| In order to excel, aspiring classical musicians and artistic gymnasts must be highly motivated and possess certain characteristics, which allow them to spend hours practicing or training. This qualitative, phenomenological study is unique in that it attempts to explore the experiences between elite-level classical musicians and artistic gymnasts, allowing me to examine similarities and differences across the two domains.;Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 25 participants. Participants included six classical musicians, eight artistic gymnasts, and eleven parents. Both "active" (in-the-midst of their development) and "inactive" (retired) participants were specifically selected in order to gain both a present and retrospective view of their experiences.;Three broad themes emerged. The first was family environment. This included the overall social class of the family, induction into the domain, parental attitudes and values towards the domain, the parent-child relationship, and parental support and involvement. These were all critical in the nurturance of excellence, and support past research on talent development (Bloom, 1985; Cote, 1999; Csikszentmihalyi et al., 1993; Ericsson, 1996a; Howe, 1990).;Second, the relationship that musicians and gymnasts had with their teachers/coaches was highly influential and often as intimate as the relationship with their parents. A teacher's individual personality and expectations contributed to the student's drive, either directly or indirectly. It was discovered that some teachers/coaches of both the musician and gymnast participants used emotional or verbal abuse as a motivator.;Third, self-efficacy surfaced as an important theme during the analysis. Sub-themes of this included: their perception of talent, identity, intrinsic motivation, passion, the "need-to-please" syndrome, perfectionism, and resiliency. It was also found that the experiences of drive were more similar than different across the domains of music and gymnastics.;The findings from this study will shed light on our understanding of what drives talented adolescents in music and gymnastics to achieve excellence, and how we might better teach, coach, parent, and programme for them in the future. Indirectly, this research will similarly inform parents, teachers and coaches of elite performers in other performance-related athletic and performing arts domains. |
