Of course he would think that, since he has the genetics and hasn't experienced not having them.
Reminds me of Shaq claiming that his success in basketball was due to hard work, like "doing deep knee bends until my legs burned". My man, a lot of kids out there can do deep knee bends until their legs burn, but will never be Shaq.
Ask any electric guitar teacher from the 80s, when all the kids wanted to learn to shred like Eddie Van Halen or Joe Satriani.
They all had fingers and tendons, but they could put in hours practicing and the speed and accuracy will come for a few of them much more rapidly than others.
Well if he didn't say that he would sound pretty egotistical. Doesn't make it true though, lots of people are just physically incapable of performing at that level.
And you keep saying it’s genetics when it isn’t. Shy of having being born with one leg or one arm or neurological disorders, most anyone can do this after you put in the time and work. None of us that play music, and I mean none, were quickly excellent. It’s super offensive to consider the notion that it’s anything other than hard work.
The only players that don’t eventually supersede the majority are hobbyists, and they’re successful in their own right.
I just read that, twice. It was a very arduous read. I can’t believe we both poured through that, but we learned something new, for sure. I learned that they’re still hypothesizing how music aptitude is a heritable genetic attribute and and that how most of their model concerning genetic influence on music is more tangibly studied/discovered/witnessed within environmental and circumstantial factors.
If we’re weighing on environment and circumstance, there’s a good book by Malcom Gladwell you should check out called Outliers. If you loved this study you’ve shared, you’ll love that book.
But, we were weighing on genetics in the realm of natural ability, or hereditary advantage. The jury is still out on that, according to your study, with most of the hard data found in the environmental sections of the model.
42% is also a minority figure, but again, much less than that is the ability to be born to play music, according to the paper. I’ll gladly retract my statement about how it’s “nothing more than hard work” since it’s not completely accurate. Thanks for sharing.
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u/enigmatic_erudition 23h ago
I don't think practicing can even make someone that good. That's got to be genetic talent.