Most of the greatest that humanity have to offer in any knowledge and skills domains are not known to be savants at a young age. Rather, they are usually late bloomers, who took a while to find their paths.
There is a difference between experts who can recreate the old with efficiency and limited errors, vs. those who can show others a new and sometimes better way.
During their younger years, most luminaries experimented, tested and finally find the areas where they create anew through mastery of the old. They may have no intention of one day becoming a master of their experiments. In fact they fail often. These may not be people with the best scores in school, but consistency builds skills and failures provide their own learning lessons (knowledge).
Eventually, these group of humans will leave a mark in the history of mankind. Psychologists called the experimental younger years of human growth “the sampling stage“.
The principle behind how such luminaries found their path is based on one unique human quality, the human ability to bind the different threads of the human experience, into unique combinations of skills and knowledge.
Through weaving existing skills and knowledge acquired from a wide variety of areas/domains, as well as combining their own creativity…
Each luminaries of humanities’ past managed to shape their own solutions to solve the barriers/ environment/ limitations/ mysteries they encountered in life, to create their legacies, which at times create breakthroughs that lasted for generations.
In music particularly, some of the greatest of their domains can’t even read music notes. Instead, a number of them are self taught, able to play multiple instruments, acquiring cross-domain musical techniques instead of staying in their zones and mastering their craft through reverse engineering what they heard.
Django Reinhardt was a Romani-French jazz guitarist and composer. He was one of the first major jazz talents to emerge in Europe.
Ref: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Django_Reinhardt
Growing up in a post World War I era, his mother was too busy supporting the family by making bracelets out of spent artillery shells, and have little time to make sure that he studied.
He grew up experimenting with various musical instruments. He will later team up with a banjo-playing hunchback named Lagardère, wandering the streets of Paris, busking and improvising duets.
At his peak, he was known for lightning fast improvision of traditional music, bending and twisting old songs into new creations.
Surviving a fire with his fourth and fifth finger of his left hand damaged, he figured out new ways to play his instruments.
He died at age forty-three, but the music he made a century ago continues to show up in pop culture, continuing his legacy.
Ref: Range. How Generalists Truimph in a Specialized World. By David Epstein. https://www.amazon.sg/Range-Generalists-Triumph-Specialized-World/dp/0735214484