| 1. |
- Theorell, Töres, et al.
(författare)
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Predictors of continued playing or singing - from childhood and adolescence to adult years
- 2015
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Ingår i: Acta Paediatrica. - : Wiley. - 0803-5253 .- 1651-2227. ; 104:3, s. 274-284
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Aim: Many individuals play an instrument or sing during childhood, but they often stop later in life. This study surveyed adults representative of the Swedish population about musical activities during childhood.Methods: We asked 3820 adults (65% women) aged from 27 to 54 from the Swedish Twin Registry, who took extra music lessons to those provided at school, to fill in a web-based questionnaire. Factors analysed were the age they started studying music, the instrument they played, kind of teaching, institution and educational content, number of lessons and perceived characteristics of the lessons, the music environment during their childhood years and their preferred music genre. All variables were dichotomised.Results: Factors strongly associated with continued playing or singing were male sex, young starting age, cultural family background, self-selected instrument, attending music classes and more than once a week, church-related or private education, pop, rock or classical music, playing by ear and improvisation.Conclusion: Several significant predictors determined whether a child continued to sing or play an instrument as an adult and many could be externally influenced, such as starting at a young age, taking music classes more than once a week, improvisation and the type of music they played.
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| 2. |
- Theorell, Töres P., et al.
(författare)
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Musical activity and emotional competence - a twin study
- 2014
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Ingår i: Frontiers in Psychology. - : Frontiers Media SA. - 1664-1078. ; 5, s. 774-
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The hypothesis was tested that musical activities may contribute to the prevention of alexithymia. We tested whether musical creative achievement and musical practice are associated with lower alexithymia. 8000 Swedish twins aged 27-54 were studied. Alexithymia was assessed using the Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20. Musical achievement was rated on a 7-graded scale. Participants estimated number of hours of music practice during different ages throughout life. A total life estimation of number of accumulated hours was made. They were also asked about ensemble playing. In addition, twin modelling was used to explore the genetic architecture of the relation between musical practice and alexithymia. Alexithymia was negatively associated with (i) musical creative achievement, (ii) having played a musical instrument as compared to never having played, and for the subsample of participants that had played an instrument (iii) total hours of musical training (r = 0.12 in men and 0.10 in women). Ensemble playing added significant variance. Twin modelling showed that alexithymia had a moderate heritability of 36% and that the association with musical practice could be explained by shared genetic influences. Associations between musical training and alexithymia remained significant when controlling for education, depression, and intelligence. Musical achievement and musical practice are associated with lower levels of alexithymia in both men and women. Musical engagement thus appears to be associated with higher emotional competence, although effect sizes are small. The association between musical training and alexithymia appears to be entirely genetically mediated, suggesting genetic pleiotropy.
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| 3. |
- Theorell, Töres, et al.
(författare)
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Talking about childhood music : a twin study
- 2018
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Ingår i: The arts and the brain. - Amsterdam : Elsevier. - 9780128139813 - 0128139811 ; 237, s. 279-289
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Bokkapitel (refereegranskat)abstract
- To what extent do childhood experiences of music practice influence thinking about music later in life? In this contribution, 27–54-year-old monozygotic twins discordant with regard to piano playing in life were interviewed about music experiences during childhood and adult years. Recordings of heart rate variability were performed continuously during the interviews which were done separately with playing and nonplaying cotwins. Random factors had determined whether the twin chose to play or not. The rationale behind using monozygotic twins was that this offered a possibility to account totally for genetic influence. The physiological recordings in general showed small intrapair differences. However, during the initial discussion about how the difference arose in piano practice during childhood, the nonplaying twin used more time and showed evidence of a stronger sympathetic activation than the cotwin. These findings are discussed against the background of music's importance in childhood.
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