Between 1996 and 2000, twelve professional musicians, who came into our New York office for testing, listed music as their primary occupation. They had 11–28 years of professional experience in a variety of musical endeavors.
One individual worked as an associate conductor for a long-running Broadway show and a music critic for Opera News, as well as a composer and pianist. Two were orchestra violinists who also taught music. One was a drummer/percussionist. Two played French horn. There were also a cellist and three oboists, one of whom also played the English horn. Another was a rock/jazz guitarist who has played in various bands, including his own, for the past 20 years.
Eight of these musicians were currently employed as pit musicians for Broadway shows. Most were trained and educated at elite music conservatories such as The Hartt College of Music, Yale, The Manhattan School of Music, and Juilliard.
One striking fact that emerged from this “mini-study” is that, without exception, all twelve of these long-standing professional musicians scored high on all three of our auditory measures. Their mean percentiles were as follows:
- Tonal Memory—88.5
- Pitch Discrimination—87.5
- Rhythm Memory—89.0
This supports our hypothesis that successful professional musicians tend to possess all three of the auditory aptitudes that we measure. All of these performers had other aptitudes which contributed to their divergent interests and activities outside music.
