It studied the links between the practice habits and attainment levels of violinists at the Music Academy of West Berlin. They concluded that practice was the dominant factor in attainment and there were no individuals who's "talent" would make up for reduced practice.
Of course other factors (e.g. talent, quality of teaching) could have affected admissions to the academy in the first place, but the studying suggests that these are not significant once a certain level has been achieved.
This was mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" which mentions other studies including the birthday distribution of professional ice hockey players (clustered towards the start of the academic year) that suggest that practice is more significant than genetic ability.
That looks like an extremely interesting article. Thank you.
A quick skim through showed that the number of violinists they examined was 10, so I am still highly skeptical, but at least after reading this I will be more informed.
K.A. Ericsson et al. "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance" (1993).
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.169...
It studied the links between the practice habits and attainment levels of violinists at the Music Academy of West Berlin. They concluded that practice was the dominant factor in attainment and there were no individuals who's "talent" would make up for reduced practice.
Of course other factors (e.g. talent, quality of teaching) could have affected admissions to the academy in the first place, but the studying suggests that these are not significant once a certain level has been achieved.
This was mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell's "Outliers" which mentions other studies including the birthday distribution of professional ice hockey players (clustered towards the start of the academic year) that suggest that practice is more significant than genetic ability.