Musical intelligence, the eternally undervalued ability

Decades ago intelligence concept it has a strong impact on human life.

The IQ test are applied in the staff pick and in the school environments, the fact of obtaining one score or another in one of them can have a great impact on the self-esteem plus, these measures are a good predictor of economic status and life expectancy.

However, some psychologists believe that there is not just one measure of intellect, but many types of intelligence, and some are grossly undervalued. The musical intelligence would be an example of this.

What is musical intelligence?

Musical intelligence belongs to the model of multiple intelligences disclosed by the American psychologist Howard Gardner, and it is a concept that alludes to the capacities and sensitivities that have to do with musical sensitivity, when producing it and perceiving it as such with all its nuances.

It is totally independent of hearing ability, and therefore only concerns the ability to process the sound information of simple or very complex musical pieces, and it does not have to be reflected in specific musical genres either. What defines musical intelligence is the total freedom to create and appreciate music.

How are people with musical intelligence?

Someone with musical intelligence is especially adept at detecting nuances in melodies, thinking in terms of rhythm, timbre and pitch and distinguish similar sounds that sound separately or at the same time. At the same time, they will also have it easier to express themselves musically, either by composing musical pieces performed by themselves or directing a musical group in which you have to keep in mind many elements of the piece you want interpret.

Musical intelligence can be broken down into various skills. These competencies are held to a relative degree, and are not related to a perfect and absolute ability to carry them out. Here are some of them, by way of example.

• Sensitivity when identifying the rhythm, tone, melody and timbre of a piece of music.
• Relative ease when composing or performing musical pieces originals, and when reproducing or adapting them with reference to another piece of music.
• Ease of finding resources with which to capture emotional states or ideas through music.
• Ease of recognizing masked musical pieces that appear to be simple noise.
• Ability to recognize different musical genres influencing a piece of music.
• Easy to create melodies by playing various objects in an impromptu way.

Musical intelligence is educated

According to Howard Gardner, musical intelligence is one of the first types of intelligence to appear throughout the development and growth of people, being present in the first months of lifetime. Therefore, its existence does not depend on whether we have received formal education in music or not, and much less if we know music theory. However, if you want to improve significantly in musical intelligence, there comes a point where it is necessary to practice and dedicate hours a week to training in a systematic way.

This, added to the fact that musical intelligence could be closely linked to logical-mathematical intelligence and skills related to creative thinking, makes certain groups claim the need for schools to dedicate efforts to help improve this type of intelligence using intelligence stimulation programs musical. Efforts are also being made to disseminate exercises with which parents can educate children. children and musical intelligence from their first weeks and according to the stages of growth they go through.

A final thought

The idea of ​​multiple intelligences popularized by Howard Gardner is as loved as it is hated. The fact that it is a classification of different mental abilities has earned it criticism from who believe that intelligence can be explained by studying a single intelligence factor (the Spearman's G factor). However, it also opens the door to understanding the intellect as something broader than what conventional IQ tests measure.

Musical intelligence is one of the great counterpoints that the multiple intelligences model puts on the table: an intelligence that is legitimate for the simple fact of belonging to the artistic and creative facet of the human being, despite not being applicable to the labor and productive gear such as logical-mathematical intelligence.