Some research on Finnish families shows some links between genes and scores on tests of musical ability. It's open access so you can read the whole thing but the key points are summarized here:
http://www.gnxp.com/blog/2008/05/genetics-of-music.php
Have any other researchers looked at such links, or is this paper the first?
I'll be the first to say I have little musical talent - my ability to recognize pitches and memorize music is absolutely terrible. But I compensate for that with other traits and manage to gig regularly, release some albums, and make a little money from music. So I don't "musical" genes are the be-all and end-all of music, but they are interesting anyway.
