Talent in music could be a necessary condition for a proficient CW operator?

Talents in music are often emphasized as a condition to be a good CW operator. It's a rule of experience. I could recall quite a few CW operators of proficience who are also good musical instrument player. Gary, W0CGR, who unfortunately was gone SK recently, had been a great guitarist. Jim, W5JAW, is a good guitarist as well. Jim used to send me a file of his performance attached to a mail, which astonished me a lot. Dave, K6XG, plays great baroque recorder, which we have enjoyed at W7 FOC Event last summer. I should add Kemp, K7UQH, a great trombonist in a big band to those people. Jerry, K4JKL, plays clarinet at a professional orchestra. Mike, W3MC, used to be a professional trombonist as well. Maybe, as in the other fields of human abilities, there could be exceptions from time to time like myself. I have been playing cello since med school days. I still have so many things to brush up in CW operation. 

There have been no scientific research as for this theme so far as I know. The following paper, which a good friend of mine, Mike, JH1OOD, has found in Pub Med, might relate the talent with the ability to learn language. I am surprised to know psychologists have been interested in such a theme, even though Morse code could be an iteresting topic in epistemology or in brain science of recognition. CW could be a symbol system closely related with a language, in case of usual Morse code, English so that the music capability may enhance or may be closely involved in Morse code learning ability. It could be just a necessary condition but not sufficient one yet. So don't start practising an instrument to be a competent CW operator.


quote:

Musical experience influences statistical learning of a novel language.
Shook A, Marian V, Bartolotti J, Schroeder SR.
Am J Psychol. 2013 Spring;126(1):95-104.

Abstract

Musical experience may benefit learning of a new language by increasing the fidelity with which the auditory system encodes sound. In the current study, participants with varying degrees of musical experience were exposed to two statistically defined languages consisting of auditory Morse code sequences that varied in difficulty. We found an advantage for highly skilled musicians, relative to lower-skilled musicians, in learning novel Morse code-based words. Furthermore, in the more difficult learning condition, performance of lower-skilled musicians was mediated by their general cognitive abilities. We suggest that musical experience may improve processing of statistical information and that musicians' enhanced ability to learn statistical probabilities in a novel Morse code language may extend to natural language learning.