Think of all the things you had done - or not done - by age 22. Certainly, few of us would have clocked up nigh-on 20,000 hours practising a musical instrument. Yet this is what flautist Riona O Duinnin, one of the students profiled in Dots on a Page, has achieved.
Every week, 1,200 students from all over Ireland attend classes in the Royal Irish Academy of Music. This year, the academy is celebrating 150 years of teaching, creating, and performing music. As one of the many events marking the anniversary, RTE will transmit Dots on a Page, an hour-long documentary about the academy and three of its star students, on Monday.
This programme is bound to fascinate every student of music in the country, not to mention their parents. If you've ever wondered what goes on behind those closed doors once class begins, Dots on a Page will go some way towards enlightening you.
Included are scenes of the academy's director, Dr John O'Conor, working one-to-one with a gifted piano student. His method of instruction, which involves a lot of shouting, is clearly not one for those with frail egos. "You have to be a survivor to make a career in music," O'Conor explains to camera later. "You have to be self-contained as a person, to be able to survive in hotel rooms and not feel homesick all the time."
The cameras go behind the scenes into several classes, and whether it's skilful editing or that the students are concentrating so hard they ignore the cameras, you get a sense of being an invisible interloper. A bonus is being able to admire the beautiful Georgian interiors of the Westland Row houses in which the academy is located.
The part of the programme likely to be deep interest to every music student, past and present, is the "specimen student" part. A piano student volunteers to be guinea-pig candidate for the board of examinees, and we hear something of the methods, reasoning, and discussion used to assess her playing. Interwoven with all the snapshots of the day-to-day running of the academy are profiles of three of its star pupils: Ben Cashell (12); Anne Phelan (22); and Riona.
Ben Cashell plays his cello for six hours every day. When he is playing, he has a startling expression of dedication and concentration on his face. And when he speaks, there are small insights into the mind of someone to whom music is the centre of life. "Last year, I fractured my wrist playing football. During the weeks I had without playing my cello, I felt so frustrated it was incredible."
Riona O Duinnin is one of six children. Her parents travelled weekly for years from Carlingford to Dublin for music lessons. She and violinist Anne Phelan have known each other for many years, and the cameras follow them through their preparation for their last performance with the Academy orchestra. It's their first time to perform as soloists, and since the concert is in the National Concert Hall, there is a real sense of watching a rite of passage.
We see them practising, choosing dresses to wear for the performance, talking of their hopes for the future, hanging out with their friends in the pub. There are also contributions from the students' family members. Watch out for the clips of Anne Phelan's parents, speaking of their pride and bemusement at their daughter's achievements. "The Mammy was prepared to make the sacrifices, I wasn't," says Anne's father. Mother and father sit side by side on the couch, revealing as much about their own relationship as they do about the impact their gifted daughter has had upon their lives.
Dots on a Page will be shown on RTE 1 at 8 p.m. on Monday