Music and Genetics is the title of a new report released by researchers from Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany. Pouring over studies involving identical twins and molecular biology, it endeavours to answer on an age-old question conclusively: is musical talent down to nature or nurture?

Music and Genetics: A small girl holds a cello while her mother uses the bow.

Image © Yan Krukau/Pexels

Finding the answer is much more complex than it might seem.

Maybe we’re born with it

The report first offers some simple observations that support a genetic predisposition for music. Its prevalence as a global phenomenon, common to all cultures and peoples, might point to music as something coded within our DNA rather than environmentally-dependent.

Musicians often are clustered in families – more than 50 consummate musicians across the 17th and 18th centuries shared Bach blood – though this shared familial environment makes it harder to pin this talent down to either nature or nurture.

There’s also a known link between genetic abnormalities and their impact on musical skills. For example, individuals with Williams syndrome may be...