People blossom at different stages of their lives - sometimes it's physical/technical, other times it's emotional, but in any case sometimes these advantages/head starts end up evening out after the first 30 years for people. To tell some anecdotes of people living at the pinnacle of piano:
There is a pianist called Aimi Kobayashi who was a real piano prodigy - she was performing big concertos by the age of 9.
Here is her playing a musically mature recital of Chopin Impromptu No. 1 (Op. 29) when she was 11 - she sounds like a pro already[0]
People who were following her were expecting her to take the world by storm as a world-beating titan in the world of piano but she somewhat "plateaued" (relative to her peers at the top) in her teenage years.
Meanwhile Yuja Wang is an absolutely huge pianist (I note that her BBC Proms this year sold out almost instantly) but accounts of her career/development tell of her being mostly middle of the pack and unremarkable during her teenage years. No one in their right mind would question her technical prowess today though.
If you prefer stories about sports people, the rags-to-riches story of Jamie Vardy is a personal favourite[0]
Here is someone who never gave up despite apparently lacking the "talent" when young and yet went on to win the Premier League, be called up to play for his national team and beat the record of a world-class player (RvN) for scoring consecutive games in a row.
Meanwhile the sad story of Ravel Morrison[1] is one of how talent alone isn't enough. A football prodigy who was allegedly more gifted than his peer Paul Pogba (4th most expensive player transfer in football history). When you watch him, it is self-evident that he has some gifts but he has bounced from team to team and his career has not really reflected his natural abilities.
EDIT: Alternatively, another story, an anecdote from UK political aide Alastair Campbell in his book "Winners and How They Succeed"[2] - he talks about how on a visit to the Manchester United training grounds a coach pointed to the two young football players Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo (neither of whom were even 18 yet) and spotted that only one of the two would go on to reach the very top[3], citing a difference in work ethic:
>He said that Ronaldo never ever stopped believing he could improve, whereas Rooney 'thinks he'd made it.'
I’m on my phone while riding the public bus so can’t really easily look for a reference, but I remember the same Ronaldo saying that there was an even more talented footballer than him while he was an youngster at Sporting Lisbon but that that player didn’t play anywhere higher than the Portuguese Second League because he was lacking in work ethic. I very rarely heard Ronaldo say about someone else that he was better than him.
I recall some clip from the Ronaldo movie where he takes the camera crew to his bedroom and points at his bed and says something along the lines of "this is my bed, it is very important - I spend almost 12 hours a day here:
I sleep for 7 hours, I get up in the morning, I train, I then sleep another 5 hours to recover, then get up and train some more"
The guy has virtually no life beyond training - and he optimises his schedule to squeeze even more training time out of every day.
Say what you like, but I find it to be a little bit inspiring to see someone at the top deciding to dedicate themselves to seeing just how much further they can push themselves just for the sake of being even better...
"Aurélio Pereira, the Sporting scout who discovered Quaresma, Ronaldo and Moutinho, once said of Paim: “Do you think Cristiano is good? Wait to see Fábio Paim.”"
Another good example of this would be the starcraft player Jaedong, he failed the tournement that you needed to win your proffesional licence 9 times, had absolutely terrible records in training (winning 1 out 20/30 vs teammates) to becoming one of the most legendary players through pure perseverance
I don't think Starcraft players are great examples. Many of the most successful ones walked the "Royal Road," i.e. they won the OSL on their first try. I can't think of any player who was mediocre for years, and then became an all-time great. If anything, every Starcraft legend except Flash had a front-loaded career where they had the majority of their big wins at the start of their career, and then stuck around due to their brand name without ever recapturing their peak.
The life of a virtuoso musician is a curious one. The first 20-25 years of their lives is intensely stressful and gruelling. Practising their instrument for 10+ hours a day isn't uncommon, and their lives are usually dominated by chasing competition to competition trying to prove their worth relative to their contemporaries so that they can get signed by various agents and record labels (assuming that they are aiming to be a professional recitalist/recording artist).
Those that survive this track and don't grow disillusioned with their art are rewarded with a profession that will carry them for the rest of their lives, easily into their 80s or longer if they then branch into conducting (Neville Marriner was performing right until his death, aged 92). More importantly, these people typically love what they do, and their quality of life is amazing - they aren't wage slaves and maintenance of their skills can be as little as a couple of hours a day.
Is this path applicable to everyone? Almost certainly not, but it's definitely and interesting life path for the few who do make it!
Is that path accessible to everyone who practices 10 hours a day through their teens or is there survivorship bias involved? I've known a few very skilled musicians who had to have spouses or day jobs to put food on the table.
>Is that path accessible to everyone
I don't think so, although I feel like it is sometimes constructive to believe it is (from a personal perspective).
From what I know, the 10 hours a day usually starts before teen years (it is common for musicians who reach virtuoso level to achieve "university-level" technical ability before they are 10 years old). For instance, amongst the musicians I've known, playing all Chopin Etudes or Grieg Concerto by 8 years old isn't particularly outstanding - these are easily Diploma level 2/3 works.
What I also know is that a lot of these musicians typically have a lot of financial backing - finding a good teacher and a good instrument is expensive! Unless you're a 1 in a 100-million talent, you probably won't find a sponsor as a child...
Lang Lang is probably one of the musicians I can name who wasn't particularly wealthy growing up...
On the subject of survivorship bias - almost certainly this reeks of bias, we never hear of the dropouts... Presumably those that stay healthy/positive wind up in session-gigs and education.
>I've known a few very skilled musicians
I can't say much about your friends, although my anecdotal intuition feels that virtuoso* musicians' success sits on a pareto distribution: those in the top 5-10 of their individual field are lavished in concerts, records and money. The 11-200 are probably reasonably comfortable and the 201 onwards start having to worry about making ends meet.
This is true for other skill-based professions - look at tennis players for instance, they struggle to break even on their livelihood if they're outside the top 200.
An observation a pianist once told me that scared her was that every few years there's a new star who wins the Chopin or Tchaikovsky competition who then robs the limelight. Adding to that, as musicians have a long career you have a long-tail/pyramid effect where the base is constantly growing, but the rewards are fixed if not shrinking.
*(where a major factor of their success is technical skill)
There is a pianist called Aimi Kobayashi who was a real piano prodigy - she was performing big concertos by the age of 9.
Here is her playing a musically mature recital of Chopin Impromptu No. 1 (Op. 29) when she was 11 - she sounds like a pro already[0]
People who were following her were expecting her to take the world by storm as a world-beating titan in the world of piano but she somewhat "plateaued" (relative to her peers at the top) in her teenage years.
Meanwhile Yuja Wang is an absolutely huge pianist (I note that her BBC Proms this year sold out almost instantly) but accounts of her career/development tell of her being mostly middle of the pack and unremarkable during her teenage years. No one in their right mind would question her technical prowess today though.
Yuja doing Shostakovich 1 [1]
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX57r1l5W3U
[1]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bo0yIuZTQKg