What makes a concert pianist?

[pianoplayjl]

Is it starting at a young age or is it endless hours of practice and prodigious talent that eventually makes your  day?

JL

[mcdiddy1]

That topic has been talked about endless amount of times on this website. If you click the search function you will find more than enough responses.

In a nutshell from two of piano teachers who are concert pianist, it a complex mixture of physical capabilities (having the specific lubrical muscles in the hand to do it)
 playing at a high level young age ( to make common difficulties such as reading notes, counting etc automatic )
 connections with the right people (managers, teachers, promoters etc)
 Motivation to work hard at it ( this may be good self- determination or it maybe pressure from outside forces.

While that is common there are some exception in some pianist as kids have brains whose synapse are wired to simple learn musical concepts very quickly. It may not be fair but people are unique and complex with different skills and special abilities.

  Starting at 4 years old is no guarantee you will not lose motivation to continue to play or continue to progress especially if you do not have quality teaching. You can't practice endless hours because there is a limited amount of time in the day to practice. I have been told it is a myth you must practice non-stop to achieve a high skill level. Practice be multiple hours range while you are developing but once you reach a level of technical skill, you spend much less time  because you are maintaining repertoire and can learn music much more rapidly than when you were a younger player.

 I also think the word "talent" is thrown around a great deal. I was called a "talented" pianist recently and from my background I know the amount of hard-work and hours of practice that went into getting to that level. Talent seems to imply the talent person did not have to work at all and I think you will all musicians had to work to improve on some level whether it is physically or mentally. This is my personal opinion but I think people tend to ask question like that to gauge whether it is worth their time and effort to try and climb the mountain of work. Rather than doing that, I wish people would seek wisdom and educate themselves  and put in effort and see where it takes them with little expectations and see where the results lands them. I think many people would be surprised to achieved a great deal rather than considering anything less than the top of the mountain would be a failure.

[iansinclair]

mcdiddy covered most of the ground.  I might add a couple of things -- not so much from my own experience as from many other performing artists I've had the privilege to know (pianists, organists, dancers, conductors, singers, actors...).

The two I would add, in no particular order... passion.  You have to be absolutely passionate about your art.  Otherwise you will not be able to stay the course required.  Until you get to the absolute top of the heap -- and to a certain extent even then -- the hours are horrible, the pay is worse, people look at you as though you are daft -- and the list goes on.  If you are not completely and totally dedicated to what you are doing... it's not going to work.

The second, sadly, is sheer dumb luck.  You have to somehow make the right contacts with the right people at the right time, and none of that is either plannable or predictable -- and you may not know it is happened until several years later.

And I can mention at least one thing that doesn't help, unless it falls under the sheer dumb luck category -- number one of which would be competitions (my experience there is mostly with ballet, but it applies).  Now and then someone who does well in a competition will go on and have a stellar concert (or in the case of dancers, performing) career but these are the exceptions which prove the rule.