During his early years, Werner was in constant competition with his brother Erwin which caused friction. The Heisenberg family were accomplished musicians. Every evening they would sit and practice together. August was on the piano, Erwin played the violin, and Werner played the cello. Their mother insisted that she had no musical talent as an excuse to not be involved in the male competition. Later Werner also learned the piano and used his musical talents as a social vehicle during the course of his life. This manly competition carried out in many other activities in the house. Sometimes August Heisenberg would make games out of difficult homework problems that the boys had. Werner once said when reflecting back on his childhood, "Our father used to play all kinds of games with [us] . And since he was a good teacher, he found that the games could be used for the educating the children. So when my brother had some mathematical problems in his schoolwork . he tried to use these problems as a kind of game and find out who could do them quickly, and so on. Somehow, I discovered that I could do that kind of mathematics rather quickly, so from that time on I had a special interest in mathematics." This constant competition caused many fights between the brothers. As they grew older the fights became more vicious. One time the fight became particularly bloody where they beat each other with wooden chairs. After this confrontation the brothers called a truce and hardly interacted with each other except for occasional family get togethers when they were adults. In school, Werner began to show his amazing ability early on. He excelled through school and always received complementary remarks from his teachers. As a result from the competition with his brother he developed a hard work ethic and a strong drive to succeed. Even though Werner was not a good runner he would run around the track timing himself with a stopwatch trying to improve his running times.
