Becoming an Expert

In football, my club is the one I play for, not the one I "support". I try to have the same outlook in work, getting involved is better than not, creating is better than consuming. And in music?

As a manager, as a recruiter, you look for the rough diamonds, those in whom you see the potential to be experts in their field. Are they born or made? One view is that of Anders Ericsson:

Counter to the common belief that expert performance reflects innate abilities and capacities, recent research in different domains of expertise has shown that expert performance is predominantly mediated by acquired complex skills and physiological adaptations.

That's perfectly clear. So if I spend enough time practising on the guitar, I may become like Brian.

However the British Psychology Digest injected some reality today, quoting more recent research. More practice can only make you an expert if you have a basic level of musical aptitude to start with.