Panel Discussion: What is Musical Maturity?

[kypiano]

Hi all,
      I was listening to some amazing recordings the other day, and I was wondering, what is musical maturity? Where does it come from? Is it from age? Experience? Or is it something else? Also, what can influence musical maturity? What are some other factors?

Here's some amazingly mature vids to get your brain juices flowing:

[kevonthegreatpianist]

nah its from me. always

i don't actually know really. its not the age, because thats prejudice, like judging a book by how it looks or judging how a person by how rich he/she is. its probably how much he/she played an instrument,  and how MUCH he/she has played. I've once read a book saying you need your total amount to be 10K hours. bill gates was a pro at programming (i think) because he programmed well over 10K hours, even though at his time, a computer was as big as a bedroom (b!tch now we have 5K displays which are less than a millimeter thick) so it's mostly HOW MUCH a instrumentalist has played

[kypiano]

nah its from me. always

i don't actually know really. its not the age, because thats prejudice, like judging a book by how it looks or judging how a person by how rich he/she is. its probably how much he/she played an instrument,  and how MUCH he/she has played. I've once read a book saying you need your total amount to be 10K hours. bill gates was a pro at programming (i think) because he programmed well over 10K hours, even though at his time, a computer was as big as a bedroom (b!tch now we have 5K displays which are less than a millimeter thick) so it's mostly HOW MUCH a instrumentalist has played

poke

[outin]

Must be many things...Age is often a factor too, since it's a bit difficult to be mature in music if one is very immature in every other aspect of life. Not impossible I guess.

One thing is that one has stopped obsessing about technical difficulties and about being able to play difficult music. Instead one concentrates on finding the essence of whatever music one plays.

[rubinsteinmad]

Must be many things...Age is often a factor too, since it's a bit difficult to be mature in music if one is very immature in every other aspect of life. Not impossible I guess.

One thing is that one has stopped obsessing about technical difficulties and about being able to play difficult music. Instead one concentrates on finding the essence of whatever music one plays.

Even Bach?

[outin]

Even Bach?

Yes, it's believed to be in there somewhere

[rubinsteinmad]

Yes, it's believed to be in there somewhere

O'er the rainbow

[kevonthegreatpianist]

O'er the rainbow

into a nuclear plant 

[ted]

I see it as the musical equivalent of Jung's individuation, an understanding of oneself with respect to music. It is not the same as having either experience or ability, and certainly has nothing to do with being closed or static in musical ways and means. Indeed, its outward manifestation can quite easily be taken as demonstrating the exact opposite of maturity as the word is commonly understood. Overall, I think it is a strictly internal perception of oneself, not necessarily discernible by other people at all. I tend to avoid the word in relation to music, it being too vague a term to carry much meaning.