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expressivity (see e.g. O'Dea
2000
). But virtuosos are above all outstanding clas-
sical musicians (violinists in particular) who perform musical pieces known to be
extremely difficult
at the limit of human capacities
.
In the field of poetry, virtuosity manifests itself under the form of 'satisfying dif-
ficult constraints'. It was shown for instance that the adaptation of Latin rhetoric
to old English poetry created complex constraints for the authors. Satisfying these
constraints was the source of great inventiveness and creation (Steen
2008
). The
association Oulipo (OuLiPo
1988
) pushed very far the idea that constraints, in par-
ticular difficult ones, could be the source of inventiveness in literature and poetry.
Novels by Georges Perec such as 'The void' (a novel without the vowel 'e'), or its
counterpart 'Les Revenentes' (a novel with 'e' as the only vowel) are spectacular
achievements of this movement.
5.1.2 The Cognitive Science Perspective on Virtuosity
Despite these achievements, virtuosity has hardly been addressed by cognitive sci-
ence. From the viewpoint of physiology, there are known limits to the motor systems
and the sensory-perceptive abilities of humans that are relevant to the study of virtu-
osity (London
2004
;
2010
). For instance, Fitt's law (Fitt
1954
) states that the time it
takes to reach an object is a function of the distance to, and the size of, the target ob-
ject(s). Consequently, tradeoffs have to be found between speed and accuracy, both
ingredients being required for achieving virtuosity, e.g. in music. Another impor-
tant law governing human interaction abilities is the Hick's law (Hick
1952
), which
states that the time it takes to make a decision is a function of the number of possible
answers:
T
=
b
×
log
2
(n
+
1
)
which generalises to:
T
=
b
×
H
, where
H
is the entropy
of the system.
These two rules combined yield the interesting argument that virtuosity is some-
how only possible at the cost of not thinking. As Justin London (
2010
) sharply
phrases it: 'Virtuosos can suppress the executive/monitoring functions of their brains
when they perform; and thereby avoid the speed traps of their prefrontal cortices'.
The way to achieve this is by intense training. The
10,000 hour rule
(see e.g. Eric-
sson et al.
1993
, Sloboda et al.
1996
, Gladwell
2008
) states that about 10,000 hours
of training are required to become a world expert in any domain. Most biographies
of well-known musicians confirm the fact that music virtuosos (in classical music,
jazz, and even pop) have spent most of their youth training (Mozart, Charlie Parker,
John Coltrane, Biréli Lagrène, The Beatles).
5.1.3 Virtuosity as an Attraction Device
Bird songs are particularly interesting for virtuosity studies as they are a rare case
in which the whole production and reception process has been studied in-depth,
yielding breakthroughs and fascinating findings.
