ManicMammy’s Blog

Was Vanessa Mae born a violin prodigy or did she become one through blood, sweat, tears and hours upon hours of practice?

By all accounts, it appears that her mother was a major force in driving her success. From the age of 4 when Vanessa began learning to play the violin, her mother urged her to strive for perfection by telling her daughter that her love was conditional on how well Vanessa played. Thus ensued an extraordinary childhood and adolescence where the violin was the most important focus.

During this programme Vanessa underwent a brain scan, personality tests, hearing exams and more. The results showed that her brain had honed the areas used when she played the violin with her normal hand but when she changed hands it was comparable to any other novice beginning to learn the instrument.

She calculated the number of hours spent practising from 4 to 16 years old and came up with a number greater than 7,000. This was expected from the expert who had studied gifted musicans and noted that they all had spent from 5,000 to 10,000 hours of practice in their youth.

So far it was looking like her talent was in the majority down to her hard work and diligence.

Then the psychologist entered. He subjected her to a range of personality tests. The conclusions drawn were that she’s an extrovert with above normal risk taking, perfectionismand thrill seeking characteristics. Her hearing was also determined to be excellent and well above average. It was discovered that her mother had the same personality characteristics as she agreed to undergo the same tests. These personality traits are apparently conducive to becoming an exceptional musican.

So it would seem that yes, her genes went a long way to making her what she is today but the hard work and dedication was also required. She ended the programme saying she thought it was probably 50/50 in the nature/nurture split of contributing to her success. She did seem saddened that her relationship with her mother wasn’t more conventional. She acknowledged the fact that she knew her mother did love her and that her drive had a huge impact on getting her to where she is careerwise, she just wished it could have been done differently.

I found the programme very interesting. As a parent, it is often difficult to know what to do for the best for your kids. Should they be encouraged and pushed towards developing a talent or should they just meander along at their own pace? It would have be very interesting if Vanessa’s estranged mother had taken part in the programme. Unfortunately she declined to do so.