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)
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!