In the music world (especially in classical music) there’s this sort of dogma that if you don’t start playing an instrument early in your childhood that you’ll never be as good as someone who did. Is this really true? I know that children are good at learning stuff quickly but other than that, what physiological and neurological reasons are there for this dogma to supposedly be true?
Hope I didn’t explain it to vaguely.
In: 7
While it’s true that in general children are better/faster “learners” than adults (which seems to be due to greater plasticity in the pre-frontal cortex), this is generally not true when it comes to learning to play a musical instrument. Adults introduced to a new instrument tend to progress more rapidly than children. This is because adults tend to practice more. However, over time children who stick with an instrument tend to accumulate far more hours of practice (simply because they started a few decades earlier). Take a 30 year old and a 5 year old and introduce them to a new instrument. A year later, the 31 year old will be better than the 6 year old, and this pattern will continue for a while. But if you later compare how they each play when they’re each 40 years old, the one who started as a 5 year old will likely be better. And it’s little wonder why – 35 years of practice v. 10 years of practice.
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