When marvelling at the world's great talents, whether in music, sport or literature, it's easy to conclude that these characters are simply born gifted. But that's unfair. Take a closer look and you'll see these people practice. A lot. In fact, the Swedish expertise expert Anders Ericsson
has argued that the difference between an average and an elite musician is entirely down to practice, nothing else. Put the time in and you could be Mozart too, so the logic goes.
Is Ericsson right? Joanne Ruthsatz at Oberlin College and colleagues tested the intelligence, musical ability and practice habits of 178 high school band members and 83 elite conservatory music members.
Results were mixed. Among the high-school band members, musical achievement was predicted by practice, but also by general intelligence and musical aptitude (in terms of tone and rhythm perception skills). Moreover, all three of these factors were higher among the elite conservatory members, thus suggesting that musical achievement rests on a mixture of hard work
and inherent talent.
However, among just the elite conservatory musicians, it was practice habits alone that differentiated the very highest achievers from the less successful. This suggests that once a certain amount of innate talent is in place, only practice makes the difference to the ultimate degree of success obtained. Unfortunately the limitations of the study mean we can't know for sure if this is correct. The researchers cautioned that the elite conservatory members all had extremely high intelligence and musical aptitude by virtue of their having gained a conservatory place, meaning there was very little variation in these factors between individuals.
Practice can be the crucial mediating factor in the acquisition of expert performance, the researchers concluded, 'but only after the group in question has been selected for general intelligence and musical ability. Thus we are forced to conclude that not everyone can be Mozart, even if they start young and practice intensively.'
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RUTHSATZ, J., DETTERMAN, D., GRISCOM, W., CIRULLO, B. (2008). Becoming an expert in the musical domain: It takes more than just practice.
Intelligence, 36(4), 330-338. DOI:
10.1016/j.intell.2007.08.003
译文:
音乐天才出自苦练？
当我们对那些无论是在音乐、运动或者文学领域里享誉世界的伟大天才大加赞叹的时候，我们总会习惯地认为这些大人物有着与生俱来的天赋。但是这并非事实。来一个近距离的观察，你会发现这些天才们也要苦练——大量的苦练。事实上，瑞典的专家Anders Ericsson就认为一个平平的和一个杰出的音乐家之间的差别完全归结于苦练，别无其他。按照这种逻辑，只要花上足够的时间练习，你也可能变成莫扎特。
Ericsson的观点正确吗？奥柏林大学（Oberlin College）的Joanne Ruthsatz和同事们对178名高中乐队成员以及83名乐校优等生的智力、音乐能力和练习习惯进行过测试。
结果是喜忧参半的。在高中乐队成员间，音乐成绩可以通过练习达到预期效果，同时也决定于平均智力和音乐能力——对音色和韵律的理解能力。此外，乐校优等生的这三项因素普遍高于高中乐队成员的，这表明了音乐成绩有赖于苦练以及先天才华。
然而，即使在乐校优等生之间，也是练习习惯使得那些最为顶尖的成功者从次优群体中脱颖而出。这表明了具有一定的天分是必要的，但是只有练习决定了获得最终成就的高低程度。不幸的是，研究受到的限制意味着我们无法证明该观点是否正确。研究员们提醒说乐校优等生都具备了非常高的智力以及音乐理解能力——这从他们考上乐校的成绩可以看出。这也意味着这些因素（上述三个因素）在个体间的差异是非常微小的。
研究员总结说要成为演奏领域的行家，练习可能是至关重要的决定因素，但这也只有在被研究的群体经过普通智力和音乐理解能力的挑选的前提下才能得出的结论。因此，这也促使我们得出并非人人都可以成为莫扎特结论，即使他们自小就开始了心无旁骛的苦练。
Ruthsatz, J., Detterman, D., Griscom, W., Cirullo, B. (2008).成为音乐领域的行家：不仅仅靠苦练。Intelligence, 36(4), 330-338. DOI: 10.1016/j.intell.2007.08.003