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AS MID-LIFE crises go, Gary Marcus鈥檚 is more interesting than most, and far more academically useful. At 39 he took a year out from his day job as a developmental psychologist at New York University to learn how to play guitar. Guitar Zero is his story of that experience, a crash tour of inspirational teachers, professional musicians and precocious prodigies. It is both an entertaining account of the frustrations of a wannabe guitar hero and an intriguing enquiry into the science of learning.

Marcus鈥檚 central question is why is it so much harder for an adult to learn an instrument (or any other skill) from scratch? I have often pondered this: I learned to play drums to a reasonable standard as a teenager but have never really mastered the guitar which I took up in my twenties, a shortcoming I put down to the diminishing window of cognitive opportunity as I grow older. Marcus claims the evidence for this 鈥渃ritical period鈥� theory of learning is weak. More relevant, he says, is that teenagers simply have more time to practise.

鈥淓vidence for a critical period of learning is weak 鈥� teenagers simply have more time to practise鈥�

In exploring this, he takes a dig at many common presumptions about musical ability, such as the existence of an innate musical instinct that evolved before language, and the theory that just about anyone can be great with 10,000 hours of practice. He is particularly insightful when he draws from his expertise in language development: 鈥淕uitar, like German, is filled with maddening irregularities.鈥�

But some of his assertions are not as evidence-based as he makes out. The fact that many famous musicians had musical parents 鈥� Paul McCartney, Paul Simon, Strauss, Mozart 鈥� is no proof of heritable musical genius, as he claims. (All of these people also grew up in musical households.)

Some of his most compelling observations come when he leaves science altogether. The key to Bob Dylan鈥檚 creativity, he muses, 鈥渨as not so much practice as a conscious, deliberate effort to find his own musical path鈥� by cramming his head with poems and listening intently to other people鈥檚 songs.

As for Marcus鈥檚 own musical endeavours, he says he can now play most basic chords with ease and has even performed a Beatles cover in front of 200 people 鈥� hardly zero to hero, but impressive for an oldish-timer.