Ask somebody you know who has a profession of note – alawyer, anesthesiologist, politician, for example – at what age they started training for their career. While answers will vary, most detailed professional training begins in the graduate school years (around the age of 21 or later), after the young adult has finished college and has had at least a small enough sampling of the world and its offerings to know in which direction they’d like to be headed.
The piano world is an exception: For any combination of reasons – ranging from the development of neuromuscular coordination and reflexes that are best acquired when the brain and body are still developing (much like how a language must be learned before age 12 to avoid any trace of accent), to the necessity of having a large span of years in which to develop one’s craft unperturbed by financial worries – almost all pianists begin lessons between the ages of three to eight, and ‘get serious’ by 12 or 13. Perhaps only in the sports world (and gymnastics in particular) can a comparison be drawn. Even in this arena, however, one usually retires by 30, making the profession of a pianist possibly the longest span of any professional activity over a lifetime!
It is also an overlooked fact that
