Study finds that the real difference between the world's top artists is natural talent 

It might be time to give up that dream of becoming a violin virtuoso, as a study has revealed that natural talent is more important that practice for top violinists.

Previous research in 1993 had suggested — based on interviews with 30 violinists of varying calibres — that practice time was predominantly responsible for skill level.

However, an effort to repeat the experiment using more refined methods to eliminate bias and errors has found the opposite.

The researchers found that there was no significant difference in the amount of practice time put in by the best-ranked violinists and those considered only ‘good’. 

In fact, they found instead that only 26 per cent of the variations in performance quality between different violinists could be attributed to practising. 

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It might be time to give up that dream of becoming a violin virtuoso, as a study has revealed that natural talent is more important that practice for top violinists. Pictured, classical violinist Nicola Benedetti of Scotland, whose musical talent won her the 2012 Brit Award

In 1993, psychologists led by K. Anders Ericsson — then of the University of Colorado, Boulder — recruited 30 violinists of varying calibres from the Music Academy of West Berlin.

The researchers were looking to test the hypothesis that so-called ‘deliberate practice’ — that designed to improve performance — was the primary factor that accounted for differences in skill between individuals.

Each violinist was rated in one of three categories — ‘the best violinists’, ‘the good violinists’ and less accomplished players from the academy’s music education department, which had lower admission standards. 

Interviews with each violinist were used to determine the extent of deliberate practice which had supported their proficiency in playing the instrument.

They found that the best violinists had accumulated the most time spent in deliberate practice, then the good violinists, and finally the less accomplished ones.

Given this, the researchers concluded that ‘individual differences in [the violinists’] ultimate performance can largely be accounted for by differential amounts of past and current practice.’

Researchers found no significant difference in the amount of practice time put in by the best-ranked violinists and those considered only ‘good’. Pictured, popular violinist David Garrett, who played historical virtuoso Niccolò Paganini in the 2013 film The Devil’s Violinist

To put this conclusion to the test, cognitive Psychologists Brooke Macnamara and Megha Maitra from the Case Western University in Ohio set out to replicate the original study — with a few refinements to the methodology.

To remove potential biases and errors, the researchers used a so-called ‘double-blind’ study — in which the experimenters were unaware of the violinist’s particular skill group and, in turn, the musicians were not told the details of the study. 

Furthermore, the researchers employed ‘more appropriate’ statistical analyses for investigating the data gathered.

The duo were unable to reproduce the the findings of the original study — instead finding that there was no significant different in the amount of deliberate practice put in by the ‘best’ violinists and those that were ranked as being just ‘good’.

In fact, the researchers found that only 26 per cent of the variations in performance quality between different violinists could be attributed to practising.

‘Our findings suggest that when controlling for biases and Type I error inflation, [the] amount of deliberate practice explains substantially less variance in performance among expert violinists than reported in the original study,’ the researchers wrote.

Furthermore, they added, ‘Among more accomplished, elite performers, [the] amount of deliberate practice cannot account for why some individuals acquire higher levels of expert performance than others.’

The full findings of the study were published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.