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I agree. To my knowledge, no scientific study has proved the link between genes and musicianship. What does help, in my opinion, is a musical environment. And large, flexible hands ( Maria João agrees with me on this one lol).

Exactly! It's about career, fame. That's not making it - although the two are not mutually exclusive. Leopold Mozart is a famous example, as well as Johann Beethoven, who altered his son's age by two years to make him seem more impressive.

It's a dirty system; and it works, because people are fooled by what they see.

May I suggest that there is an internal 'making it'? Being a musician offers a highly rich life.

You're right. I have no evidence. But some things are self-evident. And I've never heard of a famous pianist who was not a prodigy - i.e. one whose capacity to learn and rate of learning didn't far exceed that of his peers of average talent.

Let's say a 5-6 year-old boy begins taking piano lessons. Let's say that he comes from a highly educated family, maybe even a musical family. He goes to the best schools, has the best piano teachers, practices like a dog, loves music, wants to become a concert pianist more than anything else in the world, and is nurtured every step of the way. One would think that by his mid-to-late 20s, he'd be playing at an extremely high level. But I'd be willing to bet that there have been millions of situations similar to this, where the end result was not a concert career, but something less. What was the missing ingredient? Are there any examples of famous pianists with only average or above average talent, who took the "20 years of practicing your heart out" route to fame and glory? I'd love to know who they are.

Now look at Georges Cziffra. His family lives in abject poverty. His dad plays cimbalom in cabarets, and his parents like to sing tunes around the house. His sister wants to take piano, but first needs to get a job to afford lessons. The closest little Georges gets to a "musical education" is listening to his sister practice. So, as a toddler, he mimics her playing, and learns to improvise - without sheet music. In fact, he becomes so good at it that he's recruited to be the headliner for a traveling circus, where he takes audience requests and improvises. Oh yeah, forgot to mention: This was at age 5. After his circus travels, at the ripe old age of 9, he enters Franz Liszt Academy as the youngest student to ever be admitted. He goes on to be one of the most gifted and famous pianists of the 20th century.

Does anyone really believe that Cziffra was not a prodigy? That he succeeded simply because of a "musical environment", or "large, flexible hands"? And more important, does anyone believe that someone of more modest talents could have achieved the same success, given the same background? If so, then we need to market the formula:

1. Grow up dirt poor.
2. Learn piano by mimicking one of your siblings.
3. Join the circus at age 5.
4. Return home and apply to Juilliard at age 9.
5. Go to war at 21.
6. Get sent to a labor camp that nearly destroys your hands.
7. After 3 years of no playing, simply pick up where you left off, and become a concert pianist.

Scientific evidence? No. But sometimes simple history will suffice.

Good evening.



As I read it, everyting you write in the preceding paragraph shows an environement suspiciously propicious to nurturing musicians great and small:



Take any great musician and you find similar stories. One's father wrote the first textbook on violin; another had 200-some musicians in his family. Theme and variations.

What that shows is that 'musicianship' and the capacity for assimilating music (including playing musical instruments) run in families - i.e. there is a strong genetic component. Or to put it another way, great musicians are born, not made.

There are also many famous musicians and composers who, despite active discouragement by their very musical (or musician) parents, still would not be dissuaded from their ultimate destiny.......

That's the question, right? What was the missing ingredient? Answer that and there will be nothing left to discuss because we'll know the answer.

Often the answer is not even related to pianistic ability, showmanship is an important part of performing. Liszt was not the best pianist when he arrived in Paris, but he was the best showman. I know you can think of other examples.

How did Cziffra do it? You have taken his story and said, "I don't know how he did it, so it must be genetics." Another approach is to say, "I don't know how he did it, let's figure out." The second approach leads to greater knowledge.

I think that most people have no difficulty with the statement "Great sportsmen/women are born, not made." VO2max (a huge factor in 'aerobic fitness' ) is largely genetically pre-determined, as is the relative proportion of slow-twitch to fast-twitch muscle fibers.

Why is there so much opposition to "Great musicians are born, not made"?

You only have to look at the example of monozygotic twins separated at birth and having completely different upbringings and lifestyles, to realize how much genetics play a part in how people end up - in occupations, personalities, characters, even choice of partners......

I agree that a musical environment definitely helps, but it doesn't ensure success as a pianist. Even the most nurturing environment cannot produce a great pianist through sheer determination and hard work, but only modest talent. Likewise, as in Cziffra's case, if a true prodigy "finds" music, nothing will keep him down, including poverty, lack of education, or physical torture.

If we were to graph the progress of a moderately talented individual, with level of playing (y-axis) vs. time (x-axis), the line would probably head "northeast", but in a strictly linear fashion, and probably heading more east than north. And that's good news, because it means we can all have hope of improving.

But if you graph the progress of a prodigy, the line would head northeast for a short period, and then proceed more "northward" very rapidly. It is this capacity to learn, and the rapidity of skills acquisition that distinguishes a prodigy from everyone else. (IMHO, of course. )

Here we go again.

Fine, I won't bother. I am traveling in the 'olde country' and would rather get back to fb.

By the way, Kissin in not a great performer. He is an absolutely fantastic recording artist. On stage, live, he is dull, emotionally blocked.

Re OP: There is a lot of variety of skill in performers. They are two different things. Would you like to 'make it' as a performer?

Maksim Mrvica

Again? Seems pretty civil so far. Don't upset the apple cart.

Never heard of this guy, so I had to do some reading.

Wikipedia says he started lessons at 9, and gave his first public performance the same year. It also says he gave a public performance of the Haydn C Major Concerto 3 years later. Another article says that neither of his parents knew anything of classical music, and they still prefer listening to pop, even to this day.

By any definition, he certainly sounds like a prodigy to me! But then I doubt he'd be classified among the world's greatest pianists either. The OP seemed to be asking if you could "make it" without being a prodigy, and used Gould, Argerich, and Kissin as examples. So I assumed that her standard for "making it" was pretty darn high.

I simple mean the nature/nurture debate. I can feel it coming.

I'm sorry, you seem to have completely ignored my comment.

In my opinion Lang Lang is not a genius, He doesn't compose music.

Oh, I'm not worried. (Actually I might be just a little bit...) I mean, I started piano when I was five, so I have a good musical foundation. I am simply wondering if there are many pianists who make a living from concert performing (and other musical work) without having "out-of-this-world" hearing abilities and technique. (Like Agerich, let's say.) But I'm glad to hear that it isn't...THAT great of an advantage. Even though it still is an advantage.

Yeah... That could be depressing when you begin a piece you're really excited about and you see this little ten-year-old playing it flawlessly!