buldog5151bass
Kibble, milkbones, and P Basses. And redheads.
The most "talented" people I know work the hardest at their craft.
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"Talent" and "being born with it"
- Thread starter Katoosie
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Yup, like others said, there's a difference between talent and natural ability. Take for instance; I drive stock cars on the weekends. I don't care how much you practice and study, someone born with better hand-eye coordination and faster reflexes is gonna out perform you. You can build a better car, you can build a better engine, you can hire better setup guys but that dude with the raw talent will beat you most of the time. Some people just have terrible hand-eye coordination, no matter how much you practice. That example translates to everything else too.
Totally get what you’re saying but unfortunately some people are just born with it. Many people practice hours and hours and still will never be able to write or improvise like Jaco. I worked with a singer who was absolutely incredible, perfect pitch, but had never taken a lesson and didn’t know anything about theory. The guitarist in that project was the same way, he “practiced” but would hear a song once and know it note for note. Wicked annoying lol.
It is true that anyone can learn anything but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be anything special.
Genetic predisposition to being good at a thing, is a thing.
Needing to hone said talent with practice is also a thing.
The best of the best have both. They are predisposed to being good, and then work their asses off.
Needing to hone said talent with practice is also a thing.
The best of the best have both. They are predisposed to being good, and then work their asses off.
My brother is a self-taught drummer and we all know what dexterity that entails to play Rush level drum parts. Now he's retired and he's teaching himself keyboards and he's killing it. I tried to play drums I've tried to play keyboards I don't have the Natural Born gift to separate my brain to do that like he can.
Every person I ever met who appears naturally gifted, when I've asked them, practices a LOT. There is, I'm sure, some variation in the gifts you start with, but in my case, may years into this, I realize it's taken a lot of practice over years for me to appear to be naturally gifted.
A bit of natural talent, a keen interest/passion, and persistence - that's what gets you there.
A bit of natural talent, a keen interest/passion, and persistence - that's what gets you there.
I think a large part of it is you are born with it. I have seen too many cases to not think otherwise. Technical proficiency is only a small part of the game. As amazed as I am for guitarist, bassist, drummer to play note for note at 10 years old, could they have done it in the original situations (rehearsals)? Could an 8 year old played the bass part to 'Come Together' in the studio from scratch? Granted, there are some potential Mozarts out there but I don't think that anyone but McCartney could have done it or how John Entwistle could have come up with the bass part to 'My Generation' hearing it at the first time in a rehearsal with the rest of The Who.
I studied art, other than rock and roll, that was my passion. It's one thing to REPRODUCE but another to CREATE.
That's the part that is so beautiful, isn't it?
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Yes, there are definitely people naturally inclined to learn "some things" faster and easier than others. That goes with music, sports, and anything else. That does not mean a person with great work ethic can't surpass another individual with more natural talent in a given area, that is common place.
I have seen it for 2 decades as a public school teacher and coach. However, the hard worker will almost always do well with their endeavors while the naturally gifted person all-too-often squanders his or her potential due to a lack of work ethic. My 2 cents.
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yes ... but think of how amazing a talent that does work hard can be !hard work beats talent that doesn't work hard...
I have seen this play out several different ways over 50+ years of playing.
people with talent who are otherwise kind of lazy and don't really develop their natural skills.
people with modest/little natural talent but who work like mad to be as good as they can possibly be
people with talent who really love music and get tons of positive reinforcement along the way that causes them to work very hard to nourish that talent to its highest level ... these are the folks that just shine IME/IMO. I've known a few over the years.
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I always thought it was weird that “talent” is an anagram for “latent.”
Two thoughts.
Without an intense interest in a given subject I imagine it would difficult to excel at it no matter how much work was put in.
There are also physical disparities between individual people. For instance, at his peak Roger Federer had a reaction time faster than a billion other people’s.
Olympic sprinters and Tour de France competitors process oxygen at 2 to 3 times faster than the average person.
Without an intense interest in a given subject I imagine it would difficult to excel at it no matter how much work was put in.
There are also physical disparities between individual people. For instance, at his peak Roger Federer had a reaction time faster than a billion other people’s.
Olympic sprinters and Tour de France competitors process oxygen at 2 to 3 times faster than the average person.
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This paper — (PDF) Mental virtuosity: A new theory of performers’ attentional processes and strategies — reads well
The subject is subject to good science, thank goodness … Performance excellence is closely linked to the ability to cognitively control the process of recollection and anticipation at any time scale, regardless of the actual awareness of the act of control. The above-described “navigating” mental imagery, which includes directing the attention forward (anticipating), backward (retrospecting), and to the present moment at well-definable points of the musical process, not only significantly contributes to the perceived expressivity, intelligibility and individuality of a performance, but also helps the musician to feel security and ease during performance. Furthermore, performers’ navigating imagery significantly contributes to technical security through an enhanced cognitive control of fine motor movements.
Attributes such as quickness, mastery, ease and sophistication, together with the quality of “being transported to another world” (cf. shifts of consciousness) are typically related to virtuosity, as has been revealed by Jane Ginsborg’s recent questionnaire study (Ginsborg, 2018, this issue). In fact, it is especially the mastery, sophistication and ease of mental navigation with its very frequent and quick shifts of attention and consciousness that is hypothesized to define the quality of a performance. And similarly to virtuosity as understood by Ginsborg’s respondents, performance-related navigating mental imagery appears to be a skill that can be mastered through practice (note that respondents tended to adopt the view that virtuosity in music performance results from “hard work” rather than a natural gift). …
Cutting to the chase now, just for fun, the conclusion reads,Attributes such as quickness, mastery, ease and sophistication, together with the quality of “being transported to another world” (cf. shifts of consciousness) are typically related to virtuosity, as has been revealed by Jane Ginsborg’s recent questionnaire study (Ginsborg, 2018, this issue). In fact, it is especially the mastery, sophistication and ease of mental navigation with its very frequent and quick shifts of attention and consciousness that is hypothesized to define the quality of a performance. And similarly to virtuosity as understood by Ginsborg’s respondents, performance-related navigating mental imagery appears to be a skill that can be mastered through practice (note that respondents tended to adopt the view that virtuosity in music performance results from “hard work” rather than a natural gift). …
… The concept of “mental virtuosity”
This is the first theoretical study on music performance to argue for a concept of mental acuteness, indeed “mental virtuosity”, in music performance claiming that rapidity, vividness, passion and intensity associated with a virtuoso performance is hypothesized to be based on a well-definable “mental dexterity” at work in real time in the act of performance. The mental–attentional processing specified and illustrated in the present paper involves the ability to quickly position into different temporal and empathic perspectives (e.g., similarly to projecting oneself into another person’s position – cf. the Vengerov masterclass excerpts [Video examples 3 & 4 in the Supplemental Material section]), thus producing MFIs, [moments of focused immersion] in order to mentally represent the subjective meaning of music in real time. MFIs inducing subtle and brief shifts of consciousness associated with present-focus typically allow for a momentary but focused enjoyment of both character and tonally salient points, usually associated with either tonal stability or departure from the tonal context. While momentary future-focused MFIs mark the starting points of units of the temporal structure, past-focused attentional absorption (MFI) allows for an active momentary recollection of the length and the tonal trajectory of the previous musical unit – usually within a fraction of a second during performance. Smart and quick attentional shifts producing MFIs mark expressive and convincing execution of changes in gesture and directly expressed emotion.
The theory of performers’ attentional processes and strategies presented here suggests that the key qualities of a virtuoso performance in fact pertain to the cognitive domain – the domain of imagery and attention – rather than the mechanical. They rely on a specific and well-definable mental technique that produces both heightened expressivity and technical brilliance, defining elements of “true” virtuosity. Indeed, to become a “true virtuoso”, a musician needs to virtuosically manipulate their own attention in such a way as to be able to predict, reflect, and enjoy, so that the audience can also enjoy their performance.
Author: Invalid Link Removed — Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest / Faculty of Music, University of Szeged
Makes sense to me.
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I showed up to pick my son up from a "kindergarten" type of situation "Mother's Day Out" they call it, for kids too young to start school. I ran across the new music teacher who was leading the class back to their homeroom and identified who I was there for. The first thing out of her mouth was, "Ok, who's the musician in the family"?
It's possible to discern the natural affinity for rhythm and tonality long before there's been the chance to hone the skills.
It's possible to discern the natural affinity for rhythm and tonality long before there's been the chance to hone the skills.
It's a nice thought that everyone has the same chance to be great at anything if they would just put the work in, but it just doesn't pan out.
Jaco had innate talent for playing music that he was able to capitalize on with lots of work. On the other hand, he was not good dealing with people at least in part because of some mental health issues. Unfortunately, he was not able to work his way past that.
Jaco had innate talent for playing music that he was able to capitalize on with lots of work. On the other hand, he was not good dealing with people at least in part because of some mental health issues. Unfortunately, he was not able to work his way past that.
I know people who can hear a song once and play it back to you like they’ve been playing it all their lives, but they’ve never had any formal music training so they don’t read or understand theory. I know people who are just as quick but have been educated and can read and apply theory. I know very solid players who could not play at all before they started learning to play. My older sister can take sheet music she’s never seen in her life and play it as written, but call a 12 bar in A and she gets a deer in the headlights look.
Point is there are myriad paths to musical prowess. It’s a learned skill for most practitioners, but I’ve seen enough people who exit the birth canal with a certain amount of skill in all kinds of areas (including music), to not believe in native talent. When i was in junior high school, one of my classmates could draw amazingly well with zero formal training. He later became a conceptual artist for Ford Motor Company, and never received any formal training other that art classes in high school
Legend says Jerry Lee Lewis played a hymn he’d often heard in church the first time he ever sat down to a piano as a child.
I think most of "talent" is hard work you don't see.
A bit luck /genetics/ environment influences things
occasionally there are total mutants
but it's mostly practice
A bit luck /genetics/ environment influences things
occasionally there are total mutants
but it's mostly practice
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I’m a professional illustrator, and a pretty ok amateur bassist. I think about talent every day. It drives me crazy. There is a lot of research that has been done and is being done on it.
The problem with the “talent works hard” idea is that it is based on the assumption that two people will get the same ROI from their practice time. This is very demonstrably not true. To further complicate things, there is Growth Mindsets vs Fixed Mindsets (too lazy to explain) which further determine practice time ROI.
The most important thing is that talented people have an easier time working hard, because they get better results, which creates a feedback loop. It’s probably better for our mental health to think anyone can become proficient at something with enough hard work, and there are huge financial incentives from instrument manufacturers and teachers to promote this, but it just ain’t true.
The problem with the “talent works hard” idea is that it is based on the assumption that two people will get the same ROI from their practice time. This is very demonstrably not true. To further complicate things, there is Growth Mindsets vs Fixed Mindsets (too lazy to explain) which further determine practice time ROI.
The most important thing is that talented people have an easier time working hard, because they get better results, which creates a feedback loop. It’s probably better for our mental health to think anyone can become proficient at something with enough hard work, and there are huge financial incentives from instrument manufacturers and teachers to promote this, but it just ain’t true.
I've seen natural talent play out among drummers more than anything else.
Some guys "have it"....and some never will.
The "non natural talents" can work hard and become proficient.
But the naturals have it from the get go.
Ask a baseball scout if natural talent is real or not...
Some guys "have it"....and some never will.
The "non natural talents" can work hard and become proficient.
But the naturals have it from the get go.
Ask a baseball scout if natural talent is real or not...
