The genes, in other words, contain the seed, while the practice provides the nurturance that allows the talent to develop to its full potential.
A study reveals that practicing only gets one so far in music. Nature surpasses nurture. This is not the best news for an adult trying to learn the piano but then most of us don’t practice as much as we’d like to think we do. Pacific Standard summarizes the results.
Of course, practice is required even for the gifted and then again, it has to be purposeful and mindful. Pianist Stephen Hough explains how he does it in the Telegraph.