I have been practicing music all my conscious life.

I started playing piano along with the radio at age two. Started formal lessons at three.

The first song I remember singing loudly and obsessively (with my little sister) was the Beatles song "She Loves You" - I think that "Yeah, yeah yeah!" chorus was designed for kids!

My father was basically unmusical but not averse to it. He probably enjoyed that I enjoyed it. My mother did not show much interest in music except for a few (about 10-20) singles from the 60s. I played at her 50th, 60th and 70th birthdays and she seemed happy and content with the way it sounded. I get a pretty high score on the Barcelona Music Reward Questionnaire. Maybe there is something further back in my family or I'm just a mutant.

What might make me raise my eyebrows in the referenced study is that there are >9000 twins. According to statistics, there are about 45000 twins aged 37-64. A little more than 20% of all twins of that age in Sweden participated in the study.

It seems to me that makes it a very big study. Excellent!

I also wonder what impact culture and environment might have. Do places like Sweden and northern Europe, marked by times of extended winter darkness, encourage people to do music at home, more than south European cultures in warmer climates and more sunlight? I think family singing and storytelling were done a lot more in the days when everyone was stuck indoors and outside entertainment wasn't available. Think of the famous Welsh choirs, grown in a population in which everyone sang.

-- 
David W. Jones
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authenticity, honesty, community
http://dancingtreefrog.com
"My password is the last 8 digits of π."