What does constitute talent?

What makes someone talented? Is it really "you either have it" or "you don't"? Can one become talented through sheer will and hard work? I'm not talking about being successful which is something different altogether.

Taike

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Bo pen nyang.

i believe someone can become better skilled at anything they practise but talent i think is the initial ability that someone has to do something at a higher level than most people. Whether thats singing , having an ear for music, athletic ability , artistic creativity etc. The initial ability is talent the rest of the developemnt of that ability is the progressive skill that happens when people practise their initial ability or talent.

I think Spalding has it about right. Personally, yes, I believe you either 'have it' or you don't. There are many examples right here on this board of people who claim to have been playing since they were small children but still sound like someone who with no 'natural' talent that started taking piano lessons at age 60. Luckily for us and their audiences, these (people) are primary users of MP3's and SMF's. The tragedy, of course, is that, in most cases, they don't even have the musical sensibilities to realize how (bad) they actually sound. It's like a person who is too dumb to realize that they're dumb. Responsible parents should have burned those accordions while they were still young.

I don't know why some people sing and play with the same emotion as a wooden block; I don't know why their rhythm is either off OR sounds like a metronome, with no syncopation or 'naturalness' to be found anywhere. I don't know if part of it is cultural; I don't THINK so. Is there a genetic predisposition for musical talent among some groups? Can you duplicate the fiery rhythms of say, Tito Puente, if you're not Hispanic? Who knows? Is it just an individual thing?

Obviously, any skill can be learned and enhanced through hard work and many hours of practice, but can anyone become a 'great' musician without that innate talent? Competent, perhaps, but 'great'; I don't think so. Could I be wrong about all of this; perhaps, but I don't think so.



chas

PS: This is a very interesting topic.

good looks

chas ... I take that as an insult ... your personal tastes aside, the accordion has been the musical root of many talented musicians ....
t.

What constitutes talent?
IMHO, it is the ability to have some audience want to see or hear whatever it is you do ...
t.

In my case, "talent" has always been driven by "deep desire" of the kind that makes the long hard work it takes to get to a certain goal *enjoyable*.

I was also deeply influenced by being placed immediately as a child into the situation that there would be some kind of recital in front of people to work towards. Again, something cultivated the deep desire for that applause at an early age.

As far as that phrase, "God-given talent" goes, I remember a time when I was very young and this fantastic music would play in my head and thrill me. Especially in the morning when first waking up, before getting out of bed, but it would occur at other times as well. When I got older, I found out that my mother had played recordings, classical and jazz, while she was pregnant with me, almost daily in the afternoons when she would sit and knit. She told me that she could feel me "dancing" in the womb and that I especially liked some of Mozart's works.

I still love Mozart to this day.

Today, I try to teach my students how to view the art and science of practicing as something FUN. If they can get that, rapid advancement seems to come hand in hand with it.

I tell the student to *always* make whatever they have to play sound as much like *MUSIC PERFORMANCE* as they can. Not like droll repeated excercises, but strive to make every single note you ever play sound, "Musical". To get that across, we work with the dynamics, the counting and the phrasing at the same time as the learning of the mechanical aspects.

Stan Getz once said, "I never played a note I didn't like." That's a deep thought if ever there was one. Some folks may think he was being egotistical, but what I heard was that he was always striving to make the music make sense to the senses. The end result of that was what he said, he "never played a note he didn't LIKE" -- Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong had that gift, where every performance of anything was a unique and powerful presentation in which every note *made sense*. I have found it to be a very intense mental concentration wherein the mind is placed in a state where there is "nothing else but the performance" from beginning to end. No distractions. it is also an exhausting situation, at least for me.

One last observation:

Many times I've been confronted, either after and sometimes during a performance, by that person who says, "You're very talented. -- I took piano lessons but I was never very good." etc. etc.

After years of that, I started telling the truth to these kinds of folks. That what I do did not come easily, although it appeared to come quickly due to the "child prodigy" aspect of seeing and hearing someone who grasped these things at an earlier age than the average, but the truth of the matter is that while others were simply more interested in other things than music, while they were typically engaged in the more social aspects of life, sports, dating, movies, etc. -- I was more likely to be at home practicing my ass off. No, they don't like to hear that, but since when does anybody really like to hear truth?


Flamesuit on,


--Mac

Tony, I am certain that Chas used "accordion" as a metaphor.

Taike

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Bo pen nyang.

Both Spalding and Chas make some excellent points here.

Having read quite a few biographies and autobiograhpies of/by very talented people -in the Arts of Music, Painting, Architecture, Literature, Design, etc.-I noticed something rather peculiar: almost none boasted of their talents and all were in awe of someone else's talent. None felt satisfied no matter what great work of art they'd created. On the contrary, they usually felt like they should've done better, that they missed something important, that time wasn't on their side. Their urge to "create" takes "prominence" over anything else, no matter at what cost.

The self-conceited artist, on the other hand, feeds on arrogance, and has an egotistical disregard of others. His urge to "create" is usually a need to be "prominent" and for financial gain.

But this begs the question: "Who decides whether one is talented?" Does a food critic make a good cook? Does a baseball scout make a great ballplayer? How do we "define" that something that we call "talent"?

I don't know whether anyone noticed but "talent" and "genius" have become overused in today's vocabulary. But that may be food for another thread

Taike


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Bo pen nyang.

[This message has been edited by Taike (edited 07-02-2010).]

Good post, Mac
You are right in saying that many people are surprised, or don't want to hear of the dues every decent musician has had to pay. In my case, the burning desire to get from point A to B was so strong that it was not work, but an exciting journey, Which I am still on BTW. It makes me wonder if there is any correlation between how one looks at practice time, and natural talent.

All great musicians have had to practice for years, eventhough they may have been doing so on a higher plane. Then you take the wannabe's who want instant gratification. It might be nice for them, but I think the fact that it takes a lot of hard work, makes us unique.

Taike ... perhaps you are not aware of chas' feelings about accordions ...
t.

But he said it in such a cute way. :

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Bo pen nyang.

Tony, trust me, that was NOT directed at YOU. But if I'm being honest, I can't say it was ENTIRELY metaphorical either.

I was lucky enough to recognize my mediocrity early and smart enough to move on to another career . Just because you make a living at something doesn't automatically mean you're good at it. I've had some pretty lousy carpenters, plumbers, and electricians in my day. The guy that wired my father-in-law's house, electrocuted himself on the job. Unfortunately, there aren't quite enough similar 'thin the herd' probabilities in the music field. But, as long as we keep propping up those that don't deserve the accolades, the music industry will continue to be polluted with talentless so-called 'pro's' posing as legitimate musicians and entertainers. JMO, of course.

chas

chas

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&rlz=1T4GGHP_enUS366&defl=en&q=define:talent&sa=X&ei=1_ItTNWgIIa8lQeB8aDkCg&ved=0CBIQkAE

Tony, as weird as this may sound to you, my wife actually played accordion as a child, so maybe my feelings are just misdirected .

As far as talent is concerned, to paraphrase Henry Miller, 'you can't define it but you recognize it when you see it'.



chas

PS: We (She) had a gigantic old Silvertone accordion (imported from Italy but sold by Sears) in a homongous thick leather case lined with red felt (or something fuzzy??). After sitting for years, we opened it one day to find that the bellows had dry-rotted. That was excuse enough for me to toss it in the trash. It actually looked like it may have been a nice (read expensive) instrument. Kind of sorry I did that now, it probably could have been repaired.

[This message has been edited by cgiles (edited 07-02-2010).]

I am looking at talent has I look in the mirror, only my opionion Taike!

You've certainly got a talent for humor, Tony........but definately not for spelling .

chas

Chas, only your oppppppioooion, don't you jost ate it when ther is no spoll chek. Bet you wouldn't have replied if I hadn't spelt
opinion wrong.

Cheers Chas.

[This message has been edited by Tony Hughes (edited 07-02-2010).]

Chas,

I am crap at spelling and crap at choosing Keyboards. I am honest enough and I know my place in life now.

Well, apparently I am as well. I just noticed that in my post criticizing your spelling, I misspelled "definately" (definitely). Glad I picked it up before Taike or Ian did (or maybe they were just to polite to point it out). I guess the pot should never call the kettle uh, dark-hued.



chas



[This message has been edited by cgiles (edited 07-02-2010).]

Chas,

I just type blind like I play KB, I hope you choice in KB is better than mine.

Regards

Tony

shouldn't that be "too" polite? LOL

Another word way overused is "Artist" Whenever we're making a record in Nashville, whoever is singing the song is called the artist. So no matter how crappy his songs, or how badly he sings them, he's the artist.

I suppose every person has his own scales for measuring how much talent other people have. My standard is pretty high for others and for myself.

To me, there is a difference between talented and skilled. In my mind, talent has a lot to do with creating your own music. Not necessarily writing songs or composing, but just being able to play your own thoughts and having good thoughts to play. A classical violinist or pianist who can pull off the most amazing composition flawlessly is definitely highly skilled. But to me, not as talented as someone who might have less technique but has a musical mind of his own and can improvize well and play just the right thing at the right moment. Mozart was the talent, those who play his music are supremely skilled. Art Tatum never wrote any songs that I know of, but he was more than skilled, he was talented, because he made the songs he played his own. He brought his own ideas, sensibilities, thoughts, to the song he was playing; and they were good ideas.

Arrrrrgg! You got me. I'm gonna hafta get my wife to proof my posts. She's downright annoying when it comes to correcting grammar, spoken or written. Anyway, I'm probably good if Tony is the only one that reads them .

On the rest of it, I agree with you, Rory, except that there is no reason one can't be both talented AND skilled (like yourself, for instance ).

chas

I'm writing an academic book called "The Magic Manager". Basically, it's a history of extremely successful managers in a variety of fields who, in spite of lots of personal problems and, in some cases, violating every management principle known to man, were extremely successful. "It's Magic" , in some instances...not quantifiable.

Likewise, I worked in a duo with a guy named Preston Weber. He was a sight...overweight...had a twitch...bad hair dye job...never showed up for work on time...bad English...didn't know the correct lyrics to any songs. He was the highest paid, longest running, most successful entertainer Lexington ever saw. He made more than I made playing and holding a responsible corporate job. And, he was worth every penny. I sat beside him every night for years asking myself, "Why the hell are all these people here?"

Likewise, it may be that the best way to define at least an element of talent is, you guessed it, "Magic".

Russ (no talent) Lay

[This message has been edited by captain Russ (edited 07-02-2010).]

I recall an Academy Awards show, many years ago..I cannot remember which one exactly, but one of the performers on the night was Sammy Davis jnr.

Well the entertainment part of the show had production numbers, and glitzy, glamourous performances from several "artists", but about the middle of the night, Sammy Davis came on, just him and a pianist, nothing else....He totally brought the house down with a standing ovation as I recall...

I only quote that story, as I believe talent is that innate ability to capture people, enthrall them in whatever it is you are doing with even the simplest of performances, be it writing, playing, painting whatever.

Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder, even Box Car Willie et al, could simply walk on stage, and just play and sing Mary Had A Little Lamb if they wanted to, totally by themselves, and they could spellbind an audience.

That's talent imho.

The only ones who reach the brilliant/genius/master, whatever, stage are those who then WORK at perfecting that talent.

Of course I place all of those people I mentioned above into that category, but there are many others. I think you get my drift on this..

Dennis

Well said, Dennis!

R.

Talent, what I don't have LOL and I know it, so the day job stays.

Some years ago I struck up an acquaintance with the late jazz pianist James Williams, from attending many of his Boston gigs at a place called the Starlight Roof atop an old Howard Johnson's motor lodge. One evening when my wife and I were in Greenwich Village we stopped at a jazz club called the Knickerbocker. There must have been all of 10 people in the club, James was playing a solo gig. On one of his breaks he sat and talked with us. I asked him whether he thought it was God given talent or hardwork. James was of the mindset that it was 90% hard work and 10% natural talent.
http://www.jazzhouse.org/gone/lastpost2.php3?edit=1091230010

i absolutely agree with the last poster that normally talent is like 10% and hard work is 90%.

But i came across a pianist where the opposite is true. His name is Ben Tankard. You can google him or go on you tube. He was a very talented tuba player and an awesome basketball player. He was offered c 30 plus music scholarship and another 30 plus basketball scholarship . He took the basketball scholarship because that was most lucrative. He was at an NBA scouting camp and damaged his knee so badly it ended his basketball career immediately. He got so depressed he dropped out of college because he lost his scholarship. He was hungry and broke and out of desperation, he went to a southern church because he knew that they would offer a visitor a good southern fried chicken meal for free ! At the church he broke down at all the bad fortune he had encountered and what he thought was the rosy future that had been ahead for him in the NBA which now lay in tatters. A minister saw him and started to talk with him. The minister had never met him before but knew he was in the presence of someone that needed help. The minister felt moved to annoint Bens hands with oil and prayed over him and told him to go play the church piano in the corner. Ben had never played piano before. He was a very good tuba player but he was not and had never been apianist. He thought the minister was crazy but as an act of obedience he went over to the piano and started to play. And instantly he started to play like a professional jazz musician. I know it sounds crazy. But this is the guy.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNfvtOokcLM

Talent is when a musical performer of any sort has the ability to "MOVE THE AUDIENCE' by transending the music thru your soul into theirs.....nuff said!

In other words, YOU are talented!

nuff said=the final word, the one and only truth?

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Bo pen nyang.

No... in other words I will ignore you before I get banned again....nuff said!

Speak your mind. Never was a problem before.

But what is it that makes you so talented? Moving a crowd? Even monkeys in the zoo do that and aren't they everyone's favorite?

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Bo pen nyang.

I've given this a lot of thought. It relates to me, because I was always totally fascinated with musical instruments from early childhood.
I took a few months of piano lessons when I was about 6. I learned trumpet in grade school and played through college, but my mother always had a piano and/or organ in the house and I was constantly fooling around with that too.
The breakthrough was when I learned music theory in high school. I could transfer the music from trumpet, organ, bass or whatever, and could hear songs on the radio and realize the structures.
I REALLY learned to play on the bandstand, one song at a time. I listened to it, wrote down the chords and played the notes. It soon became apparent that many riffs or solos or turnarounds and progressions were the same or very similar in many different songs and many different types of music.
It took me years to be really any good, so I don't think there was that much natural talent involved, other than the capacity to learn and the ambition to WANT to learn.
I've learned from playing with many talented musicians, and some even not so talented.
This process is still going on. I've probably learned more in the past 10 years than in the previous 30, even though I was playing all that time. I still record myself every night and I'm my worst critic. This started back with reel-to-reel, then cassettes, VHS, mini-discs and now digital.
I'm good enough now to play right hand with most anybody and to play most any kind of popular music, but I think I got to this point because I wanted to so badly.
Same with singing, I had to LEARN to sing on key, it certainly did not come naturally. Now it would be almost impossible to sing off key, unless I couldn't hear myself.
I'm pretty sure I'm talented now, because enough people hear me that surely someone would tell me the truth if I stink. I'm not sure how it happened though, other than desire and the fear of having to get a real job.
It's strange that I played bass, trumpet, organ, drums and guitar, but other than trumpet was not outstanding on any of them. BUT, all that is invaluable in my specialty now, which is Arranger Keyboard.
One of the last things to come was relating to the audience well. I always tended to hide behind the music and respond to the audience. Now I'm getting better at being more outgoing and making the response a two-way thing.
Oh yeah and I found out early that girls really dig musicians, even so-so ones.
Now I've forgotten the question.
Gotta sleep now to get ready for a three-hour drive to Arkansas tomorrow to play for a 4th of July festival.
Get this: they are going to feed me, let me play music and sing, clap for me, and then after it's over they are going to PAY me! A lot.
I MUST have some talent finally, and now it seems natural but it wasn't always and it wasn't easy. I was lucky enough to not realize how bad I was until I got better.
Hope this makes sense.
DonM

Great post, Don ...
thnx,
t.

Don, I loved it. Enough humor in there to make it a good read, but enough truth in there to make the read worthwhile. My conclusion; you were ALWAYS talented, but chose to develop it instead of wasting it. If you DIDN'T have talent, you might still be making that 3 hr. trip, but it wouldn't be for "big money" and you'd probably be paying for your own food .

chas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGcikt-cqd4

Now THAT'S talent. Only these aren't monkeys but APES. Monkeys have tails, you see, while apes don't.

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Bo pen nyang.

I have to drive more than 2 hours to my gig tonight...I have to pay for my food...and I won't make a lot of money....OH OHHH!!!! What does that mean..

Sometimes the most obvious answer is the correct one.



chas

Oh I get it ..they are just being nice to Don...

He is apparently a very talented person but I find that hard to believe and it's especially suspect coming from a preacherman faith healer.

That means your VERY talented...

i know its hard to believe semi live and you dont have to believe it . But you can email him and ask him any questions you like he is very open and aproachable. http://www.bentankard.org/index2.html

There is nothing wrong with a little caution but dont leave it there. Dig a little deeper as i did.

You either have it or you don't in my opinion.

I may be a good student (in anything, be it mathematics, piano, painting, whatever), learn from my mistakes, make progress etc. One day I may become proficient enough, have top skills, be recognizable. But that doesn't make me Tesla, Mozart, Van Gogh.

I took pencil sketching lessons for 3-4 months. I was good enough (comparatively, when taking in mind the little time it took me to produce acceptable results). But I never was in the league of a friend of mine who became an architect. I simply didn't have it. He did.

One guy I know, was in a small basketball team in his teens. He and the others were good enough to be in the team, but there was one of them, same age group, who simply was ahead of them. They had the same coach, did the same practice, but this one individual was above all. The guy was to become one of the Basketball Euro champions in 1987 and served as as the National team coach. He had it and the others did not.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panagiotis_Giannakis

Do you honestly think that Frank Sinatra or Elvis or Aretha Franklin or name anyone in this league were the results of simple hard work? I don't believe that. Maybe hard work KEPT them high, but they had talent to stand ON to begin with.

i dont know if any of those musicians apart from aretha were particluarly talented musicians. What they did have was bags of charisma or as Simon Cowel puts it , ' likeability factor'. That also might be called a talent and can be learned but its not a musical one.

Spalding, in the interest of fairness, I don't know if you can single out Aretha as the only one with talent. All three were at the top of their game within their genre'. Because you may not be a fan of a certain genre' doesn't mean that some the best practitioners of it weren't talented. I'd say that if you were able to change the course of music for an entire generation, you must have SOME talent. Wouldn't you think?



chas

i didnt say the others werent talented.I Said 'particularly' talented. I wasnt trying to put the others down or elevate Aretha especially. I was talking about straight up musical talent. The others did incredibly well with the talent they had and you are right they moved their generation and i loved their music. But just in my personal opinion, Elvis's voice was nothing special just as Mick Jagger or David Bowie's voices were/are nothing special but their personalities comes through in their performance and they sell themselves very well. Some people have great stage presence like Rod stewart and you just warm to them and that i guess is a talent but its not musical talent but i am not entrenched in my thinking. I am willing to be persuaded otherwise.

I just read all the replies. Very interesting. Over the years I have noticed musical things about myself that I think are a talent. I'm sure others have this but I don't think everyone does. I don't say this with conceit but as a matter of interest to the discussion.

I've noticed since I was young that I could learn the scales on say the harmonica and then I could hear which note of a scale any song I knew should start on. No matter the complexity of a song I've always been able to just hear where "one" is. Once I have the chords and song structure in mind I seem to out of nowhere be able to make up an infinte number of melodies. I mention this because I would think many of you have these (and other) things that I would say are God given talents but not everybody has them. I was hoping as I read the replies that some would mention specific things that you just feel for music without really knowing how you do them.

I just put a video on a website where I am improvising a flute solo from my Korg arranger and feel I could keep on going with new melody ideas and never run out of them. If anyone would care to hear this you can at: www.soundclick.com/jerryfeheley The song title is "Lookin Good".

I hope my comments do not come off wrong. I just want to offer some opinions and an example of what I am playing.

Jerry