number of years of study needed by a pianist under modern training programs before publicly performing various works, and then compared that with the number of years actually needed by several prodigies throughout history. If the average music student needs six years of preparation before publicly playing a piece, and a given prodigy did it after three years, that student would have an index of 200 percent. Mozart’s index is around 130 percent, clearly ahead of average students. But twentieth-century prodigies score 300 percent to 500 percent. This is another example of rising standards. The
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