and now the bad news: Practice may not make perfect

[Jerome]

Well here’s an interesting case – that of James Raymond, well regarded keyboardist and composer. He grew up not having a clue that his father was the one and only David Crosby (and incidentally not riding on the name once he DID find out). Guess he inherited a fair whack of daddy’s genes!

That being said, I suspect that quite aside from one’s genetic predisposition, there are many additional and uniquely individual factors/stimuli at play when it comes to creativity (and mathematical ability), all of which could very well be impossible to identify absolutely. One might have perfect pitch, as an example, and yet no imagination. I also believe there is the possibility of forging new neural pathways in the brain, if we can find the mechanisms to do so. Perhaps that happened involuntarily in the instance of the coma patient.

A sample of James Raymond's playing -

[video=youtube;DJyiCAVW7nk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJyiCAVW7nk[/video]

I agree 100% - you can't put it all down to genetics. Mathematics is an interesting subject when it comes to music. Just like tones and semitones resemble whole numbers and fractions. A musical scale is exactly the same as a series of fractions.