Talent

What if you become proficient with an instrument and then build a career on your compositions instead?
Of course I'm talkimg about good compositions here, compositions so good that could enter the repertoire. Would that work?

to be honest I think it might be my dream job. It's a little stressful sometimes because you CANNOT make mistakes. We sometimes have to basically sightread music on the spot for certain recordings, which was terrifying at first. The audition process was grueling. My fingers bled from all the practice. But now that I have a relatively established position, it's a more or less laid back job, compared with something like working on wall street. It pays surprisingly well, and there is a lot of down time, and you get to travel the world for different concerts. I've been to japan, Korea, China, the US, England and many other places. The people are incredible. There's something in musicians that I don't really find in other artists these days: a completely sincere passion about their art. It often almost seems anachronistic the way that my conductor behaves. musicians still have the capability for romantic unselfconscious actions. I have met people like the jazz teacher in whiplash in the scope of their ego and brashness, and people as quiet and unassuming as you could imagine who held a secret genius musical intuition that no one expected. I think I prefer it to the job of a soloist because I don't know if I could take that amount of pressure and I don't know if I have the force of ego to establish myself in the musical community like that. I do love literature and writing, but I think I greatly prefer the collaborative nature of music, the legends and lore behind certain people, the folktales that are told about certain performances, and the joined sincere appreciation and passion for art that you get to experience every day.

Feels bad to be average man

nah, feels good
mo' expectations, mo' problems

Piano teacher here, this is patently false.
Children are fucking useless, they can't do nothing at first sight for years and even the most banal exercise can take them weeks. Also in this society you can't beat them, so you can't even force them to do so.
Child prodigies are those children who sre actually interested in the piano, but that's it.

To finish the Beyer with a child I need 2-3 years, with an adult I can easily tackle that in very few months if he dedicates all of his time to it.
The problem with adults is that they either stop or they start doing something else. Kids have the advantage of practicing for decades, adults don't have that privilege, and if they want to amount to something they really have to treat it as a job, spending 12 and more hours everyday on piano and theory books.

Basically: if there is noone paying for your expenses you can't make it.
If you want to have a thriving social life you can't make it.
If you're not musical (or talented, call it however you want) you can't make it.
If you've got no work ethic you can't make it (but you can learn that).

Incidently most NEETs on Veeky Forums are the perfect kind of student. A guy with no friends who is uncapable of leaving his house is built for success.

t. 28yo guy who started playing piano when he was 20 who can sightread pretty much everything at this point and can play at a concert level pieces as hard as the Hammerklavier Sonata and the Scarbo

composition is different, I think. There are of course the Mozarts and mendelssohns who blow everyone away, but there are also many composers who started later, like Schoenberg and Xenakis and Feldman. But composing is a much more difficult field to make it in, I think. You have to truly be a genius to be a great composer, it's like trying to be the next Pynchon, whereas grtting into a good orchestra is more like getting published in some decent literary magazine. If you are still in university I would suggest taking composition classes and self-studying it simultaneously a la Schoenberg, and if you have talent, to go for it. Don't be discouraged if you started late. Xenakis started in his mid 20s if I'm not mistaken. I wish I was smart enough to be a composer, and I admire anyone who is.

This gives me some hope at least.
For the record I've been playing guitar since early childhood, and I have such a familiarity with that instrument that I feel like I could outplay anybody, even though I know objectively speaking this is not the case.
But a few years back I got big into classical music and started playing the violin ferociously, like all day, all night, at all times kind of thing. I was 17 then, I'm 19 now, but it still doesn't feel the way it feels with the guitar.
Do I gotta be a knight of faith?

I fucking hate child prodigies.

i think real child prodigies are a form of autism. you can't recreate that.

>Do I gotta be a knight of faith?
I know nothing about violing pedagogy... There may be actual physical obstacles that could prevent you from mastering the instrument. You should ask to violin teachers in your local conservatory.

That said, how hardcore are you when it comes to training? Always keep in mind that it's not about practicing 8 hours and studying 4 hours tomorrow, it's about still doing it in 8 years from now.
Virtually everyday, for maybe even decades (since you have to make up for the lost time). And there's always the risk that you're not one of those guys that should do it after all (there is such a thing as artistic attitude), and there is always the risk that you're not talented enough (the more you teach the more you see that talent is a real thing, regardless of the age).

It's a pretty big bet that requires a ridicolous amount of work. If you're willing to take the bet go for it.
Also notice that this applies to piano, I don't know wether getting proficient at violin is easier or harder.

Children, in general, learn faster due to neuroplasticity. Child prodigies excel in their fields because they have spent their entire short life up to that point practicing their skill and taking advantage of that accelerated rate of learning. You don't have to be a genius to be a child prodigy.

I'm still this guy This shit has been debunked decades ago. If you want to be a virtuoso or a great composer fucking sit down and start studying. You're not 60 yet, you're brain is still as good as ever: it will start deteriorating in a few years (if you're living a healthy lifestyle probably in your mid '30s), but it will happen at a really slow pace, especially if you mantain yourself active.

Hell, Perlemuter was still playing the Scarbo in his 90s. He started when he was 5: how much difference do you think there is between 90 and 70 years of training?

I've taught kids and adults for years, and kids are just that: kids. They're dumb, and although they know how to naturally be relaxed, that can be learned with a bit of meditation. After that, everything I can do with an adult in 1 week would take months for kids. Just 1 month ago a 28 year old guy started taking lessons from me. He practices 5 hours per day and we have already finished 3/4 of the Beyer manual, and he's already reading music effortessly. This would take me literally years with a kid, unless that kid has parents that force him to play the piano for hours of the day through violent means (and that, more often than not, completely stunt kids, making them good performers but useless artists).

Stop being a bitch, try to understand what kind of dedication is required to do it and, if you thinjk that you can do it, start. But for the love of God don't spew pseudoscience that has been costantly debunked for decades now.

>Beyer manual
What the hell is that? Google doesn't help.

It's a piano manual by Ferdinand Beyer widely used in Germany, Spain, Italy and French.

imslp.org/wiki/Vorschule_im_Klavierspiel,_Op.101_(Beyer,_Ferdinand)

Thanks.