"Talent" and "being born with it"

[Bassamatic]

This is ridiculous - OF COURSE people have different levels of various talents. If not, we would have a lot more pro basketball players and Eric Claptons. Do you really think that Vanessa Spaulding taught herself to play Violin and played with the state orchestra at 6 because she worked harder at it that any one else?

In my previous life, I was a psychologist specializing in the studies of learning and human aptitudes. Humans have a set of aptitudes that they are BORN with that are largely genetic. The aptitudes cannot be changed. You can work hard to improve what you do have, but without the proper finger dexterity and spatial skills you will never be a great painter. Without rhythm and rhythm memory aptitudes you will never be a great drummer.

Don't you watch the auditions of American Idol? You think that those people have not worked their a**es of get there and yet most still suck?

If anyone is interested in how to learn about their innate aptitudes and how they affect their lives, please go to www.jocrf.org. This institute has been researching human aptitudes for 100 years, and can steer you in the right direction for your life with a couple of days of testing. I have sent dozens of people to them over the years, and every single person has thanked me, usually for helping them get out of a dead end and into something they REALLY enjoy and are really good at.

If you really want to get ahead and enjoy your life - check it out!

 

[JimmyM]

You will like this book: Talent Is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. He makes the case for many other reasons why people are successful besides being "born with it"

Not sure what the point is. People who aren't the most talented people out there sometimes make something of themselves anyway? That's a far cry from saying that talent doesn't exist.

 

[El_Charro]

I have a friend / acquaintance / pseudo-coach I always think about in these conversations. Cyclist who holds (or held) several US records, was an alternate and on a Pro-Tour team (but didn't get to ride in France), and an olympian. He leads a perfect life. Rides to work. Does all his required stretching / intervals. Outworks everyone (smartly) and does all the perfect recovery. Has killer equipment and spends top dollar for quality. NEVER eats a thoughtless calorie or drinks a thoughtless mL of alcohol.

It is as if he hit 5 of the 6 genetic lotto numbers, but missed the powerball.

I'll never BQ myself. I don't train like guy above, but I do the work, and am exactly at my ideal Matt Fitzgerald racing weight. My PR is still 20 min away, and it may as well be an hour.

————————————
Keeping after and practicing in moderation is what matters IMO…

Good for you if you have your weight under control and are healthy overall…I am definitely trying to moderate/find a balance after over-exercising for so long…Playing the bass is helping me find some balance in that area bc I try to practice for an hour a day which sorta forces me to stop exercising after and hour or 90 mins…

As for your friend-That is an insane level of effort (good for him)…I wasn’t quite that obsessed with running but close (I capped myself at 2 hours of training a day except for long run day even when I was trying to do higher mileage)…

Completely screwed up my metabolism and my lower body, but no regrets overall especially after losing a ton of weight doing it…I finished 67 fulls (3:28 PR when the BQ time for men in my age group was 3:10)…

Now that I’m 41 and spent the better part of the last two decades of beating my body into the ground I just had to cut back bc I overstrained myself so bad that I couldn’t do high intensity stuff any more (if you’ve ever read what happened to Ryan Hall I had a similar running experience with MUCH slower times)…Thought I was practically invincible in my early 20s, but eventually it caught up to me…

Still try to control my weight and still jog or ride the bike an hour a day at low intensity and lift, but almost zero desire to race anymore (not sure what it would accomplish for me at this point)…Also-I’m 6’3” and about 220 which is a LOT of weight to be carrying around the last six miles of a marathon…

My PR was in 2003 and while I was still able to finish the Full all the way up to 2018, the last group of races I ran just wasn’t fun anymore (The last 10k of a marathon always hurt like H3LL anyway, but something about the last group of races I did felt very different than the races I ran in my early 20s)…

Don’t get me wrong-I have a TON of respect for people like your friend you’re describing above-Just pointing out that sometimes there are factors beyond your control…

You can always train smart of course, but you don’t have control over some things like your height or your muscle fiber composition was my point…It’s like the old joke of “If you want to succeed in distance running chose your parents wisely “…

That is kind of tragic that your friend is that dedicated but is missing the genetic component…Hats off to him though for being that dedicated…As a bonus to his physical health-He probably is mentally tougher than 99.9% of the entire population…

Thanks for reading…

Thanks! \m/

 

[whero]

My father left school at 15, joined the Royal Marines as a bandsman, and they taught him to read the dots and play woodwind instruments, and he worked very hard at it. He was a professional musician his entire life, and backed some pretty big names when they toured New Zealand including Tony Bennett and Shirley Bassey. But he was tone deaf. Listening to him whistle along to a song on the radio was painful. He'd be in a totally different key, and even for the key he was in there'd be some pretty wild notes.

I have a good ear. With a bass in my hand, I can get a decent idea of how a song goes on the first pass through, and I'd be confident to play a basic version with a cover band after the second pass. I don't think I was necessarily "born with it" - I think it developed because, between my parents and my big brother, there was always music playing in the house. But I'm a bit lazy and I don't practise reading, so it takes me about 10-15 minutes to work through a page of sheet music, and if I haven't heard the song I still wouldn't be confident playing it with other people until I'd been through it two or three times.

So I've got some degree of "natural ability" but my father had way more talent. Through sheer hard work.

 

[cnltb]

Will you ever be a Mozart or Geddy?

You are putting Geddy Lee on a level with Mozart?

 

[cnltb]

And you are dead wrong.

Ok.

 

[JimmyM]

He left school at 15, joined the Royal Marines as a bandsman, and they taught him to read the dots and play woodwind instruments, and he worked very hard at it. He was a professional musician his entire life, and backed some pretty big names when they toured New Zealand including Tony Bennett and Shirley Bassey. But he was tone deaf. Listening to him whistle along to a song on the radio was painful. He'd be in a totally different key, and even for the key he was in there'd be some pretty wild notes.

I have a good ear. With a bass in my hand, I can get a decent idea of how a song goes on the first pass through, and I'd be confident to play a basic version with a cover band after the second pass. I don't think I was necessarily "born with it" - I think it developed because, between my parents and my big brother, there was always music playing in the house. But I'm a bit lazy and I don't practise reading, so it takes me about 10-15 minutes to work through a page of sheet music, and if I haven't heard the song I still wouldn't be confident playing it with other people until I'd been through it two or three times.

So I've got some degree of "natural ability" but my father had way more talent. Through sheer hard work.

At least you can read. Salut for going the distance with it. Even if you don't practice it enough to sightread fly specks, the knowledge that it gives musicians is invaluable. And being a good sightreader does get you the better paying jobs for working musicians, and you do get to play some great jobs at times. You don't get to take home the giant paychecks, but at least you get some good catering and the hangs are usually fun, though a lot of work.

But the important thing is what you got out of reading. If you're not interested in pursuing it any further, that's cool, but at least you did it.

 

[retslock]

My father left school at 15, joined the Royal Marines as a bandsman, and they taught him to read the dots and play woodwind instruments, and he worked very hard at it. He was a professional musician his entire life, and backed some pretty big names when they toured New Zealand including Tony Bennett and Shirley Bassey. But he was tone deaf. Listening to him whistle along to a song on the radio was painful. He'd be in a totally different key, and even for the key he was in there'd be some pretty wild notes.

I have a good ear. With a bass in my hand, I can get a decent idea of how a song goes on the first pass through, and I'd be confident to play a basic version with a cover band after the second pass. I don't think I was necessarily "born with it" - I think it developed because, between my parents and my big brother, there was always music playing in the house. But I'm a bit lazy and I don't practise reading, so it takes me about 10-15 minutes to work through a page of sheet music, and if I haven't heard the song I still wouldn't be confident playing it with other people until I'd been through it two or three times.

So I've got some degree of "natural ability" but my father had way more talent. Through sheer hard work.

I think you’re misinterpreting the word talent. What you called “a good ear” is actually the talent you were born with. Your father had ability that he worked hard to get but he didn’t have the talent you were born with. Talent is not what you learned how to do. Talent is the aptitude for it that you had BEFORE you did the work.
From the Cambridge English Dictionary:
(someone who has) a natural ability to be good at something, especially without being taught:

 

[Justinian]

Almost 16 years ago, 11-2005, I started my first real full-time job as a bagel dough-maker.

I worked 67 hours the first week, got it down to 60 hours the next week, 50 hours the 3rd week and finally 40 hours the 4th week.

I was 20 years old, I started at the busiest time of the year. I could’ve easily given up, it was very frustrating at times, the volume was anywhere from 25K up to 30K bagels a week and to get a Saturday off I’d have to make 6K bagels Friday.

I often ask myself, “Could I do that again? Could I make 2K plain bagels in a couple hours like I used to?” I would need to train!

I think we’re forgetting that you often need a great mentor, my first boss pushed me to be great, and it showed!

 

[PaulKaplan]

Check out "McCartney 3,2,1" for an example of natural talent.

 

[Bassclef46]

there is no such thing as being born with it. Talent comes from one place.
its called hard work. John Myung practiced 6 hours a day everyday. Cliff Burton practiced 6 hours a day everyday. Billy Sheehan takes his bass everywhere, thats how much he practices.

Hard Work....its a lost art.

 

[ACRock]

I'm not saying that all brains are identical blank slates and that there are NO genetic differences apart from neuroplastic development; but I don't think there's a "music gene" either.

Interesting stuff. Any readings you would recommend on this? When you listen to young artists like Joey Alexander, there is no denying that some people have a 'gift.' Its tempting to go metaphysical (film Soul) in contemplating where this gift comes.

 

[ACRock]

there is no such thing as being born with it. Talent comes from one place.
its called hard work. John Myung practiced 6 hours a day everyday. Cliff Burton practiced 6 hours a day everyday. Billy Sheehan takes his bass everywhere, thats how much he practices.

Hard Work....its a lost art.

I bet some people here practice 6 hours a day, and we will never be able to play like John Myung.

 

[Bassclef46]

I bet some people here practice 6 hours a day, and we will never be able to play like John Myung.

so what? who says you have to play like him? play like ACRock. thats what matters. Besides John Myung might be a great bass player, but the music they make would suggest they are mediocre.

 

[ACRock]

so what? who says you have to play like him? play like ACRock. thats what matters. Besides John Myung might be a great bass player, but the music they make would suggest they are mediocre.

Ouch! I get your point, but playing like ACRock aint gonna get me many gigs, and all the hard work in the world is not gonna make me as good as John Myung. You can be still motivated to work hard at stuff but at the same time recognize that some people are more gifted than others

 

[Paul New]

Some people are born with incredible aptitude for music, some are born with none, and the huge majority of us are somewhere between.

Ginger Baker claimed that he never had to practice, but that guy was not exactly tied to the truth.

 

[hrodbert696]

Interesting stuff. Any readings you would recommend on this? When you listen to young artists like Joey Alexander, there is no denying that some people have a 'gift.' Its tempting to go metaphysical (film Soul) in contemplating where this gift comes.

Of what I've read, this was the better overview: This Is Your Brain on Music by Daniel J. Levitin: 9780452288522 | PenguinRandomHouse.com: Books

This one is also fascinating, but it's more of an oddball collection of music-related brain conditions: Musicophilia | Oliver Sacks, M.D. | Author, Neurologist | On The Move, Hallucinations, Musicophilia, Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

 

[FilterFunk]

Listen to a very young Michael Jackson sing "Who's Lovin' You" and tell me only hard work will make a kid singer that good.

 

[consectaneus]

"Born with it" encompasses a pretty broad spectrum of people more or less predisposed or blessed with innate abilities. There is also "working harder at it" if something doesn't come as naturally to one as to another. I do believe that with dedication, most anyone can learn to play a musical instrument competently which is really all most situations require, like playing in bands and church and personal enjoyment and such.

 

[Hounddog409]

You are putting Geddy Lee on a level with Mozart?

Comprehension my friend.