ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on one of the most practical topics relevant to a musician's life: practice. It reviews classic and studies on music practice, and other topics relevant to the acquisition of musical expertise and discusses the relationship between deliberate practice and musical achievement, and the contribution of natural capacities or inborn 'talent.' In contrast to views emphasizing inborn talent, K. Anders Ericsson and colleagues argued in a seminal paper published in 1993 that the role of inborn capacities in achieving superior performance has been exaggerated or overemphasized in many different fields, including music. Building on the work of Ericsson and colleagues, researchers are seeking to understand the role of deliberate practice as one component embedded within a more expansive framework of individual and environmental factors shaping musical development and achievement. Part versus whole pertains to the question of whether musical works should be divided into smaller segments during practicing, or practiced through as an intact whole.
