JPF Home Page Forums Musician Gear and Techniques Music Theory and Education Sibling Placement, Personality and Improvisation:

There have been several studies, most recently a Johns Hopkins series of articles, linking the order of birth with personality.
The oldest child is responsable, conservative, and dogmatic..the youngest is the free-thinking, early-adapting and creative member, and so on (I can post some Links in relation to this if you wish)
When teaching Improvisation, I have found that not only is it the usual mechanical and math adept pro-sport poor reader who finds it hardest to think outside the square, but that the first born child is far harder to teach to improvise, indeed almost impossible in many cases, whilst the youngest has natural improvisation skills which just need direction.
Has anyone else encountered this?

Interesting thoughts here.
Can't say I have ever thought of birth order as being a factor in anything, but looking at my own situation, for what it is worth.
I am the middle of three kids.
My late elder brother was the one with the musical bent right form day one of my memory at least.
He studied violin form age eight.
I couldn't stand the noise of him doing his scales, and could not get interested in it. I much prefered to be outside playing with the dogs etc.
Never the less, I could squeek out bells of saint mary's and a few others by ear on his violin.
Don abandoned the violin, and music altogether until he was around 18 when he took up guitar.
I still wasn't interested in learning but once again could play existing melodies by ear and find notes of my own that sounded nice to me at least.
I did take a few lessons on piano, but was really just a noise maker. Did learn to read music out of it though.
Our younger sister never showed any interest in music whatso ever. Don't think she even learned to dance, and can't recall ever hearing music playing in her place evre.
She paint and paints well though.
Me I just bumble along still and continue work on the principal of "Wonder what happens when I put this lot together", aqnd have a heap of fun doing it.
Of my four kids. They have all had the same oportunity to do music.
The eldest has played and enjoyed guitar for around 30 years since age ten, the second, while she does play a little guitar, has nevre got into it, does sing, adn is of late playing a bit of harmonica when she does a bit of stuff with a blues band, and has just started singing with another small time band in Perth.
The next one, my son has nevre shown any interest in any music other than to listen to whatever he can make any given sret of speakers handle.
The youngest daughter., has a good ear, and gets a lot of pleasure out of tinkering. Also sings well, but never got beyond chopsticks and the like on the keyboard she begged me to buy her, and what was the reason I finally learned a bit more about playing. Couldn't see all that money collecting dust.
Improved my tinkreing no end I like to think.
Graham

------------------
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/grahamhendersonmusic.htm

As a teacher for over 25 years, I have had the oppportunity to work with many, many kids and to interact with their families.

Yes, there are abundant theories about birth order and how it forms personality; I believe that much of it is stereotypes.

I have seen only children and oldest siblings that do not match your desccriptions, and I have seen a wide variety of personalities that do not appear to be strongly affected by birth order.

I do, however, believe that people are born with some definite characteristics emotionally and intellectually, and some of that may indeed help to shape that person's ability to learn and interact.

Just my thoughts....This is an interesting subject!

Emily



[This message has been edited by Emily Sanders (edited 02-22-2004).]

Possibly this is a subject dear to my heart because my own family placement fits the theory exactly..with myself as the youngest
Certainly in the situation Graham describes, the youngest is creative, but in a field other than music...and to generalise, as I'm sure Emily will agree, is a mistake. On the other hand, there is a vast difference between just playing music, and playing it well..and the ability to improvise is a long step further along that track.
Some students, while musically able to handle almost anything thrown at them, can not put into train the thought processes necessary to improvise, no matter how dedicated the teacher is..and my experience, over the last three plus decades, is that these people are in almost every case the oldest child.
I spent two weeks in Carnarvon, Shark Bay, Monkey Mia and Esperence in the late '80s, BTW, Graham, and really enjoyed the visit.

[This message has been edited by satu largi (edited 02-22-2004).]

satu largi,

The group studied to reach conclusions like these is usually much larger than one encounters in the average school, much less the average music class. Just one effective music teacher at a local early school can spark the creative, improvisational talents of enough children to completely skew the expected statistics at any given high school.

I believe these studies to be valid, but I question their value as any sort of indicator which should be used by the music teacher. Indeed, the very expectations caused by a teacher's knowledge of the students' birth orders may affect the teaching of these students. While in college, I recall a study in which two groups of teachers were given their students' I.Q. test results. One group had the correct results, the other group was given switched the results, with the lowest achiever given highest results and vice versa. The children's evaluations tended to reflect the I.Q. test results, even when these test results were incorrect.

I believe if you expect nothing from a student, you'll probably get it.

By the way, welcome to our forum. Please post often. I've enjoyed what you've posted.

All the Best,
Mike

------------------
Mike Dunbar Music

Well...

I will have to disagree here....

I used to teach private guitar, piano and voice. Some of my most creative, gifted students were...the oldest in their families.

My personal experiences with training young musicians suggests that willingness to work hard, possessing some natural talant, and the ability to take risks have a lot more to do with creative success than birth order.

Emily

P.S. I have a sister who is one year older than I am. We are both accomplished musicians...

[This message has been edited by Emily Sanders (edited 02-23-2004).]

I maybe could add as a side issue. My non musical sister's only kid, is now a not too bad bass player. Has his Masters, teaches, and is a full time muso.
Was bass player for The Whitlams the year they won the three ARIAs 1998-9.
I am inclined to agree with Mike's suggestion stats can often be influenced by rexpectations.
Are certainly often manipulated deliberatly in fact.
I drew that conclusion after very close study of one of our leading market stats anaylist bodies.
But they are thought provooking stuff.
And yep Welcome to the forum.
Glad you enjoyed Esperance too. Is a nice little place to be for me.
Graham


------------------
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/grahamhendersonmusic.htm

Thanks for the welcome, Mike and Graham
Emily, these are private students, as well, and I agree that the general ability level varies across the age spectrum...what interests me is the distinct difference in creativity in many cases, and the effect that being the oldest child, with the responsibility that often involves, has on it.

I agree with Mike about expectations. One of my biggest challenges as a teacher is keeping the promise to be fair to all students, in spite of pre-conceived stereotypes and biased information.

Emily

P.S. satu largi - I am sorry that I forgot to say hello and welcome to JPF....

satu alrgi-

FYI - I have taught thousands of students over the last 25 years, because the majority of my teaching is large groups ( 30-60 at a time) in five or more different schools during a school year.

That's where my overview comes from - a large cross section of society.

Emily

Regardless of whether or not these studies reflect the truth, as the youngest of 6 kids, I can offer one theory:

Parents are usually more controlling with their first child--everything is done "by the book", the blanket with one molecule of spit-up on it is promptly replaced with a clean one, bottles are properly sterilized, etc.

But you just KNOW that by the time old No. 6 comes around, there's so much chaos in the house, that those rigid ways of child-rearing fall by the wayside.

Latter children just naturally learn to be adaptable and flexible in order to survive. Survival skills necessitate creative thinking (i.e., how can the smallest member of the family get a share of the meat and potatoes being snapped up by the older siblings before they're all gone?, etc.)

Just a theory...

With my tongue planted firmly in cheek and "going with the flow"--

-- Diana

------------------
www.dianatyler.com

Satu..

Let me echo the welcome to JPF..

This is an interesting notion...but...

In the case of my family dynamic it's completely inaccurate.....

As a teacher for many years, I never thought about the concept, so I can't offer any input atall...

something to ponder tho....

bob Young

PS Don't be coming in here and making us think too much !
It gives some of us a headache !

Hi, Bob, and thanks for the welcome!

""Latter children just naturally learn to be adaptable and flexible in order to survive. Survival skills necessitate creative thinking (i.e., how can the smallest member of the family get a share of the meat and potatoes being snapped up by the older siblings before they're all gone?, etc.)""
Diana, as someone who works at the coalface of teaching improvisation each day, I can see we are singing from the same songsheet..

Satu--

Just a couple of thoughts, might be irrelevant:

It's been my observation that improvisational ability has a lot to do with musicianship and creativity. I'm not sure that birth order determines how creative you are. It seems that a first born might be more likely to put his or her creative talents to use in a big way, where a youngest like me might goof off a lot and not go for a goal with as much gusto. Just a thought, could be off-base.

Also, you mentioned ability in math along with "pro-sport" and "poor reader." This surprised me because I know that ability in math and language are very closely related to ability in music. It seems that people who excel in math and language at school also do really well in making music.

As the youngest of four children, I don't see your theory played out in my family. Both parents and all four kids are very musical, also all very good in math and language. I do notice that one of the middle children who has a strong interest and ability in science is not nearly as creative in music as the other three. The best at jazz improvisation is the oldest, who in many ways has a "type A" personality. The only one writing original songs is me, the youngest, and I improvise a lot, but only learned it later in life when I decided it was a skill I could learn and not an in-born ability. One of the middle kids has a career in music and acting, but is not the most creative one musically, though very talented. It seems we're all creative but in slightly different ways.

I know some really talented and creative musicians who are good at improvising, who are also firstborn, and their personality reflects that typical first-born personality (at least my understanding of it), but their musical ability does not seem to be exactly connected to their personality traits. Not sure I'm being clear. Why do I post things when I'm really tired?

Just trying to add some more food for thought--NOT trying to start an argument.

Probably I'm just biased against your theory because I don't like sweeping generalizations. There are always exceptions, and I'm often afraid of stereotyping people. Especially when teaching, I think what we expect of someone can have an effect on what they achieve. I think we have to be very careful not to decide what someone can do based on something like birth order, you know?

So, I haven't observed it, but still your theory might be correct. Thanks for starting an interesting topic. --JL

I would need to see the study before I could decide whether or not your theory holds up. Statistics can be slanted and studies of the general population may be different than a similar study among musicians. Environment must certainly play a part in those statistics and the qualities the study is suggesting are subjective. How does one measure conventionality or creativity?



[This message has been edited by AKA JeanB (edited 02-26-2004).]

Well, I can certainly measure the ability of a student to improvise, which is the thrust of my post...and the fact is that some can not improvise to save their lives, and that they usually turn out to be the oldest child. Obviously, I don't ask what their sibling placement is when they book in as a student, and improvising is a long way down the track from there.
I can only call it as I see it..and, after 35 years, I think I have seen it enough to form an opinion without being concerned about so-called labeling and sterotypes.
If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and it can't improvise..then it is probably the oldest duckling.

[This message has been edited by satu largi (edited 02-26-2004).]

[This message has been edited by satu largi (edited 02-26-2004).]

Hmmm... "dogmatic"??.... would you be an oldest child yourself? or a middle? or a youngest?

Just kidding!

Can't help but get the feeling that you posted with the hope that lots of people would just back up your theory, though. Usually the opposite happens here--people who disagree reply in droves!

Just to add to the discussion, I wonder, assuming your theory is correct, if teaching an oldest child requires a different approach from teaching a middle or a youngest. --JL

Hmmm. What is the second eldest child of six supposed to be like?

No disagreement from this black duck Guys.
Just because folks have differing opinions, does not mean they are disagreeing.
Just stating their differing opinions.
And it is the beauty and purpose of debate.
And Jean. I would need to know your birth sign, and which direction the birthing bed was facing in relation to Mecca to be able to answer that one.
Graham

------------------
http://www.soundclick.com/bands/2/grahamhendersonmusic.htm

Since I am the youngest of 7 children, I feel compelled to chime in on this one. Certainly, one has to evaluate a large cross section to obtain an accurate picture of the "way things are", but this theory doesn't hold up in my family.

Diana, being the youngest of six, did have a point that I agree with. There is certainly a big difference in how Number 1 and Number 7 were raised in my family. That said, I don't see where that fact played into the hands of this theory regarding creativity, improvisation, etc.

Most, if not all, of the siblings in my family are creative types, though in different areas. I'm the only one who's shown much interest in music, but overall, I doubt I am the most creative person amongst us. Actually, I think the middle child in my family probably qualifies as most creative.

I'd have to see the study for myself to be convinced of its accuracy. I've seen too many other families, besides my own, where this doesn't hold up either.

Randy

------------------
http://www.songramp.com/homepage.ez?Who=RandyB

What happens when you've been the youngest, oldest and middle child? I have a brother who is 5 years older. We grew up together until he was 17 and I was 12 when we moved to another state after the birth of my younger brother where I was the older brother for the next 9 years until I moved out after college. Now I am the middle child. Does that make me more flexible or more messed up? hahaha

Brian