If babies hear music frequently during the gestation period, are they more likely to be musical?

I obviously didn’t get much music played to me, i have 3 left feet when it comes to rhythm.

no but they usually wind up knowing who madonna is at an earlier age

Didn’t work for me. I played Bach to my unborn son and he just kicked like crazy. He also put up a terrific fuss in utero when I went to the opera. I don’t think he liked it much.

On the other hand ... he is musical ... maybe just not what I meant by “music.” So maybe yes.

@Jeruba Maybe Bach just wasn’t his type of music. But, something must have struck a cord if he is musical.
The reason I ask, I find it peculiar that my daughter-in-law is a school teacher, and she was teaching for the most part of her pregnancy. When she came home she was exhausted so she would go in her room and play music. Almost any kind, as long as it was relaxing. My son is very musical himself. He play the piano, guitar, and drums. When my grandson was born, he seemed to perk up whenever music was playing. As soon as he was old enough to pick up a toy guitar he would take a stand and start strumming and singing something and he could not even talk yet.
My daughter is also a teacher. She carried her daughters for the most part of her pregnancy while teaching. She specialized in reading recovery. Both girls are in high school now and both have very high GPA. Do you think they got something, anything from being in that position?

There’s a lot of research going on. It is evident that the unborn baby is able to listen to music quite early (21 weeks if I remember correctly). But most likely the influence of music is more important during the first 2 years after birth. Why? I might have to do with the phenomenon of

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic_pruning

“In neuroscience, synaptic pruning is a neurological regulatory process, which facilitates a productive change in neural structure by reducing the overall number of overproduced or “weak” neurons into more efficient synaptic configurations. The purpose of synaptic pruning is a simple means of removing unnecessary neuronal structures from the brain; as the human develops, the need to understand more complex structures becomes much more pertinent, and simpler associations formed at childhood are thought to be removed for more complex structures.”

There is also a lot of evidence that listening to music (which has a healthy minimum of melody and complexity) as well as playing a musical instrument increases general intelligence, emotional and social intelligence. Children become far less violent.

I think all kids have an inclination to move to a beat, or play a drum, etc. I think that adding a few beats in the womb can’t hurt, but probably isn’t necessary.

Everyone in my family is very musical,except me.The Hi-Fi must’ve broke during my mom’s pregnancy with me…that’s right….HI-FI !!l LOL

I sure hope so.. I want my kids to be musical.. mom and dad are :-)