Remember too, that back then your parents choose a trade for you when you were born, and if you were of working class you most likely did not attend school and started apprenticing on your choosen path at a very young age.

If your parents decided that you were going to be a musician, and they were not musicians themselves, most likely you were sent off to live with a teacher. I know Mozarts father was a musician, and Bach trained his 8 sons (?...not positive about my facts of Bachs siblings) to be musicians. One of Bachs sons (Christopher?) actually gained a lot of noteriety during his lifetime and was actually more successfull then his father ( Bachs true success did not come until around 100yrs after his death).

I can imagine the pressure put on these young prodigys by their parents to be successfull was tremendous.

Also, since there was no devices to record music the only way to hear music was to perform it.