Music has had a presence in my life in some form or another for as long as I can remember. The relationship I’ve had with music and how I’ve expressed it has changed throughout the years, but always remained, at some level, intact. Since I was old enough to hold myself upright, the electric pianos in our house were a source of endless fascination and entertainment, starting with the red light that turned on and off with the power button, and eventually moving on to discover that (who knew?) sound came out when I pushed the black and white keys. According to my parents, at age eight I took the initiative to ask for lessons after several years of determined effort to teach myself to play. For years after that, my piano was my most valuable possession. For a while I wanted to be a concert pianist when I grew up—who knows if I would have ever reached the skill level necessary for that, but music was something I was at least sure would be with me for the rest of my life.

Where does this come from? What determines the things we will become interested in and possibly perceive ourselves as being good at? My father has been a professional jazz percussionist for about 40 years. Something he said to me once when I was younger stuck in my memory: He told me that, unlike him, I had a lot of natural talent when it came to playing music. That didn’t necessarily mean that he couldn’t be a good musician, but that to me, it came more easily. I don’t know if I believe that, but it makes me wonder if musical ability, or even interest, is in my blood. Looking at the situation I’m coming from, Pinker would likely see this as the obvious conclusion. My dad is a professional musician, of course that’s where my interest would stem from. But what about my dad? Neither of his parents had any musical inclination, at least none that was ever expressed. For me, thinking about this has raised questions about why and how we differentiate so sharply between the ideas of “nature” and “nurture” when it comes to what shapes our personalities and the people we become. Growing up with a musician for a father, I always had access to his instruments and equipment, and was constantly surrounded by the sound of jazz music floating up from his studio in the basement. Isn’t this all part of my environment, one that could have formed very differently had he been a math teacher or manager or one of many other numerous professions? Would Lewontin take this in itself as being a legitimate explanation for my interest? I’ve never thought it possible to reasonably argue that we are shaped solely by one or the other; I think environment and biology both have necessary, if not always equal, parts to play in the construction of human identity. Now, though, I wonder to what extent they are intertwined, and where, if at all, they begin to separate, rather than being two distinct forces that act on us independently.