Age effects in bimanual coordination

The world-famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz completed his final recording four days before his death. The recording consisted of a repertoire Horowitz had never previously recorded. He died in 1989 at the age of 86. In terms of well-tempered bimanual coordination, Horowitz was certainly more an exception than the rule. In fact, for most of us playing the piano forms a major hurdle, irrespective of age, as moving our hands and fingers accurately and independently is not easy. Most probably this difficulty stems from a cross-talk of activity from one side of the body to the other. It is the mere symmetry of the central nervous system that renders the inter-hemispheric cross-talk prominent, probably more so when movement-related neural activity becomes synchronized.