Personality Differences among Musical Instrumentalists

Abstract

Personality traits, assessed from the 16PF and HSPQ, were examined in a sample of secondary school musical instrumentalists and student instrumentalists attending a college of music. In both samples, significant differences were found between the musical sample and the normative population from which they were drawn. In the college sample, particularly, further differences were found between students whose main instrument of study was strings, woodwind or brass. Possible mechanism giving rise to these differences in personality were considered. It was suggested that some personality characteristics predisposed individuals to pursue instrumentalperformance studies, whilst others reflected habitual performance on different types of musical instrument.