In this paper, the phenomenon of musical giftedness is explored from a psychoanalytic perspective. The role of the sound is examined - during the earliest physiological stirrings of auditory perception in the womb, through sensitivity to sensory modes in the young infant and his mother, and during the growing complexity of object relations and transitional phenomena, as they develop during childhood.

The author presents the hypothesis that musically gifted children retain a primary auditory cathexis. This colors both the relationship with the primary object and the child's sense of self, highlighting certain abstract elements in the internal world, including a particular paradoxical experience of temporality.