X. THE INHERITANCE OF MUSICAL TALENT
The inheritance of musical talent has been investigated by Copp and by Stanton. The latter has made measurements of specific musical capacities in relatives of musicians, using Seashore’s tests. This is the beginning of adequate study of the inheritance of musical talent, as the method, though laborious, is correct.
Four of the Seashore measures of musical talent were given to eighty-five members of six unrelated family groups, starting in each group with a person conspicuously known as a musician. These measurements were supplemented by a set questionnaire, covering musical endowment, musical education and training, musical activity, musical appreciation, musical memory and imagination, the questionnaire including a larger number of relatives.
From these data, a study was made of the tendency of offspring to be musical or unmusical, in accordance with parentage and more remote ancestry. The results show that musical talent is inherited, and the investigator believes it not improbable that the formula of inheritance may be Mendelian. Much wider research would, however, be avowedly necessary, in order to establish the formula. It may or may not be Mendelian.
The offspring of a mating of musical with unmusical, of musical with musical, or of unmusical with unmusical, may thus inherit from either parent or from both parents, and apparently without regard to sex. Sex differences do not appear, either, in any of the tests of musical sensitivity, which have been standardized.