The Cambridge Handbook of Expertise and Expert Performance

Research Approaches to Individual 

Differences in Music 

CHAPTER 26 

Music 

Andreas C. Lehmann & Hans Gruber 

Individual differences in musical achievement 

have at all times awed musicians and 

audiences alike. In former times, royalty 

and nobility invited outstanding musicians 

to perform in their salons. Today, the general 

public crowds the concert halls when 

certain celebrities perform while other concerts 

are scarcely attended. Sometimes, special 

attractions such as child prodigies or 

musical savants capture the attention of the 

mass media. 

Scientific attempts to understand individual 

differences have existed for a 

long time. Barrington (1770) investigated 

Mozart’s early performance achievements 

and described it in some detail. Such singlecase 

studies are highly informative. However, 

they usually do not suffice for modern 

scientific standards. They merely document 

high achievements under controlled conditions 

and attribute them to exceptional levels 

of talent. Doubts can be expressed about 

the accuracy and reliability of the information 

presented in biographies of famous 

musicians. More recent biographies mention 

skill acquisition explicitly from the perspective 

of musical talent research. This research 

explains exceptional performance as based 

in innate musical capacities. 

Billroth’s (1895) “Who is musical?” can be 

seen as a starting point for research on musical 

abilities in the 19 th century. Later in the 

1920s and 30s Seashore developed his “Measures 

of musical talents”, which assessed 

subjects’ perceptual discrimination abilities 

(Seashore, 1938/1967). With few exceptions, 

such as Wellek’s attempt in 1939 to identify 

racial differences in musical abilities 

(Wellek, 1970), most music aptitude tests 

have tried to predict the potential for music 

performance (Boyle, 1992, for a review). 

Their overall success was limited, however, 

probably because the effects of talent tend 

to be confounded with the amount of previous 

training, which is rarely statistically controlled 

for. Generally, musically active children 

tend to score higher in such ability tests 

(Shuter-Dyson, 1999). 

Another argument in favor of innate ability 

arises from musical dynasties, for example, 

the Bach, Corelli, Couperin, Garcia, and 

457

458 the cambridge handbook of expertise and expert performance 

Strauss families, which by their mere existence 

suggest a strong heritability of musical 

talents. Alas, the hope to identify heritability 

of excellence in families is not justified 

(see also discussion about Galton, 1979;e.g., 

Simonton, Chapter 18). Genetic background 

and environmental effects are mingled 

inevitably, and alternative explanations cannot 

be refuted. Older heritability explanations 

failed to take into account the genetic 

contribution of females in the genealogy 

or to the socio-historic fact that sons frequently 

followed in their fathers’ professions 

(Farnsworth, 1969). Hence, there are 

different explanations for why many musicians 

have parents who are musically active 

(Gembris, 1998). 

The home environment is obviously 

important for promoting musical excellence 

(Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, & Whalen, 

1993; Sosniak, 1985). Also, the socioeconomic 

conditions of a young musician’s 

family constitute obvious factors that influence 

the choice of a teacher, the quality 

of the instrument played, and other possibilities 

awarded to the learner. An analysis 

of successful Polish musicians by Manturzewska 

(1995) revealed a common pattern 

of attitudes, value systems, and family 

structure in the musicians’ families of origin. 

Families were emotionally stable, task oriented, 

and careful in selecting their children’s 

friends, and they strongly supported 

the musical activities. These attitudes gain 

importance as they translate into behavioral 

consequences in the daily lives of musicians. 

For example, Csikszentmihalyi, Rathunde, 

and Whalen (1993) demonstrated that families 

of high-achieving children changed 

their lives to accommodate the needs of 

their talented offsprings, for example, by 

exempting them from household chores 

to give them additional time to practice. 

Biographies of famous musicians underline 

such practices: the cellist Jacqueline du Pre 

never did her own laundry and did not have 

any household responsibilities as an adolescent 

(Easton, 1989). 

Taken together, it is difficult to obtain 

clear evidence on the role of innate abilities, 

despite the fact that giftedness features 

prominently in everyday discourse. On the 

other hand, much evidence exists that practice 

and other environmental factors have 

a large impact on changes in many variables 

related to music performance. Some 

researchers have expressed serious doubts 

whether it is even possible to identify specific 

innate characteristics that mediate the 

development of expertise (Ericsson, 2003). 

However, the goal of this chapter is not 

to work out the nature-nurture debate for 

music but to focus on the role of practice 

for the attainment of expert performance. 

In brief, we do not know whether practice is 

a sufficient condition for high achievement, 

but it is certainly a necessary one for invoking 

the cognitive, physiological, and psychomotor 

adaptations observed in experts. 

Although practice is omnipresent during 

the development of expertise in music, 

its role and manifestation is not identical 

in all musical genres. Different musical 

styles are characteristic for specific musical 

cultures, and those different cultures 

have their respective types of practice. Most 

research on musical expertise has been conducted 

in the classical conservatoire tradition 

– also known as the “Western art music 

tradition”. Investigations about expert performance 

in jazz music, popular music, or 

vernacular genres may yield somewhat different 

results (Berliner, 1994). For example, 

whereas an early start of training is typical 

for pianists and violinists in the classical 

music domain, jazz guitarists start much 

later (Gruber, Degner, & Lehmann, 2004), 

and so do most singers today (Kopiez, 1998). 

Despite some differences, important commonalities 

regarding phases of development 

or deliberate practice should exist regardless 

of the specific music style in question. These 

will be addressed below. 

Increasing Performance 

through Practice 

Practice: Investing the Time 

The discussion about the role of traininginduced 

changes in performance was

triggered by Ericsson, Krampe, and Tesch- 

Römer (1993), who first introduced the 

concept of “deliberate practice.” See also 

Ericsson, Chapter 38. Deliberate practice is 

a set of structured activities that experts in 

the domain consider important for improving 

performance; it is often strenuous and 

can therefore only be maintained for limited 

amounts of time per day without danger 

of psychological or physiological burnout. 

At the Berlin Academy of Music, Ericsson 

et al. (1993) investigated violin students 

from different degree programs that varied 

with regard to the instrumental proficiency 

required. The students were interviewed 

retrospectively about their practice and 

skill development. The amount of lifetime 

accumulated practice up to the point of 

the interview (or even the point of entry 

into the academy) was clearly related to the 

degree of level of performance attained. 

Less-proficient performers had practiced 

less than more-skilled ones. The lifetime 

trajectory of practice reported by the most 

promising group of students resembled 

that of musicians currently employed in 

Berlin orchestras. The results underline 

the predictive validity of the accumulated 

hours as an indicator of excellence, and 

are hence at odds with the everyday belief 

that some musicians – the “highly talented” 

ones – need not practice as much as the less 

talented, who have to compensate for lack 

of talent with excessive practice. 

Although it may be difficult to refute 

claims by famous musicians not to have practiced 

much or to hate practice (Mach, 1981), 

the empirical evidence regarding contemporary 

musicians makes such claims rather 

suspicious. Musicians are likely to engage 

in conscious impression management when 

belittling practice in the classical tradition 

or, in the case of rock and popular musicians, 

to dismiss the role of formal instruction 

by emphasizing self-teaching, that is, 

autodidactic learning (Green, 2002). 

The relation between innate abilities and 

practice probably is a complex one. According 

to Ackerman’s (1986, 1990) theory of 

ability determinants of skilled performance, 

in which the change from controlled pro- 

music 459 

cessing to automatized processing was discussed 

in terms of abilities versus practice, 

one could argue that in early phases of skill 

development general abilities play an important 

role, which is reduced later, if consistent 

task characteristics exist within the 

domain. These foster the development of 

compilation processes that are heavily influenced 

by practice. The more skilled a person 

is, the more specific components of 

information processing are relevant, so that 

the relation between general abilities and 

performance tends to disappear. The subjects 

in Ericsson et al.’s (1993) study might 

already have compensated ability differences 

through adaptation of practice. Thus, the 

role of talent could not be judged adequately. 

Additionally, experts might be most 

competent in selecting proper practice. At 

younger age levels, however, practice may 

not be as efficient, and a smaller amount of 

practice is accumulated. Therefore, practice 

time might be of less importance and ability 

of more importance in young musicians 

(Lehmann, 1997b, for a review). 

Sloboda, Davidson, Howe, and Moore 

(1996) addressed this problem by replicating 

Ericsson et al.’s (1993) study. Students 

aged eight to eighteen from a music 

school were rated by their teachers with 

respect to musical achievement and promise. 

The students then were interviewed by the 

researchers about their practice history. In 

addition, many other data were collected, 

including a 42-week longitudinal recording 

of practice diaries. The results clearly 

support the deliberate-practice assumptions 

obtained from the study of adults. The leastproficient 

group of subjects had practiced 

less than the better-performing groups, and 

the students who dropped out of music 

lessons had practiced even less. In order to 

proceed from one level of performance to 

the next, the best groups’ increase in practice 

was even larger than expected. Thus, already 

relatively early in instrumental music learning, 

the amount of practice is significantly 

related with level of performance. 

Competing explanations could be that 

talented children practice more in a rage 

to master the skill (Winner, 1996), or that


tangible progress and success keep children 

practicing. Although a proof in favor of one 

of these argumentations cannot easily be 

made, the latter is clearly better supported 

by research. The result that the amount of 

certain types of practice is related to level 

of performance was found in other domains 

as well. 

It is noteworthy that the number of 

hours necessary for achieving particular levels 

of performance is not a constant across 

all musical instruments. Jørgensen (1997) 

showed that different instrumental groups 

practice very different numbers of hours. 

Pianists and violinists tend to be practice 

fanatics, logging the most hours, followed by 

other strings, organ, woodwinds and brass, 

closing with the singers at the bottom of the 

list. Such differences may result from different 

demands that instrumental performance 

imposes on the body. In the case of singers, 

different educational traditions may have an 

influence as well (Kopiez, 1998). 

Although duration of practice is predictive 

of long-term success, it might be not as 

indicative of performance in the short run, 

for example, when learning a specific piece 

of music (Williamon & Valentine, 2000). 

Here, a player’s prior knowledge with the 

music might influence practice times. For 

example, those who have not worked systematically 

on music by Bach may face problems 

that experienced Baroque performers 

do not (Lehmann & Ericsson, 1998). 

Although time invested in practice is 

related to long-term level of performance, 

practice means different things for different 

musical styles and sub-skills. For musicians 

playing classical repertoire, a large 

portion of practice is solitary practice, working 

on instrumental technique and acquiring 

new pieces, assisted by more or less regular 

visits with a teacher. For jazz musicians, 

in addition to solitary practice, a substantial 

part of practice is communal practice with 

other musicians. Sitting in jam sessions, listening 

to others play, and copying performances 

by famous musicians from recordings 

all constitute activities that improve 

performance (Gruber et al., 2004). For 

singers and some instrumentalists, working 

with an accompanist is an important practice 

activity. A conductor has to become familiarized 

with a piece first without the orchestra, 

silently reading and imaging the score 

and the desired interpretation before working 

with the ensemble. Deliberate practice 

is goal-directed, optimized practice, and 

responds to the typical demands imposed by 

the domain. 

Investing the Effort 

Ericsson et al. (1993) stressed that practice 

could lack inherent enjoyment because it 

requires much mental and physical effort. 

Musicians may enjoy their own improvement 

but dislike the actual practice activity. 

In a survey study on practicing, musicians 

indicated that performing in front of an audience 

was most enjoyable but highly effortful 

(Lehmann, 2002), whereas learning new 

pieces and working on difficult spots was 

most effortful but not enjoyable. Apparently, 

activities that resemble the target 

activity of performing seem more enjoyable 

than activities of a preparatory nature, even 

though the latter’s relevance for improving 

skills is unquestioned. This result indicates 

that enhancing quality of practice requires 

substantial effort (Williamon, 2004, several 

chapters). 

Ample advice from practitioners such as 

master teachers is readily available in books. 

Although the suggestions are grounded in 

lifelong experience, some recipes appear 

haphazard. Take, for example, the notion of 

“slow practice”. Playing a section very slowly 

is often recommended among music teachers 

as a remedy for all sorts of problems. 

However, the piano teacher Matthay (1926), 

who was knowledgeable about psychological 

research, remarked that slow practice without 

actually imagining the upcoming note 

“is only a useless fetish” (p. 12). This implies 

that the quality of practice is not sufficiently 

defined by observable behavior (e.g., mere 

duration) but has to be judged by the cooccurrence 

of certain cognitive processes. 

Many researchers in the field use verbalreport 

methodologies to get at these 

difficult-to-observe processes. For example,

Chaffin, Imreh, and Crawford (2002) published 

an extensive case study about solitary 

practice. In a naturalistic setting, they followed 

a performer practicing a new piece 

for performance and obtained retrospective 

and concurrent reports. The authors distinguished 

four stages of practice. 

1. In the first, the musician tries to get the 

“big picture” of the piece. The first stage 

entails reading through the piece or more 

generally getting an aural representation 

of the entire piece. Practice strategies vary 

substantially: according to working habits 

of the musician, sight-reading, analyzing, 

or listening to recordings are preferred. 

2. In the second stage, technical practice is 

undertaken to master the piece. During 

the second stage the piece is worked on in 

sections, which increase in length as practice 

progresses. The length of the section 

depends on the kind of problems encountered 

and analyses undertaken in the first 

stage. Whether the artistic interpretation 

is developed during the course of learning 

to play the piece or during anticipatory 

analytic processes might be a matter 

of individual preferences and habits (Hallam, 

1995). During this elaborative stage 

of practice, the motor programs become 

largely automatic and the piece is being 

memorized. 

3. Next, in the third stage the actual stage 

performance is tried out. During this 

stage, performance is prepared more 

directly by putting the pieces together 

and ironing out the seams between them. 

Memory, which up to then was more 

implicit, is now deliberately assisted by 

creating an internal map of the piece, 

knowing the order of the parts as well as 

points where the performer could restart 

in case of a memory lapse during performance. 

During this stage the piece 

is polished by slow playing, playing for 

an imagined or an informal real audience, 

refining interpretation details, and 

bringing all sections up to the correct 

tempo or even slightly above. As performance 

approaches, memory is repeatedly 

tried and tested using self-imposed 

music 461 

constraints such as starting at the jumppoints. 

If possible, the musician even 

practices under performance conditions, 

that is, in concert attire and in different 

locations. After some time, the returns of 

such final polishing and preparation work 

are diminishing; further practice is considered 

to be maintenance work. 

4. The fourth stage, which sometimes 

extends over a long period of time 

between concerts or recordings, constitutes 

the maintenance of the piece. 

Thus, practice is a systematic activity with 

predictable stages and activities. They all 

serve to establish a strong internal representation 

of the piece and the conditions under 

which the performance will take place. 

Practicing is an effortful activity and a 

skill per se that has to be learned. Gruson 

(1988) demonstrated that experts differed 

from novices in their practice skill. A number 

of studies revealed that (adult) supervision 

during practice is important for beginning 

musicians (Davidson, Howe, Moore, & 

Sloboda, 1996; Lehmann, 1997a; Sosniak, 

1985). In the simplest case, the adult or the 

supervisor ensures that time is spent with 

the instrument. Preferably, goals and feedback 

are provided. Research suggests that 

not all parents or tutors necessarily have to 

be musicians – everyone can hear wrong 

notes, encourage lovingly, or simply watch 

the clock. However, the mothers’ previous 

experience with learning a musical instrument 

may influence their ideas about how 

much practice is necessary and their ability 

to support the child’s practice (McPherson 

& Davidson, 2002). Written procedures 

have been found also to be helpful in structuring 

practice for beginners (Barry & Hallam, 

2001). After the musicians have developed 

metacognitive skills, they can take over 

to regulate their practice themselves. A crucial 

factor for doing so is the motivation to 

invest effort and to engage in the process 

of self-regulation (McPherson & Zimmerman, 

2002). Renwick and McPherson (2002) 

showed that children practicing by themselves 

engaged in elaborated activities when 

they were motivated by the piece, but simply


played through the piece when disinterested 

in it. Similarly, when the goal is to master 

a certain piece or a specific difficulty, adults 

may work hard and use more practice strategies 

than when they want to enjoy themselves 

or relax rather than mastering the 

instrument (Lehmann & Papousek, 2003). 

The Development of Musical Expertise 

Stages and Phases 

Demarcating points along the time line of 

acquisition of a new skill allows us to better 

conceptualize the process as a whole, 

and several stage and phase models have 

been proposed (see Proctor & Vu, Chapter 

15). Fitts and Posner (1967), for example, 

in their well-known model describe skills as 

being first cognitive, then associative, and 

later autonomous, in essence requiring less 

and less cognitive mediation as skilled performance 

increases. Similar stages can be 

identified in Sudnow’s (1993) phenomenological 

account of his learning to improvise 

jazz on the piano. First, he had to 

decide consciously which chord to use next 

and then how to distribute the chordal 

notes on the keyboard (voicing). Later his 

fingers seemed to find the right notes by 

themselves. Much later, his aesthetic decision 

of what to play seemed to trigger 

the correct chord sequences with associated 

voicings. Whereas the focus of attention 

in novices is directed toward technical, 

low-level aspects, experts attend to higherlevel, 

strategic or aesthetic issues, a finding 

also demonstrated for composing (Colley, 

Banton, & Down, 1992) and improvising 

(Hargreaves, Cork, & Setton, 1991). For 

many musicians the earlier stages of skill 

development are successfully completed in 

(early) childhood. 

Fitts and Posner’s (1967) model is informative 

with regard to skill development 

of an individual, but it neglects the lifespan 

context. Bloom (1985) explicated how 

skills develop through life. First, the child 

is introduced to the domain in an informal 

phase, and it is here that children in “musi- 

cal” households may be at an advantage. 

Then comes a phase during which formal 

tuition is sought. This stage extends until the 

young musician makes a full-time commitment 

to music in order to become a professional. 

In a later phase, once a professional 

status has been reached, the expert 

is working at trying to make a lasting contribution. 

For a musician, this would entail 

making sound recordings for major record 

labels, playing in prestigious concert halls 

(e.g., Carnegie Hall), or winning certain 

competitions (e.g., Frederic Chopin International 

Piano Competition). Vitouch (2005) 

described in detail how parts of the expertise 

may get lost in old age – one could call 

this “de-expertization” – and how experts 

like the piano soloist Horowitz possibly 

compensate for it. Interestingly the psychomotor 

adaptations do not decline inevitably 

with old age but can be maintained for 

a long time through continuous practice. 

Krampe and Ericsson (1996) demonstrated 

that older pianists were able to counteract 

losses in motor performance through 

practice, whereas non-pianists did not show 

this advantage. However, both groups suffered 

age-related declines in other cognitive 

domains (see also Krampe & Charness, 

Chapter 40). 

The time needed for experts to develop 

sufficient skills for a professional career is 

sometimes estimated to be roughly a decade 

(Ericsson & Crutcher, 1990). Hayes (1989) 

demonstrated that this “10-year rule” also 

applies to composers in classical music, 

including Mozart. Works from Mozart’s earliest 

phases were conspicuously underrepresented 

in selected lists of his recordings. Similarly, 

Weisberg (1999) demonstrated that it 

took The Beatles approximately a decade 

to acquire international reputation. Prior to 

writing their own songs they covered music 

by other bands. It is a futile effort to dwell 

on exact number of years, but it is important 

to note that even famous exponents of 

a domain take a long time to acquire their 

skills. 

In order to compete successfully for 

scholarships, prizes, and media attention, 

instrumentalists in the classical music

domain have to master the most demanding 

repertoire as teenagers. This requires either 

an early start for highly competitive instruments 

(e.g., violin) or the possibility of transfer 

of knowledge and skills from previously 

played instruments onto those instrument 

that do not allow such early start (e.g., 

string bass, oboe, trombone). Altogether, the 

development of expert performance can be 

seen as an adaptation to the typical task constraints 

of the domain (Ericsson & Lehmann, 

1996), involving changes in cognitive, physiological, 

and perceptual-motor parameters 

that facilitate superior performance. 

Cognitive Adaptations 

Among the cognitive adaptations are aspects 

of memory and problem solving. The former 

can be seen in virtually all domains of 

expertise (Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996). Even 

when memorization is not their explicit 

goal, experts tend to have excellent longterm 

retention for domain-related material. 

For example, incidental memory for music 

just played correlated moderately with 

accompanying ability in classical pianists 

(Lehmann & Ericsson, 1996). Kauffman 

and Carlsen (1989) showed that musicians 

recalled musical material better than nonmusicians, 

especially when the material was 

structured according to rules of tonality 

(see our example concerning savants in 

later paragraph). Expert-novice differences 

decreased when tonality rules were violated 

or when random note sequences had to be 

recalled. This skill-by-structure interaction, 

demonstrated also in other domains, documents 

that experts’ advantages are largely 

due to their knowledge and how their memory 

skills have adapted to the structure of 

the stimuli. 

Acquired domain knowledge has been the 

most prominent explanation for the superiority 

of expert performance. Studies in 

many different domains showed that the 

essential factor of development of expertise 

is the accumulation of increasingly complex 

patterns in memory. It has been shown 

that expert knowledge can be retrieved 

quickly from long-term memory (Ericsson 

music 463 

& Kintsch, 1995). Chaffin and Imreh (2001) 

showed convincingly how a concert pianist 

developed sophisticated mental representations 

with associated retrieval structures 

that lead to successful performance of the 

rehearsed piece from memory even under 

high-stress conditions on stage. In addition, 

knowledge is represented in an elaborated 

format that allows quick access to relevant 

information and supports flexible reactions 

to domain-specific tasks, for example, in 

medicine by encapsulation of knowledge in 

procedural representations of earlier experiences 

with cases (Boshuizen & Schmidt, 

1992). 

A particularly impressive effect of the 

impact of knowledge for musical performance 

was found in studies with autistic 

savants. Despite the cognitive and communicative 

limitations that prevent them from 

functioning normally in everyday contexts, 

some autistic savants have exceptional musical 

skills and can play back music after only 

a few hearings. It can be demonstrated that 

these skills are based on knowledge-related 

generative processes (Miller, 1999; Sloboda, 

Hermelin, & O’Connor, 1985). When confronted 

with atonal music, the savants fail to 

imitate music but simply play haphazardly. 

Obviously, familiarity with the material and 

the genre mediates memory performance 

(Charness, Clifton, & MacDonald, 1988). 

The phenomenon of savants’ music memory 

demonstrates that making use of one’s 

knowledge about the structure of the stimulus 

is a quick and automatic process. Specialized 

knowledge of musical timbre and pitch 

even impacts early stages of perceptual processing 

that are not accessible to consciousness 

(Besson, 1997). 

The study of individuals’ cognitive representation 

of musical structure is important 

for understanding how music performance 

works (Palmer, 1997). It helps to understand 

why certain mistakes happen, and in which 

wayagood use of the knowledge can be supported. 

But also from an educational point 

of view it is relevant to know how different 

learning processes or learning methods may 

result in different representations (Gruhn & 

Rauscher, 2002).


Musical knowledge comprises not only 

knowledge about musical pieces, but 

the cognitive mechanisms to represent 

and manipulate the relevant knowledge. 

Lehmann and Ericsson (1997) suggested a 

triangular model of mental representations 

for musicians. In brief, musicians first 

need to imagine their anticipated, desired 

outcome. Next, they have to represent their 

currently ongoing performance in order to 

compare it to their original plans. Finally, a 

mental representation is necessary of how a 

particular plan can be implemented on the 

instrument – how it feels. Woody (1999) 

investigated the connection between ongoing 

and desired performance (see Woody, 

2003, concerning motor production representations). 

Pianists were asked to imitate 

the artistic, expressive features of a model 

musical performance, and verbal reports 

were recorded indicating which features 

they explicitly identified. Performance data 

showed that they imitated more accurately 

those features that they also correctly 

identified in their verbal reports. Also, 

researchers investigating African drummers 

found that rhythms in triple meter such as 

the Bolero-rhythm were notoriously difficult 

for experienced master drummers to 

imitate, who tried to assimilate the rhythms 

to African rhythmic prototypes (Kopiez, 

Langner, & Steinhagen, 1999). Thus, even 

seemingly automatic performance is mediated 

by complex cognition, even at high 

levels of proficiency. 

In addition to knowledge-related cognitive 

adaptations we can also observe changes 

in the use of sophisticated metacognitive 

and self-regulation skills in musical learners. 

In a contrastive study addressing metacognitive 

components of expert performance, 

Gruber, Weber, and Ziegler (1996) analyzed 

top-level orchestra musicians and aboveaverage 

amateur musicians. Judging retrospectively, 

experts indicated higher levels of 

aspiration along with a more positive attitude 

toward performance situations compared 

to the amateurs. As regards their 

current situation, experts rated themselves 

more effective in their learning behavior, 

but did not differ from the amateur players 

concerning their motivation. In a sec- 

ond study, Gruber et al. (1996) surprisingly 

found that experts’ competence and control 

beliefs were weaker concerning musical performance 

than regarding everyday life. This 

leads to an ambiguous situation. On the one 

side, early on experts practice effectively, 

look for challenging performance situations, 

and have aspirations. On the other side, once 

they work within their current community 

of experts, where they are only one among 

many, they neither perceive themselves 

as outstanding nor do they have superior 

self-concepts. 

Physiological Adaptations 

Everyone knows the minor physiological 

adaptations that happen in response to 

habitual usage of our bodies in everyday life. 

These adaptations are specifically localized, 

such as the growth of muscle after a few days 

of bike riding or the emergence of calluses 

on fingertips after starting to play the guitar 

or working in the yard. Musicians undergo 

a number of less obvious but highly telling 

adaptations. For example, Wagner (1988) 

found that degree of forearm rotation differed 

systematically between pianists (larger 

extent of inward rotation), violinists (larger 

outward rotation), and controls. However, 

the overall degree of rotation remained constant 

in all three groups but was shifted 

toward the respective habitual usages for 

the instrumentalists. Singers and brass players 

were found to have significantly larger 

vital and total lung capacities compared to 

controls (Sundberg, 1987). And the superior 

inhalation and expiration pressures in 

trumpet players were found only after several 

long notes were played (Fiz et al., 1993), 

demonstrating the highly contextual specificity 

of such changes. 

Additional links between training and certain 

adaptations were uncovered in recent 

efforts to understand how the brain processes 

music, especially through the use of 

imaging techniques (Münte, Altenmüller, & 

Jäncke, 2002, for a review). The first study 

that received widespread attention was one 

that found that the cortical representation 

of the fingers of the left hand in string players 

was enlarged compared to that of the

thumb (Elbert, Pantev, Wienbruch, Rockstroh, 

& Taub, 1995). No changes occurred 

with the representations of the fingers of the 

right hand (the bowing arm). And this cortical 

reorganization was more pronounced for 

subjects who had started musical training at 

an earlier age. 

Further studies, especially those comparing 

experts with novices, showed that cortical 

reorganization was not restricted to 

playing music but also occurred when listening. 

Pantev, Roberts, Schulz, Engelien, 

& Ross (2001) learned that larger areas of 

the cortex were activated involuntarily when 

musicians listened to tones of instruments 

they played. Or, differences in the volume of 

gray matter in the motor as well as auditory 

and visuospatial brain regions were found 

when comparing professional musicians 

(keyboard players) to amateur musicians and 

non-musicians (Gaser & Schlaug, 2003). We 

can safely assume that music training and 

practice leads to substantial functional and 

structural changes in a person’s brain and 

consequently alters processing capabilities. 

Perceptual-Motor Adaptations 

Instrumentalists require perceptual and 

motor skills different from those of nonmusicians. 

For example, trilling on the piano 

requires ten to fourteen movements per 

second; tuning a violin needs the capability 

of detecting slight frequency differences. 

Motor researchers found that pianists 

were able to tap faster and more accurately 

than control subjects with their fingers, 

but that this advantage did not transfer 

to their heels (Keele, Pokorny, Corcos, & Ivry, 

1985). How information is acquired with 

the senses also changes. For example, the 

minute movements of the eye (oculomotor 

activity) is modified considerably by training, 

and beginning text readers’ eye movements 

differ from that of advanced readers, 

a finding that has been replicated in music 

sight-reading (e.g., Goolsby, 1994). Future 

research in this area will most likely yield 

more precise results. 

Finally, musicians develop a finer frequency 

and loudness discrimination than 

non-musician controls (Houtsma, Durlach, 

music 465 

& Horowitz, 1987). However, the improved 

discrimination of timbre and tones by 

musicians does not transfer to speech 

sounds (Münzer, Berti, & Pechmann, 2002). 

Musicians playing instruments that require 

fine tuning of individual notes during 

performance develop a more accurate discrimination 

for pitch height, whereas percussionists, 

whose work relies heavily on 

discriminating rhythms, show an improved 

perception of auditory duration (Rauscher 

& Hinton, 2003). Likewise, pianists require 

increased sensitive tactile discrimination, 

which proved to be related to the amount 

of practice undertaken (Ragert, Schmidt, 

Altenmüller, & Dinse, 2004). Taken together, 

the increased acuity of the senses 

and adaptations of the motor system are 

restricted to the stimuli musicians typically 

encounter when playing their respective 

instruments. This indicates that the changes 

are highly specific, which makes the claim 

plausible that they are in large part linked to 

training and practice. 

Outlook: Pushing the Limits 

In this chapter, we have explored how music 

performance changes through practice. The 

debate is still open (and might remain indefinitely) 

about which “natural” limits of performance 

exist, and whether and how such 

limits can be pushed. Physiological factors 

might limit performance of selected individuals, 

but a number of environmental, historical, 

and societal factors have been identified 

that are likely to influence the upper 

bounds of performance at a given time in a 

given place. 

A bitter taste regarding limits of expertise 

arises from the fact that most professional 

musicians suffer from medical problems. 

Hearing losses from overexposure to noise 

during practice or performance, as well as 

muscular-skeletal or neurological problems, 

are common (Brandfonbrener & Lederman, 

2002). Interestingly, the ranking of instruments 

in order of prevalence of symptoms 

corresponds roughly to the intensity of practice 

required to reach high levels of performance, 

with pianists, violinists, and guitarists


at the top of the list. There may also exist an 

upper limit for attainable performance with 

regard to the neuroplastic changes (Lim & 

Altenmüller, 2003). Focal dystonia, a condition 

where, for instance, fingers start to 

perform involuntary movements when other 

fingers are activated, may be due to an 

overlap of expanded cortical representations 

(Elbert et al., 1998). The gradual enlargement 

of the cortical representations in the 

somatosensory cortex during acquisition of 

expertise might reach a limit when the 

separation between adjacent areas becomes 

blurred, resulting in uncontrollable coactivation 

of one finger through the use of another. 

It is obvious that research about physiological 

limits of musical performance and 

about interventions to overcome the limits 

(or remedy existing problems) is still at its 

very beginning. The same can be said about 

historical or societal constraints on musical 

performance. 

It is interesting to study in the history of a 

domain how the demands imposed on musicians 

have changed over time (Lehmann & 

Ericsson, 1998). Everyone is aware of 

changed standards in sports, where records 

are kept about achievements that have to 

be matched and surpassed by following generations 

of athletes. (Even if they are not 

as obvious as world records in athletics, 

musical achievements offer similar trends – 

incidentally the young star pianist Yundi Li 

is making commercials for sportswear company 

Nike.) For example, the constraints 

of performance are related to the development 

of instruments. When the piano was 

invented in 1700, there was no specific way 

of playing it, and a standard repertoire did 

not yet exist. Later refinements of the instrument 

and the instrumental technique led to 

more complex compositions. A number of 

pieces exist that were deemed unplayable 

at the time of their composition, including 

examples even from the 20th century (e. g., 

“Etudes” for guitar by Villa-Lobos; “Hammerklavier” 

sonata for piano by Beethoven; 

“Etudes” for piano by Ligeti; “Caprices” for 

violin by Paganini). Nowadays many of these 

pieces are standard fare for adolescent performers. 

Such historical increases in levels 

of performance result from specialization, 

improved training and practice methods, and 

from the extrinsic rewards a society offers to 

those who try to make eminent contributions 

to the domain. 

Similar to the domain of sports, where 

some disciplines are popular in certain countries 

but not in others, or where some countries 

provide incentives to reach the highest 

levels of performance, music is affected 

by societal factors. China, for example, 

has developed a highly competitive piano 

instruction system since the end of the Cultural 

Revolution; playing the piano is now 

avalued cultural practice. Being proficient 

at playing the piano affords girls the opportunity 

to marry into better situated families 

(similar to the situation in 19 th -century 

Germany), and men receive the possibility 

to make a career (as piano teachers). 

It is estimated that 50 million Chinese are 

seriously playing the piano. The large number 

of highly qualified foreign students from 

Eastern European and Far Eastern countries 

entering performance degree programs 

in music academies in Western countries 

attests to this fact. At the same time, fewer 

and fewer families in the West are willing 

to surrender their children to a rigorous 

training starting in early childhood and to 

accept personal and financial disadvantages. 

Instead, broad ranges of competing activities 

and media use are offered to children. That 

indicates that the cultural environment and 

its value and reward systems promote the 

development or neglect of skills in a certain 

culture. 

Research reported in this chapter predominantly 

deals with the Western art music 

tradition. To date, studies in non-European 

music genres are rare but would be interesting 

for many reasons. For example, Indian 

musicians are likely to show interesting 

problem-solving strategies because they perform 

mainly improvised music – as do 

musicians in the Middle East. Or Balinese 

musicians, who learn by ear an extensive 

repertoire, would offer insights into memory 

processes that are not mediated by 

music notation – as would to a certain 

degree European vernacular musicians in 

rock, popular, jazz, and folk music. New subdomains 

emerge that constitute touchstones

for theories previously developed in the classical 

music domain. For example, one should 

ask what constitutes practice for a DJ? Thus, 

research in music expertise needs to take a 

broader look at music. 

The fact that the Annual Review of Psychology 

has, over the last 15 years, published 

three articles on music (in 1991 one on perception, 

in 1997 one on performance, and 

in 2005 one on neuroscience) proves that 

music is a domain with a high appeal for 

studying a diversity of psychological topics. 

The combination of affective, perceptual, 

cognitive, and motor aspects in music making, 

along with its high cultural value, make 

it a prime candidate for the study of complex 

skills. Children are introduced to music 

very early on in their lives – earlier than in 

most other domains of expertise – at a time 

when their brains and bodies are malleable 

and training can be most effective. Therefore, 

we observe differences between musical 

experts and novices of stupefying magnitude. 

The universal nature of music as a 

grammar-based but non-semantic temporal 

phenomenon theoretically allows studies in 

all cultures and across time, adding to the 

appeal of music as a domain for expertise 

researchers. Finally, the potential connections 

to music education in and out of formal 

learning contexts make expertise research 

a fruitful area of research for those whose 

interests concern the effects of instruction 

and training. 

Author Notes 

We thank two reviewers and R. H. Woody for 

their insightful comments on a previous version 

of the paper. The first author is greatly indebted 

to Anders Ericsson and Neil Charness for starting 

him out on this fascinating topic during a postdoc 

at FSU. 

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