>IMO the notion of "talent" for the arts is just how people cope with the fact that the best and brightest in that field did more work than them.
Maybe the notion of “hard work” is just an attempt by talented people to justify their winning the genetic lottery to themselves and to appear humble?
Nowadays, success in the classical music industry very often depends on looks and conventional physical attractiveness. Here, too, luck is more important than hard work.
> Nowadays, success in the classical music industry very often depends on looks and conventional physical attractiveness. Here, too, luck is more important than hard work.
Really? My sister was a professional violist for a while and did all her auditions behind a screen. There are lots of efforts taken to remove biases of exactly the type you are citing from your career path.
Several soloists I know are relatively ugly people, but everyone who is a serious musician is in pretty good shape. Playing concert music is a light-to-moderate full-body workout, and doing that for 5 hours a day takes stamina. They usually also have clothing that fits them perfectly and they will often use some makeup to fix blemishes. So if you're just looking at a soloist on stage or on a video recording, that is about as attractive as the person you are seeing will possibly look, and they are selected from a pool of people that work out about as much as a full-time yoga instructor.
An example that stands out to me here is Yuja Wang, who is known for wearing very short dresses on stage. This happened much to the consternation of conductors and orchestras, and may have actually hurt her early career. She was more than good enough to overcome that, though, and I can't say that it was a bad marketing tactic for attracting youtube views.
Maybe the notion of “hard work” is just an attempt by talented people to justify their winning the genetic lottery to themselves and to appear humble?
Nowadays, success in the classical music industry very often depends on looks and conventional physical attractiveness. Here, too, luck is more important than hard work.