balls, we bounce off of each other to learn more about the patient and see them from different perspectives based on our individual education.”On the research side, Hannon says that child development researchers know far more about areas of study like children and their acquisition of language than they do about how children develop their aptitude for and understandings of music. “I think we take for granted as something that we can all do, but our research suggests that it takes a long time actually, to kind of figure out where the beat is, or the downbeat is, these are things that we're finding take well into adolescence.”Keep in MindIntelligence, as a framework to understand yourself and others, is a tricky thing. While musical intelligence is a term that is used, and it has informed some of the work people do in the community, there is a sense that the fields of music therapy and music-focused research are moving away from its original framing. Instead, they are shifting more and more towards an understanding that music and our relationship to it is a natural and complicated phenomenon.
Read Next: Emotional Intelligence: How We Perceive, Evaluate, Express, and Control Emotions
Read the original article on Verywell Mind.

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