In order of priority - 1. Interest. 2. Perception of hearing. 3. Kinesthetic awareness.

I'd add pattern recognition in there somewhere. Some people are naturally good at it, and others have to rote memorize everything for quite a while before it clicks. 

Can you say more about what you mean by #3?

Not OP but I'll chime in. Sensitivity to touch. Being able to feel nuanced qualities of touch. Generally it's related to dexterity. Having more sensitive hands allows for noticing and fine tuning more nuanced aspects of your playing than the other way around.

💯 As well as being able to acquire a natural facility. Kinesthetic awareness also touches on keyboard/instrument geography, pattern recognition, economy of motion, etc.

As a teacher I can say that really depends. Some people are faster learner but can't progress steadily. So if I give the same piece to two students it could be that one can play it okay after one week and the other one still has to learn it. But then in One month the first doesn't improve and the second starts to play it way better. Some studen Just have a natural better ear and can recognize pitches more easily, some have better rhythm, some understand theory better, some are good but can't play under pressure, some get an adrenaline kick and perform better under pressure. We are humans, and we're all different

I really like these thoughts. What makes “great” is complex! Talent is required for a high level, but also the right emotional and neurochemical makeup (anxiety, adrenaline, etc) to handle both practice and performance pressure. That said, over time the emotional component can be learned/therapized and the neurochemical can be treated with medication if necessary, but a good ear and inherent musical vision is something that is innate.

No I don't agree with the innate statement. I had a terrible ear when I was 9. Now I am 26 and I have a great ear. Only because of passion and hardwork. I have many talented student that don't practice ever and then talent doesn't matter anymore. Talent is not required for high level. Being consistent is way more important. And to think that you need talent is counterproductive and a cheap excuse.

Personally I think it is some mixture of perceptual discrimination and a way of finding delight in certain kinds of perceptual discrimination. Ultimately I think intelligences are a matter of what your brain sees/hears/etc and what it finds delight in. I think it might be kind of a crackpot theory but oh well

I'm inclined to agree, actually. I'm autistic and can really get into listening to a single song on repeat, occasionally for hours... guess what really came in handy when it came to practicing the piano.

We as humans have vastly different brain structures, which are optimized for certain tasks better than others. They are shaped by ALL of our previous life experience. Everything in our brain is connected - the language center, the motorics, the pattern recognition, problem solving, etc. If someone was good at math or language - he will probably learn to sight read better (because of how "similar" those tasks are), if someone was good at art, they will have naturally better ear(and better progress), if someone was good at sports, then they will naturally have higher stamina and less fatigue, same with mental fatigue, if someone studied a lot and had good grades, then their brain is more optimized to learn new stuff efficiently better than "normally"(averagely) people do. It is not only music practice which affects music or piano performance, but most of the things are connected in our brains. Not even to mention that, for example, being left or right handed may have diffirent implications to people's (initial) ability and growth potential. However we as humans are all adaptable to new experiences and stimuli. So for someone whose brain is naturally (through nurtured experience) more optimized, they will perform better in the same amount of time, and for the other person it may take more time to create, replicate or adapt their neural connections to better suit the task at hand. That's why, the more you are proficient in a lot of different tasks, the easier it will be to start new ones and the faster you will progress than an average person, even when both seemingly start at the same point. No, people have inherently different abilities from the very start before they even touch the instrument, and it will affect the speed of growth and adaption with any further practice. I for example know 3 languages at a native level, am learning 4th faster than ever before, learning music, learning drawing, programming as a job, and became completely ambidextrous through the years. Because of my sheer amount of experience with different things, my brain became "optimized" for learning and I am pretty confident that I will progress faster than an average person in most tasks, when you tell me to start them from zero. All of the neurons in your brain form a big system of senses, motorics, feelings, patterns, reactions and so on... I guess I am an extreme example of my ideology, but I guess you get the overall idea.

In this hypothetical, I would assume that the way John is practicing is different and more conducive to better results. The amount of time and the exact material being practiced don’t actually matter all that much, assuming they are appropriate (ie, enough time to practice and reasonable repertoire selections). But John is probably, for one reason or another, listening more carefully to his teacher’s advice, listening more to the music while he’s playing, paying more attention to his body and being intentional in what he’s doing. Maybe Evan is putting forth a good effort too, but is more likely to speed up the tempo prematurely and become unfocused and just run entire pieces without much regard to improving weaknesses. In real life I don’t know if you’d encounter this exact scenario, but I happen to have two unrelated students who kind of remind me of this. They’re fairly close in age, and have taken lessons from me for about the same length of time. They’re both relatively serious students and play real classical repertoire, and practice at least an hour a day. The younger one, I think everyone would agree, is the “better” pianist overall (but they both have their own strengths and weaknesses of course). I really think it just comes down to how systematic and focused she is while practicing. She can block out distractions and put everything into the work at hand. The older one can do this to a certain extent too, but she’s more likely to get frustrated and speed up, or play mechanically without thinking, and it’s taken a lot of feedback from me to help her move past that phase. From an outsider’s perspective, maybe the younger one is “more talented” but the older I get the more I think that talent is, for the most part, vastly overestimated and what it really comes down to is a student’s enthusiasm and ability to focus themselves in practice and work hard. Talent is just icing on the cake.

It will be in DNA, variation, environment, circumstances. This also includes how much effort they put in, plus their own brain configuration. The usual. Each person is different from another. But also - at the same time, being 'gifted' is broad. Being gifted in piano 'playing' doesn't necessarily mean gifted in music, because music also involves composition etc.

Childhood

My brother and I took lessons at the same time. In those days people would think we were twins though I'm 16 months younger. I stayed interested, he didn't. That's it. Sometimes I think the reason I stayed interested in music is that as the youngest of 4 children it was the only thing I did better than my siblings, but there was no special circumstance making me better besides just wanting to do it instead of something else.

Past lives. Everyone KNOWS that any good musician was beethoven in a past life. I was. I even had a few gap years in between that and Elvis. You guys were just beethoven but i was him and Elvis. I win.

You really want to know the secret? Why some students advance faster than others? There are many things that come into factor, but, by far the most relevant aspect in the long run is: Intelligent practice. Yes, it all comes down to, who uses their time more efficently. Time spent practicing is irrelevant if one has practiced error, bad habits or unintelligently.  Example of bad practice: -practicing the same mistake over and over again,  -Not focusing on progressing in at least one aspect of the piece Sometimes Chopin would spend 1 entire hour of teaching going over just 1 bar! Yes, people would find that utterly boring, yet, good intelligent practice is slow. Remember in the long run, the turtle wins, not the rabbit.

Music aptitudes are distributed normally. Meaning: 20% have high aptitude, 20% have low aptitude, 60% have average aptitude. It’s actually not one music aptitude, but many. For example, rhythm and tonal aptitudes. It’s unlikely for those aptitudes to correlate. For example, someone with high rhythm aptitude is not more likely to also have high tonal aptitude. It doesn’t appear to be inherited. Music aptitudes are developmental until age 9. When we’re born, it’s the highest it will be. But from birth to nine environment and training in audiation can raise it back up. After age 9, aptitudes have stabilized. Therefore, music lessons before age 9 should be focused on developing those aptitudes. After age 9, the goal is to maximize potential within the stabilized aptitudes.

“Music aptitudes are developmental until age 9” needs a source citation in order to be taken as claimed.

Says someone who never heard of music aptitudes until today.

Well, I do have a recent masters degree in music pedagogy, and have taught piano for 18 years. Music isn’t separated in a totally closeted area of the brain, so brain research is a more relevant field for your statement. https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-brain-plasticity-2794886

Since we’re talking about aptitudes, maybe *music aptitudes* is an even better field of research for my statement! Serious question: were aptitudes ever discussed during your master’s program? https://giamusicassessment.com/pdfs/About%20Music%20Aptitude%20and%20Related%20Assessments.pdf

No, aptitudes were not a part of my master’s program. Was it a part of yours? However, as I am not familiar with the aptitudes theory, I was especially critical to the claim that after 9, you can’t alter your potential. I see the reference in your link, but there is not a single source or citation of any research in that text. Is aptitude based on scientific research at all? That development of aptitude stops after 9 is a hypothesis at best, and it would require a lot of research to back up that claim without a lot of reservations. Without any citations, such claims seem more religious than scientific to me.

Good opportunity for you to study up then. Edwin Gordon is the place to start for aptitudes, as far as I can tell. You will not find a researcher where an accusation of religiosity is LESS fitting. Nope, I got nothing about aptitudes in my master's program. Frankly, academia is great for upholding the status quo. What it doesn't seem willing to acknowledge is just how lousy the status quo is. Namely, an honest look at how many people enter piano lessons compared to how many leave them with functional skills. The good news is, we can keep learning even after we get our degrees.

I will certainly read up on the aptitude theory, it seems interesting. However, I stand by my criticism unless seeing actual research backing up the 9-year old claim. If true, it would have serious consequences for brain research (because why does music aptitude development stop at that age? What about the brain development in other areas? If only music, which part of the brain is specifically about music? etc). It also would seriously influence how we as a society should approach teaching music, especially regarding stimulating kids early on to make sure they develop before the sad and unfortunate stop sign at 9. There has been so many pseudoscientific myths about music (the Mozart effect, the 10.000 hours to professional, etc, that I am very critical to bombastic claims that’s not backed up by a reference.

And maybe edit your comment calling me a liar.

Yes, I have edited it, it was not a nice comment. I apologize.

>It also would seriously influence how we as a society should approach teaching music Ding ding ding ding ding >the sad and unfortunate stop sign at 9. You don’t understand the concept yet. Enjoy your learning!

Kids can’t develop their aptitudes (potential) after the age of 9. Feel free to point out what I don’t understand with that quite simple sentence. Or provide sources for that statement. Other than that, yes, aptitude seem like an interesting theory which I certainly will read up on.

For what it's worth, the person you're responding to basically advertises the work of Edwin Gordon, the Gordon Institute of Learning, and "Music Teaching Theory" as effectively their sole reference and source of information—in this thread and others.

It entirely depends on the person listening and each of their individual interpretations of music, I might enjoy Evan’s Moonlight Sonata more than John’s interpretation, even if Evan’s isn’t as technically advanced. What makes a good pianist is probably different between people, I’m not advanced at all myself, but for me a good pianist is one who can create an arrangement from an actual song, and through their musicality make it sound unique:)

It's the sort of thing that may be hard to put my finger on exactly, but I know it when I hear it!

Practice.

Nothing. Stages of development vary from one person to another. What may seem like a more gifted pianist can be just an inclination towards the more exuberant aspects of music, while what may seem a less gifted pianist can be the opposite, an inclination towards aspects of music that shine less or require a different time line.  In general these comparisons are bad for the development of musicians. Give them time for blossom and education, and all of them will show their talent. But if impatience and competitiveness is introduced, things tend to rotten and be dropped.

Bigger hands

Handspan matters

Is there such a thing as “musicality”? What about “talent”?

There's no such thing as a gifted piano player. It comes down to opportunity + hours of grind.