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I really agree with you that language learning is a different process than music learning. I don't want to get too nerdy here, but I think there's really strong research support for the idea that language learning and its components (learning the syntax and phonology of a language) happens in a very specialized part of the brain with a very particular process that isn't comparable to e.g. how the brain learns to knit or how it learns to play the piano.

I just feel like those in the musicianship-is-borne-of-talent camp sometimes assign certain mystical properties to pianism as if it takes a sort of voodoo to learn how to do it rather than an enormous amount of elbow grease, which is what I think is closer to the reality. I just think about how I learn a new piece, and for me that process is breaking up everything I want to do musically into the atomic parts: learning the fingering for a certain run, practicing it slowly, thinking about my musical intention and where it's leading and experimenting until I hit on what I'm looking for. There's boiled down to a quick recap, but essentially it's a sequential process. While it is very cognitively demanding, I don't think "Learning Music" or "Learning Music Greatly" even requires the certain CB31LEARNMUSIC gene, as much as it requires you to sit at the piano and do a lot of complex problem solving on a very consistent basis over many many hours and years.

Or else what is it that you think a virtuoso does that outside the realm of normal cognitive processing? Certainly I personally think virtuosos need to be deeply in touch with their humanity in order to communicate something universal and beautiful, but while that's incredibly rare, it is clearly in the humanistic realm and not some special gene.

I think it's more like, "Do you want it very very badly? Are you willing to devote 2 to 5 hours per day to it, every day, for years?" For most people the answer to those questions is no, in practice if not in intention. I think that's why there are so few virtuosos. Those child virtuosos equally did their grueling time at the keyboard and at a time when their young brains were capable of doing the neurological sequencing work (or whatever it is) to learn fingerings and gain fluency/automaticity at sight-reading at a much faster pace than an adult brain. We just think it looks like magic (or "talent") because we see the finish product only.

I'm afraid I may have ventured into TL;DR territory, which is too bad.

When I look back to my experience... if you start when 4 and put even only 1 hour a day on average you will have more than 5000 hour of practice by the time you hit 18.... and we all know that "talented" musicians spend more than that at the piano....

take for example your average 20 year old something... I think most of them, between social life, mates, fun and recreation will hardly put more than 1 hour a day on average even if some day are able to make 3 or 4 hour stints... than you have vacations, than you have some finals... find a job.. gym and so on..... even if you work THAT hard... you'll still reach 34 by the time you have the same amount of hours at the piano of the "talented" kid.....

I don't want to come with the 10.000 hours of dedicated practice... but at the end... I believe that real talent kicks in to reach that last 1% that makes your music "live" or that extra metronome mark..... real talent makes you Richter instead of anybody else with a phd in piano performance.... time and sweat makes you a pro over an amateur.

IMO talent is a continuum. Even "just" getting a Phd in piano performance takes a level of talent very high on the scale... at least the top 1/100th of one percent. For a Richter the talent level is obviously at the absolute extreme of the scale.

Oh, you can definitely acquire various bits and pieces of technique when you are an adult, or keep improving on those you already have. I've been playing for over 50 years and still feel that I'm acquiring technique.

But what you probably can't do as an adult is acquire the kind of comprehensive technique of a top notch virtuoso. Put a different way, I don't think there has ever been anyone with a major international career as a concert pianist - you know, the kind who gets concerto dates with the world's major orchestras - who started learning how to play as an adult.

It can be done. I've seen it in other areas, particularly martial arts. The likelihood of someone waiting until adulthood to do this is very small, so there are very few cases, but it happens.

However, I think the example of a major international career as a concert pianist presumes that ability alone gets you such a career. Not even close, unfortunately. It's more about network, opportunity, luck, time (timing for that matter), and marketability. Few adults are as marketable as a "six-year-old-prodigy-ohmygod-supertalented-Mozart-reborn!" What do you say about the adult? "Hey, everyone. Here's a guy that learned to play the piano at an advanced age."

Look at other entertainment venues--acting, for example. Most actors get their start very young. Very, very, very few actors get their start as adults. Give it a shot--see how many A-list actors you can name who started acting as adults. Why? Because it often takes a very long time to "break in". Even Morgan Freeman, the adult-champion of acting perseverance, got his first professional gig (that I know of) at age 27, and probably was acting unprofessionally before that. But he didn't get his "big break" until 25 years later, as Principal Joe Clark in "Lean On Me". Another, Hugo Weaving, got his first professional gig at age 21, but didn't get his "big break" for 18 more years ("The Matrix").

Being a super-highly-paid A-lister, a name that everyone would recognize, doesn't mean you have the greatest ability. It means you have the greatest marketability. Astronomically huge difference.

I'm not sure why you are bringing up other fields - they are not directly comparable to classical piano playing, IMO.

And while it is true that there's more to becoming a virtuoso with a major international career than just having the comprehensive technique, that technique is still the norm, and there are still no pianists of that kind who have that sort of technique who acquired it as an adult.

But the point I'm making isn't about the career, anyway - it just happens that the big international careers are the most obvious manifestation and convenient example. But, AFAIK, there aren't any known classical pianists of any sort, regardless of their career standing, who acquired that kind of comprehensive virtuoso technique as adults.

And, come to think of it, even if someone could find such an example, the utter freakish rarity of it would mean that it was pretty useless as an example in any general discussion of why it is that people say that you can't acquire a real complete virtuoso technique as an adult.

There have been several lengthy threads about whether or not any late starters(here I think the discussion meant say around 15 and not adults)ever achieving a major performing career. To the best of my knowledge the conclusion was that either no one had ever done or maybe(but probably not) 2 or 3 pianists. The few pianists that posters usually listed(I don't remember those usually mentioned) as those who have achieved major careers after starting piano lessons in their mid teems have been shown not to fit that description on closer examination.

So not only have adults not done this, but to the best of my based on those threads no one starting in their mid teens has achieved a major career.

Maybe it's me... but I consider that top 1% people that did work hard, very hard, extremely hard... but real talent is what makes the difference between excellence and real genius. That kind of genius that pops out once in a while and we will be talking about even after his death.
An analogy we can have it with athletes... as well as pianist they need the right "genes" to make it to the Olympics... put it together with a lot of hard work spanning several years.. decades... but the real talent is in the one that does what nobody else can for a while... think about Carl Lewis.. or (the Olympics example would work for him) Sergei Bubka and his span of world records.

The skill set may be different, but the industry sure works on similar principles, and that served my purpose well.


So, because of a lack of evidence, you want to discredit this idea, but when there was zero evidence earlier of the existence of talent, that was fine?


Yeah, as far as I know, there aren't, either. Capable adults? Yes. International careers? No. That was kind of my point, too, so thank you for hammering it home.

I think, in that thread, the only possible example that came up was Arcadi Volodos, but even he started earlier if I remember the eventual unfolding of the discussion? (I think someone said he started at 15; then someone else pointed out that he started around 9; then it went all over the place from there, because he played another instrument before piano... I forget.)

I completely agree. What I was commenting on was more your phrase "real talent", which somehow seemed to imply that pianists of a lesser league than Richter didn't have much talent. Hence, my comment that even those who "only" can earn a PhD in piano performance have an incredibly high level of talent if not on the Richter scale.

Volodos wwas singing before he took up the piano seriously, at 16.
French pianist Roger Muraro began to study the piano at 13 (he says it himself in a broadcast of Radio Classique, with Philippe Cassard). Previously, he was studying saxophone.


An interesting fact : a lot of classical guitarists the 60's/70's began late (because from what I gather it was difficult to get a proper teacher, classical guitar wasn't taught everywhere like it is today). I have never heard anyone saying it was a bag generation, and as far as I know many very good guitarists learnt during this period, often beginning at 15, 16, 17, etc.

Could we then finally rename this forum 'Pianists Corner where we now all accept international careers are not open to later starters'? That'd save a lot of posting in future.

obviously not.

I'm against it. I enjoy reading it.

I now read most posts on this thread.

One definition of talent that I came up with, after combining other definitions on this thread, is:
Talent is the ability to turn an innate aptitude into a skill.

Do all humans have the same innate aptitudes? I don't think so.
How much does the level of skill one can achieve depend on the innate aptitude? That's what we are debating here.

I see it as the innate aptitude.
I agree about not everyone having the same, and I think it's pretty clear that not too many people doubt it.

Me too.

How about modifying patH's statement to: "Self-discipline is the ability to turn an innate aptitude into a skill."

-J

The key word of Volodos stateement is "seriously". He didn't say that he didn't study piano before 16 or that his didn't approach his study before 16 with quite a lot of care and effort. Other sources give 15 as the age when he decided piano would be his first choice as a musical career. So I don't think his case in any way disproves my earlier comment about all the great pianists starting early.

Thinking about it, maybe this makes more sense than my suggestion.
But there's this famous quote about genius being 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. Variants replace "genius" with "art" or "success", and mention a 5/95 ratio.

Maybe becoming a virtuoso is 1% of innate aptitude and 99% hard work.

I find it bizarre that when a young person has a phenomenal vocal ability, I think no one would deny it's part talent (as in a natural gift) but some feel that this is not true for piano playing.

Anyone really think anyone can sing like this at a similar age without talent?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKGCpMSFjlU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fG8RvKtQXZ0

Part of the reason I think vocal ability is more innate is because you only get one vocal apparatus, ever, and it's built in. It's easy to imagine that from a pure physiological perspective, some people end up with a "Steinway" and some people end up with a 1902 clunker. Pianism on the other hand, has fairly little to do with the built-in physiology of your hand and arm (though many of the greats are said to have had massive hands), and much more to do with the mental processes involved in putting your limbs to work. In other words, you can go down to a Steinway showroom whenever you like and play on a 50 grand value piano, but you can't trade up for a different larynx and lots of singers are probably moreso considered great on the basis of their "equipment" (as well as interpretation of course).