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Looper's Delight
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| Very interesting, and encouraging; I hope every music teacher eventually gets the message (altho my own pedagogical nemesis is too long dead to benefit—the professor, that is, who responded to my early request for help with slow progress at the piano by telling me, "You are not talented; you may drop out now and I'll give you a D.") And it clarifies how my own insistence 30 years ago that if I just kept at guitaring long enough I'd eventually get somewhere both worked and didn't. I clearly played more to my strengths than worked on my weaknesses when I returned to it after 35, and DID get somewhere, and DID certainly put in at least 10,000 hours. But my practice certainly wasn't as deliberate as it could have been. There always remained several basic skills that I never could nail, and my weakness with these seemed more like a distinct cognitive failing and not just an unwillingness to work harder at them. The article seems to insist that I could have worked through these issues with enough discipline, but at what cost I still wonder? I wanted gratification more than challenge I guess, and focusing on what I completely sucked at wasn't going to give me that… So maybe I was wrong, or maybe I still would have found the challenges too great even if I'd worked harder at what I liked least, and thus have squandered the time I did spend grooving with my bad self… Would I have eventually enjoyed myself more if I'd been more desirous of meeting the standards of the craft and less interested in discovering what I could discover within my limitations? I doubt it, and it still seems to me that the latter goal (celebrating uniqueness rather than going for a standard) was, for me at least, a better choice, even though I've since given up playing almost completely, simply because of how many hours a day or week I apparently need to keep up to even my own standards, in favor of another artistic passion for which I seem to be better suited, one whose craft standards I seem to have more perceptual and conceptual affinities with--I get better results faster with it! Life is short… I'm still convinced, even with my preferred craft, that there are plenty of esthetic instincts and perceptual skills that can't really be obtained just by working at them, at least at the extremes of wonderfulness. That's not ever stopped me from trying, and maybe it's not a point that there's a practical purpose to making, since keeping hope alive seems generally better than squelching it. But "debunking the myth" of talent seems not just to celebrate perspiration. It seems also to deny the obvious: That physical gifts and distinctive energetic signatures, strange visions and wild uniqueness, are all still at the core of what makes art, and craft, thrilling, inspiring, and ultimately meaningful. That's my experience anyway… dpc On Feb 22, 2012, at 7:29 AM, Sylvain Poitras wrote: I've seen this myth debunked so many times... my own development in earlier years was halted by my perceived lack of talent. Eventually, I took lessons with a local pro who shared much of his experience being the lousiest player around, having all the faults you can imagine and working through them to become a phenomenal player. That's my story as well, except for the phenomenal player part... Talent is like a car, if you have one you can to where you're going faster. But anyone who is willing to walk will also get there (and will learn to walk). As a corollary, musicians with little talent tend to be great teachers... they've made all the mistakes and worked through them. |