I've worked hard to learn the scales, arpeggios, phrasing, and techniques necessary for playing an assortment of musical instruments over the years. But beyond all the technical aspects, I need to do something else to make a piece of music sound like music. When that elusive "something else" is done right, there is no sense of hard work and it just becomes effortless music.
I can (should be able to) explain the structure of a piece of music and why this note is more important than that note and why you should linger here ever so slightly longer than there and how the transition back to the tonic needs to be emphasised in order to make the piece sound like it's a piece of music and not just a series of notes. But such a detailed theoretical explanation isn't going to explain the "something else" needed to make it musical.
A musician can have it coaxed out of them over time by a good teacher; but I believe that the best teacher in the world can't explain the "something else" to some players of musical instruments, no matter how perfect their technical ability and conception of music theory.
In science, I've worked hard to learn about mathematics, laboratory techniques, computer skills, and all those other technical things that people need for doing science. Throughout high school, university, master's degree, and PhD, it's always felt like hard, hard work. Nothing has ever felt like smooth, effortless science.
Other people work hard, too, but in every course and every degree I've done I have met hard workers who eventually seemed to come to an understanding of how all the technical bits can came together into something fluid and seamless. They seem to get that "something else" and make the transition from a struggling science student larva into a full-fledged scientist butterfly.
I can appreciate brilliant science as much as any concert-goer can appreciate brilliant music. And I'm trying to be a scientist right now. But I'm not sure if I really am one.
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