As a classically trained violinist with decades Of experience as a professional musician, this is not at all my experience. At the age of 16 I was dedicating 6

As a classically trained violinist with decades Of experience as a professional musician, this is not at all my experience. At the age of 16 I was dedicating 6 to 8 hours a day practicing. That was the norm among my classmates. The lead violinist in our orchestra was a prodigy who picked up and mastered a piece in two weeks which most of us would never be able to play. Trained violinists can tell the difference between many levels of ability and performance. The truth is that there are people who can play the instrument beyond the reach of everyone else. That’s true for any highly technical instrument, of which the violin is certainly one. If studying violin taught me anything, it is that there is a power law to human ability and deliberate practice is simply an augmentation (which is also an unevenly distributes ability).