To become an expert in music, an individual goes through different phases of deliberately practising domain-specific activities with the support of actors within his or her network. These network actors are often referred to in the research literature as “persons in the shadow,” because they are for the most part unnoticeable to an audience. Systematic research on popular music does not touch upon who these persons in the shadow are and how they support deliberate practice. Therefore, the aim of this study was to examine which network actors have supported popular musicians to deliberately practice their craft during childhood, the period of apprenticeship, and throughout their careers, along with the type of support that was provided. A mixed-method egocentric network analysis, combined with quantitative and qualitative analyses of data from interviews with five experts and five intermediate-level popular musicians, has shown that band members and instrumental teachers were perceived as being most supportive of musicians’ deliberate practice during childhood and period of apprenticeship. However, during the musicians’ careers, band members were perceived as being most supportive. Experts differed from intermediate-level musicians as follows: (a) experts had contact with a larger pool of band members and instrumental teachers during their careers; (b) their networks, especially of band members in different formations and instrumental teachers, changed constantly and frequently throughout their careers; (c) they were regularly confronted with unfamiliar musical content, which expanded their musical knowledge. In this article we suggest that future research should investigate how change in networks influences deliberate practice and the acquisition of expertise.

为了成为音乐专家，个人需要在其网络中的参与者的支持下经历不同阶段的故意练习特定领域的活动。这些网络参与者在研究文献中通常被称为“阴影中的人”，因为在大多数情况下，它们对于听众而言并不明显。对流行音乐的系统研究并未触及这些人是谁，以及他们如何支持刻意的练习。因此，本研究的目的是研究哪些网络演员曾支持流行音乐人在童年时期，学徒时期以及整个职业生涯中故意练习他们的手艺，以及提供的支持类型。混合方法自我中心网络分析，结合对来自五位专家和五位中级流行音乐家的访谈数据的定量和定性分析，结果表明，乐队成员和器乐老师被认为最支持音乐家在童年时期和学徒时期的刻意练习。但是，在音乐家的职业生涯中，乐队成员被认为是最有帮助的。专家与中级音乐家的不同之处在于：（a）专家在职业生涯中接触了大量乐队成员和器乐老师；（b）在整个职业生涯中，他们的网络，特别是来自不同形式的乐队成员和器乐教师的网络不断变化；（c）他们经常面对陌生的音乐内容，从而扩大了他们的音乐知识。