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Natural ability??

#41
To Gio,

Go back and re-read the post.

I'll re-state what I said earlier. The research shows that putting in the hard work doesn't guarantee mastery. That's not what we're talking about.

My point, for the 100th time(hee hee), is that you won't be good unless you practice. Being 7" tall and having razor sharp fast twitch muscles won't guarantee that you'll be an NBA star.

What the research shows is that anyone who we consider a master has put in 10,000 hours. But the 10,000 hours don't guarantee mastery. I said that in an earlier post.

And I'm sure I'll have to say it again in a later post.

peace,
anthony
 
#42
Forget the word pre-disposition your missing the forest for the trees;

Hopefully you understood what I meant.

No ppl aren't born to play bass or b-ball but they are born with traits or a genetic make up that make them all different..

That's my point.

This explains the uniqueness.. This is why ppl train the same way and get different results; the ppl are different they are not all the same...

I hate science for my own reasons but it's Heavily documented and researched...

I agree with everything you've said about mastery anth;

I'm just talking about nature aspect...

And Gio yeah man I totally understand what your saying... Makes sense to me; actually nobody has said anything that doesn't make sense lol

I must say though guys his has been highly interesting and entertaining!!! :)

But this whole thread is like I'm saying a bannana is yellow and your saying an apple is red lol
 
#43
I'll weigh in with what might be a middle position. I don't think that some people are "born" with a natural talent for physics or math or basketball or music or whatever. Those are skills that come from practice and study. However, I do think that a lot of the "practice" that sets people up for later success in these areas happens preconsciously, especially in early childhood. Children's brain development is related to the kinds of stimulus they get and to some extent they get "hardwired" for certain kinds of things as they develop. By the time they consciously try to acquire specific skills, it seems as though the activity comes naturally to them, but it's really been a long time gestating in invisible ways.

I'm not sure that you can always predict exactly how a particular kind of childhood stimulus or activity will play out in later dispositions, I suspect that a lot of it would be counterintuitive and unpredictable. But some is pretty straightforward. For instance, it's no secret that kids who grow up with lots of books in the house grow up to read more and better than those that don't. It isn't the parents' genes dictating that the kids will be good readers. It's not necessarily that they're reading all their parents' books either, but that their parents are modeling reading as a positive activity and probably reading to the kids more.

Someone brought up Mozart as an example of born talent earlier, on the argument that he couldn't have spent 10,000 hours on music before he was 5. That's true. However, not that I've listened to them all, but I suspect that his compositions when he was 5 were not as sophisticated as those he did when he was 25. I think that he was exposed to music (indeed, driven to music) from earliest childhood so he could do things at 5 that others couldn't do until 20, things at 20 that most people only achieve in their full maturity as musicians, and things at 30 that most of us never achieve.
 
#46
cire113 said:
Do you believe some people have natural abilitiy to play music?
Click to expand...

People can be born with a natural compatibility towards certain subjects or functions, more than other people.

Ant Wellington said:
No,...I don't believe people are born with any kind of natural ability. I think people are exposed to things in a deliberate way. I've been reading so many books on talent and deliberate practice that I'm convinced that hard work is the only way to achieve greatness.

But I do think we all have different levels of deduction and reasoning and memory. All of those things affect 'intelligence'.
Click to expand...


Different levels of deduction and reasoning and memory is just another way of saying "natural ability" or compatibility or affinity...correct? Sounds like it to me.

The question was never asked as, can people pop out of the womb playing like Jaco, Vic, Anthony or any other of the MANY great players.

Good discussion though
 
#49
hrodbert696 said:
I'm not sure that you can always predict exactly how a particular kind of childhood stimulus or activity will play out in later dispositions, I suspect that a lot of it would be counterintuitive and unpredictable. But some is pretty straightforward. For instance, it's no secret that kids who grow up with lots of books in the house grow up to read more and better than those that don't. It isn't the parents' genes dictating that the kids will be good readers. It's not necessarily that they're reading all their parents' books either, but that their parents are modeling reading as a positive activity and probably reading to the kids more.
Click to expand...

I think the unpredictable part of this quote is pretty fascinating and I think about it a lot. Human intelligence is in our generalizing. So you never know what experience can give an individual subtle insight into a superficially dissimilar practice.

But even though I believe there genetic setups (phenotypes) and nurturing (however subtle it could be) that allow easier assimilation of the physical and mental aspects of music as we know it, I think most people are born with the capacity to be so good at music that any external disadvantages (including their genes) just don't matter--so far as they are emotional creatures living in a normal human society doing music that's a product of their culture.

This is why I think it's a little funny to compare sports and music. There may definitely one day be a basketball player with greater lifetime stats than Michael Jordan (there already could be, I haven't followed basketball for a while), but will that guy's playing be as aesthetically beautiful as Jordan's? Will the highlight reels be as awesome? Will this person inspire me the way Jordan did? Maybe some of that could be measured in dollar value of endorsement deals...
 
#50
This is an interesting discussion and I tend to lean toward the hard work side of things.

I have played the piano for over 30 years and people assumed I was some kind of prodigy.
That could not be further from the truth. I struggled with the piano, I didn't like the piano, I was forced to practice, my teacher smacked my knuckles with a ruler when I messed up, I wanted to quit and was not allowed to.

It was hard work, heavy lifting, nothing easy about it.
It was hours and hours of Hanons, etitudes, Brahms, Bach, Schubert, Haydn, Mozart, etc...
That's the last thing a kid in the 70's wanted to play when EWF and The Isley's were blaring on every radio.

I am a very logical person, but I fully accept that mysterious things happen around me everyday. Things that I can't explain.

I have an Uncle who I will call a "savant". The only way he relates to world is through music. He's never had a piano lesson but can play any song perfectly after hearing it only one time and he never forgets it.

The local paper took him to the Symphony when he was kid. A symphony he had never heard. Afterward he went into one of the practice rooms with the conductor and the some other musicians and played the entire symphony note for note with every inflection perfectly. This was all documented in the local paper.

When he plays, something spiritual happens to most listeners, myself included. What I experience when he plays, I have never experienced anywhere else. It's not about chops, because he doesn't know what chops are. It's something else. This man has no ego. I'll say he is tapped into a "musical/spiritual stream of consciousness" 24 hours a day, that some of us may never experience. I'll also say I don't think has a choice in the matter. Literally he can't turn the music off.

I'll never be able to play like him because I always bring "me" to the table. My uncle brings nothing to the table, because he has nothing to bring (that's not a put down).

My greatest musical joy in life has been listening to him play.
I find it really strange when we get together he wants to hear me play. I'll never understand that.

Would I trade places with him? No. He has no balance in his life. He can only hold the most basic conversation. Would he trade places with me? Probably not. He only sees the world through his lens, I only see the the world though mine.

I have learned to always leave the door open to things I can't explain and not to be so dogmatic about the things I can explain...
 
#51
That's amazing about your uncle! I'm mystified by the whole 'savant' thing.

I was once told that savants have incredible memory. I was told that when a savant plays back a piece a music from memory it would be equivalent to repeating a phrase you heard. Even if it's a language you don't understand you can still repeat the sounds you heard.

You said that you uncle always wants to hear you play. Maybe you're giving him stuff to 'repeat' and draw upon.

I'd like to meet someone with that kind of 'skill'. It's so fascinating to me.

I seen a tv show once where some people took a savant up in a helicopter ride to view the skyline of a city. After they landed he drew an aerial view of the city from memory. Incredible! But they said he couldn't draw a skyline without seeing one first. They said he also had trouble drawing sone other stuff but I can't remember what it was.

Like I said, It's all fascinating to me.

-aw
 
#54
I believe that there is a "natural" ability. But what is making this natural is the DNA passed from parents to children. I do not believe there is a musical gene (so to say) but I do regularly see that musical parents can produce some type of artistic child. Perhaps there is no single musical gene but rather multiple genes that contribute to a persons ability to play, and perceive music. Perhaps they have a really good sense of hearing, or maybe they can understand patterns in a certain way that allow them to make appropriate phrases. These things will contribute to an increase in musical ability, and desire to play music.

As for child prodigies, there is always the important aspect of environment. A parent can play music everyday for a child when in the womb. Play them classical and perhaps they will be slightly more intelligent (I think this is part of the Mozart Theory) and play them punk, and they might be hyper active. (I heard this somewhere, but it can merely be correlational)

Its just another case of Nature Vs. Nurture.

Regardless, I do believe there are predetermined attributes that allow a person to be a better musician then others before and after birth.
 
#55
I wish I had been born with a natural music ability. I'd much further along on my journey. For me, there was(is) a lot of hard work aided by the right people, right environment, right music, right time in history, etc,...

I'd like to hear how many of you feel that you have natural ability. I'd especially like to hear that your playing 'good' involves more playing than hard work.

thanks,
anthony
 
#56
It is a slippery road to walk down to want. I think to have a natural ability to play would be incredible. I would not have to sit with a metronome and clap just to get rhythm down. But there seems to be something more gratifying about knowing you had to work really hard at playing to get where you are. Plus, there is always room for improvement and you can always learn something new. Its like being given a million dollars, as opposed to earning a million dollars. Im sure we all just want it... but when you earn it.. it is worth way more then a million.
 
#57
Ant Wellington said:
That's amazing about your uncle! I'm mystified by the whole 'savant' thing.

I was once told that savants have incredible memory. I was told that when a savant plays back a piece a music from memory it would be equivalent to repeating a phrase you heard. Even if it's a language you don't understand you can still repeat the sounds you heard.

You said that you uncle always wants to hear you play. Maybe you're giving him stuff to 'repeat' and draw upon.

I'd like to meet someone with that kind of 'skill'. It's so fascinating to me.

I seen a tv show once where some people took a savant up in a helicopter ride to view the skyline of a city. After they landed he drew an aerial view of the city from memory. Incredible! But they said he couldn't draw a skyline without seeing one first. They said he also had trouble drawing sone other stuff but I can't remember what it was.

Like I said, It's all fascinating to me.

-aw
Click to expand...

Another good book out is called "Moonwalking with Einstein" - about how our memory works. It has some interesting stories about people born with savant syndrome. The author Joshua Foer actually trains himself for the US Memory Championship while writing the book.
 
#58
Funny, both Victor and I are reading that book now. The author was interviewed on NPR a couple of weeks ago. Victor and I listened to the interview when he picked me up from the airport. We both immediately downloaded the book onto our iPads. We're both geeks at heart. We're both just good at disguising it with 'cool'.

Victor has actually taken some of those memory classes before.

Great book!

peace,
anthony
 
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