Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-xxrs7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-28T17:17:30.767Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Intelligence and musical improvisation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2009

B. Hermelin*
Affiliation:
MRC Development Psychology Project, Institute of Education, University of London
N. O'Connor
Affiliation:
MRC Development Psychology Project, Institute of Education, University of London
S. Lee
Affiliation:
MRC Development Psychology Project, Institute of Education, University of London
D. Treffert
Affiliation:
MRC Development Psychology Project, Institute of Education, University of London
*
1Address for correspondence: Dr B Hermelin, MRC Developmental Psychology Project, 18 Woburn Sq., London WC1H ONS.

Synopsis

We investigated whether somebody with a severe mental impairment could not only remember and reproduce music, but was also able to generate it. Musical improvisation requires the ability to recognize constraints and also demands inventiveness.

Musical improvisations on a traditional, tonal and also on a whole tone scale composition were produced by a mentally handicapped and by a normal control musician. It was found that not only the control but also the handicapped subject could improvise appropriately within structural constraints, although with the tonal music the idiot-savant showed some stylistic latitude. It is concluded that cognitive processes such as musical input analysis, decision making, and output monitoring are independent of general intellectual status.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anastasi, A. & Levee, R. F. (1960). Intellectual defect and musical talent' a case report. American Journal of Mental Deficiency 64, 695703.Google Scholar
Brooks, D. N. & Baddeley, A. (1976). What can amnesic patients learn? Neuropsychologia 14, 111122.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Charness, N., Clifton, J. & Macdonald, L. (1988). Case Study of Musical ‘Mono-savant’: a Cognitive-Psychological Focus. In The Neuropsychology of Talent and Special Abilities (Ed. Obler, L. K. and Fein, D.), pp. 277293. Guildford Press: USA.Google Scholar
Clarke, E. F. (1988) Generative principles in music performance. In Generative Processes in Music (ed. Sloboda, J. A.), pp. 126. Clarendon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Fodor, G. A. (1983). The Modularity of Mind. MIT Press Cambridge, Mass.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hermelin, B., O'Connor, N. & Lee, S. (1987). Musical inventiveness of five idiots-savant. Psychological Medicine 17, 685694.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1989). Constraints and representational change: evidence from children's drawing. Cognition. (To be published.)Google Scholar
Lerdahl, F. (1988). Cognitive constraints on compositional systems. In Generative Processes in Music (ed. Sloboda, J.), pp. 231259. Clarendon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Miller, L. K. (1987). Developmentally delayed musical savant's sensitivity to tonal structure. American Journal of Mental Deficiency 5, 467471.Google Scholar
Minogue, B. M. (1923). A case of secondary mental deficiency with musical talent. Journal of Applied Psychology 7, 349353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Owens, W. A. and Grimm, W. (1941). A note regarding exceptional musical ability in a low-grade imbecile. Journal of Educational Psychology 32, 636 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pressing, G. (1988). Improvisation: methods and models. In Generative Processes in Music (ed. Sloboda, J.), pp. 129178, Clarendon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Scheerer, M., Rothman, E. & Goldstein, K. (1945). A case of idiotsavant: an experimental study of personality organisation. Psychological Monographs 58, 163.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloboda, J. A., Hermelin, B. & O'Connor, N. (1985). An exceptional musical memory. Music Perception 3, 155170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sloboda, J. A. (1985). The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Clarendon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Sloboda, J. A. (1988). Preface: In Generative Processes in Music, (ed. Sloboda, J.), pp. iiixiii. Clarendon Press: Oxford.Google Scholar
Sudnow, D. (1978). Ways of the Hand: The Organisation of Improvised Conduct. Routledge and Kegan Paul: London.Google Scholar
Viscott, D. S. (1970). A musical idiot-savant: a psychodynamic study and some speculations on the creative process. Psychiatry 33, 494515.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed