alt Hacker NewsIts a spectrum. Mozart was a prodigy at 6. Most people are average, and almost everyone who is good practiced for years, but the people who are really good no doubt had some natural gift.
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It's also extremely nonlinear. I look back on my years of studying piano and the first 7 or so as a kid were basically screwing around compared to the next two, when there was this huge breakthrough. Then another couple years at that level until another huge breakthrough. It's funny, the first one was a breakthrough that came from a great teacher and was sort of a realization that music was way much more deep and interesting than I ever imagined. The second one was barely musical at all, it was just finding a super vibrant music community. If not for some random luck, mindshifts and social experiences like that, I would've quit a fraction of the way in.
I don't know about that with music. Outside of absolute prodigies, my experience with instruments is that the more you practice the better you get. It's not like sports where practice can only take you so far before genetics absolutely rules the field. So it strikes me that most people can be really really good, but only if they put the hours in.
You really can work your way into being a musical genius with an instrument. It just takes a lot of work. I actually like playing instruments for that reason. It's one of the few things where hard work has actual, measurable outcomes on time scales that you can observe.