G-Man wrote:
I think its 2 things:
1. when you're young, your brain is like a sponge, and the things that interest you as a kid are generally the things that you get do as often as you want, because you're a kid.
2. when you're a kid all you have is spare time, and if you have folks that keep you around and nurture early signs of talent instead of sending you to play school as early as is possible, then you have a much better shot of developing a little musical genius. that guitar/piano/banjo didn't end up in your hands by mistake, your folks probably had something to do with it.
This is
part of it, definitely. That little girl I posted about was born into a family with musical siblings and a concert-pianist granny, and she started her tuition from somewhere after 2 years old. That's about 4 years of tuition at the hands of the best, specialist instructors, plenty of time to rack up the hours. The 10,000 hour rule is an idea proposed by Malcolm Gladwell in his book "Outliers", and if she put in around 52 hours per week she would have landed in that ball park. Not saying I agree with the rule outright, but just an idea.
And yes, all the neural pathways develop much faster when you're younger, meaning you absorb certain stuff much more quickly than you do as an adult. All those fine motor skills required for playing an instrument also develop faster.
But it's still only part of the story here. There are many, many kids who display early musical aptitude and may grow into fine musicians after a few years of study. The kids posted here are just in some other league, there's something different about them.
It becomes even clearer when you have kids. My little girl can play "Twinkle Twinkle" on the piano, and she can hear when she hits the wrong note without me needing to correct her. She plays with just one finger, but she clearly has an ear that can be developed. She's very bright for her age (don't all dads think that? ?) and also loves the drums and the guitar.
Yet, the little girl above is playing Mozart concertos and jazz improvs, at the same age! Crazy stuff. ?
