Gould's interest in music and his talent as a pianist were evident very early. Both his parents were musical, and his mother, especially, encouraged the infant Gould's early musical development. His mother, hoping for him to become a successful musician, had exposed him to music during her pregnancy. She would later teach him the piano. As a baby, he reportedly hummed instead of crying and wiggled his fingers as if playing chords, leading his doctor to predict that he would "be either a physician or a pianist". He learned to read music before he could read words, and it had been observed that, at age three, he had perfect pitch. When presented with a piano, the young Gould was reported to strike single notes and listen to their long decay, a practice his father Bert noted was different from typical children. Gould's interest in the piano was concomitant with an interest in composition. He would play his own little pieces for family, friends, and sometimes large gatherings—including, in 1938, a performance at the Emmanuel Presbyterian Church (a few blocks from the Gould family home) of one of his own compositions.