Most of the pianists' parents monitored the amount of daily practice in the home. They listened or watched to ensure the quality of time spent. The children were not allowed to "play around," skip drills, or quit before the designated time. Practice had priority and was to be done every day, despite the inconvenience of schedules.
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In addition to monitoring the amount of practice time, the parents did whatever they could to make the practice productive and enjoyable. ... The parents also applauded and encouraged the child's efforts and tried to convey to the child their interest and involvement.
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'I would always sit down with him [to practice]. ... And I think that helped, especially when they're young. Because it's pretty hard to just sit down and practice without someone there beside you (M of P-4).'
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[The parents] knew what the instructional goals were from their involvement in daily practice. They were learning more and more about the field -- the rates of progress that were reasonable to expect and what the child's next goals would be.
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The child's efforts in the field became a central part of the family's life. Discussions at the dinner table often focused on practice, the child's progress, future competitions, or the performance of other talents in the field. ... Close bonds were also developed with other families who had similar interests.
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In addition to providing an opportunity for the family to pursue activities together, the talent field also became a means of translating the value of achievement into specific behaviors. The importance of goals and self-discipline were evident in the rules and expectations surrounding lessons and practice. The parents saw to it that the child worked consistently toward the goals set by the teachers or coaches.

Progress was monitored by the parents at practice and at public performances. In some families, goals and progress were recorded on charts or in notebooks. When progress faltered, the parents discussed possible causes with the child and/or the teacher and sought solutions to the problem immediately.

Doing one's best was stressed continuously, with respect not only to public performances but also to daily practice. "Slacking off" during practice or repeating mistakes were cause for reprimand. As might be expected, the parents had different methods of handling this situation. Some appealed to the child's professed love of the field or reprimanded the child of goals and accomplishments that lay ahead. Others emphasized the time, energy, and resources already committed. Still others threatened to discontinue their support and provision of resources if the child was not dedicated to working hard.

Along with self-discipline and doing one's best were rewards and praise for a job well done. Ribbons and trophies decorated the family room; scrapbooks were filled with newspaper clippings. The joys and pride in winning were stressed, as was the satisfaction of doing your best even if you weren't first -- this time. The parents were there with applause and verbal praise when goals were attained, with solace and encouragement when goals were not quite reached.

The reason that Group 1 members achieve grade exam successes [grades 1-8] earlier than other groups seems entirely due to accumulation of the requisite amount of practice more quickly. ... Of course, as one might expect, there is a fairly high degree of within-group variance in amounts of practice undertaken to achieve a given grade. One can suppose differences in instrument, practice strategy, teaching efficiency, concentration, and other factors to account for this (see Hehmann, in press, for an elaboration of this argument). There might even be some contribution from inherited differences [though differences in musical ability are considerably less dependent on inherited factors than are differences in IQ (Coon & Carey, 1989)]. The important thing for this discussion is that variability is present at all levels of achievement [in grades 1-8], and therefore is not constitutive of achievement, as the fold psychology account would demand.
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Two things marked the higher achieving children. First, the nature and level of early parental involvement was significantly different. Parents of Group 1 students were more likely to attend instrumental lessons with heir children, obtain detailed feedback and instructions from teachers, and actively supervise daily practice on a moment-to-moment basis, often at some considerable cost to their own schedule. For instance, one family with three high-achieving siblings adopted a daily routine in which the father would supervise the individual practice of each child in 30-minute intervals from 6.00 a.m. until 7.30 a.m. prior to the family dispersing to school and work. Parents of low-achieving children were less likely to have meaningful contact with the teacher, and were likely to confine their domestic interventions to telling children to "go and do your practice," without any direct involvement in it. In sum, therefore, it seems that abnormally high levels of early practice are sustained by abnormal levels of social and cognitive support, mainly from parents.

The second feature of the higher achieving children was a gradual age-related move toward self-motivation for practice as adolescence progressed. These individuals appeared to be finding their own motivations for practice, although the study did not systematically probe what these were. Arguably, those who make faster prgress get to work on more interesting and complex music, obtain greater mastery, perceive themselves as successful, and identify with teachers or other high-level performers as role models. All of those factors have been experimentally demonstrated in other domains to have strong effects on motivation (e.g., Amabile, 1983; Dweck, 1986), and we found examples of all these factors in the informal comments of the interviewees.

The diary study showed, however, that even among the highest achieving groups, there were large fluctuations in daily practice duration as a function of external circumstances. These individuals practiced the most before important concerts, and least during school vacation. Despite these fluctuations, however, Group 1 still demonstrated the most week-to-week stability in practice duration, and confirmed Ericsson et al.'s (1993) finding that high-achieving individuals tend to do more of their practice in the morning. In our sample this effect was particularly strong for scales practice. High-achieving young people tend to concentrate the more grueling repetitive technical practice at the time of day when they are physically and cognitively at their peak.

Here are three widely cited pieces of evidence on which a strong environmental view of expertise might rest. The first comes from Roe's (1951, 1953a, 1953b) studies of eminent scientists. Roe found that what predicted outstanding achievement in science was not so much individual differences in intellectual abilities, but rather the capacity for enducrance, concentration, and commitment to hard work. This has been taken to show that high achievement is more a function of tenacity than talent.

The second piece of evidence comes from Bloom's (1985) study of eminent people in science, arts, and athletics. Bloom found that none of his subjects achieved expertise without a supportive and encouraging environment, including a long and intensive period of training, first from loving and warm teachers, and then from demanding and rigorous master teachers.

The third piece of evidence comes from Ericsson's studies of adult experts in piano, violin, chess, bridge, and athletics (Ericsson et al., 1993). Ericsson demonstrated that levels of achievement reached in these domains correlate strongly with the sheer amount of deliberate practice in which these individuals have engaged. That is, those who spend more time working on difficult problems over and over in order to perfect them (deliberate practice) are the ones who reach the highest levels. He noted that in music, ballet, and chess, the higher the level of attained performance, the earlier the age of first exposure to the domain, and hence the earlier the onset of deliberate practice.

Each of these pieces of evidence, however, although clearly demonstrating the role of motivation, commitment, and hard work, fails to rule out the possibility that innate talent plays a necessary role in high achievement. First, consider Roe's studies. The scientists studied were all high in intellectual ability to begin with. Thus, what these studies really show is that high ability by itself is not enough; they do not allow the reverse conclusion -- that hard work by itself is enough to achieve eminence in science.

Second, consider Bloom's study. This study is often taken as strong evidence that eminent adults started out as perfectly ordinary children who had dedicated parents and teachers who motivated them to work long and hard. However, I believe this is a misreading. A careful look at the descriptions of these eminent individuals as children shows that at a very young age, prior to any regimen of training, signs of unusual ability were clearly evident. The musicians recalled being quick to learn at the piano, and both their parents and teachers recognized them as special, as children worth devoting their efforts to. The sculptors recalled drawing constantly as children, usually realistically, and also enjoying working with their hands, building, hammering, and nailing. The mathematicians recalled a fascination with gears, valves, and dials, and were considered "brilliant" as children. Most of the interviewees said that they learned easily in their chosen domain, but did not learn as quickly in other areas in school. Thus, Bloom's work, like that of Roe, allows us only to conclude that hard work is necessary for the acquisition of expertise, but not that it is sufficient.

Finally, consider our third piece of evidence, the studieds by Ericsson and his colleagues. The problem here is that hard work and innate ability are very likely confounded. Those children who have the most ability may also be those who are most interested in a particular activity, who begin to work at that activity at an early age, and who work the hardest at it. One is likely to want to work hard at something when one is able to advance quickly with relatively little effort, but not when every step is a painful struggle. Thus, Ericsson's research, like that of Roe and Bloom, demonstrates the importance of hard work but in no way allows us to rule out the role of innate ability.

Psychologists would never assert that retardation is due to too little training or not enough drill. No one disputes the biological basis of retardation (with the exception of that due to extremely impoverished environments); and yet some do assert that high ability, the flip side of retardation, is entirely due to hard work. But if biological retardation exists, why not biological acceleration?
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I argue that although it is impossible to isolate ability from practice (because high-ability children always practice), there is converging evidence to demonstrate that practice without ability is not enough to explain expertise. First, high achievers in the visual arts have high ability before they begin to work at drawing extensively. Second, ordinary children cannot be motivated or even forced to work at drawing to the extent that a precocious child willingly does so. Third, precocious drawers display different kinds of drawing abilities that do ordinary children who simply work hard at drawing. I also argue that there are other signs besides drawing precocity that these children are atypical from birth: They are often non-right-handed, they display a variety of visual-spatial strengths, and also tend to have linguistic deficits. This combination of factors suggests a brain-based component of drawing talent that can count for drawing precocity in both autistic and retarded savants as well as in nonpathological children.

The strong role of innate talent, however, does not allow us to rule out the importance of practice and hard work. Through practice, learning occurs. Even the most prodigious show development of their skills, and this development is a function of intense work. I argue that precocious drawers, as well as children who are highly precocious in any domain, differ from the ordinary child in these four respects:

1. They learn more rapidly in the domain.
2. They are intrinsically motivated to acquire skill in the domain (because of the ease with which learning occurs).
3. They make discoveries in the domain without much explicit adult scaffolding. A great deal of work is done through self-teaching, which, as pointed out by Charness et al. (chap. 2, this volume) and Ericsson (chap. 1, this volume), can be a form of deliberate practice.
4. They not only make discoveries on their own, but often do things in the domain that ordinary hard workers never do -- inventing new solutions, thinking, seeing, or hearing in a qualitatively different way.