Does Talent Exist?

Factual Questions
1

This was originally a question I sent to Cecil, but judging by the response I got back from his team, It seems that it will not be answered; I’m posting it here.

Lately, when I perform, I have been annoyed from the numerous and unworthy praise coming from listeners. I don’t mind the simple compliment and common criticism, however, when bombarded with the word talent, it seems to irritate me. This is because I have worked extremely hard to get where I am today. With only my self-determination and want to learn the piano, i have achieved a splendid musical journey, that will never end. My point is, I never had lessons and I was only able to play the piano through my hard work and self want to do something. The words ‘natural’ talent seem to not mix with me, for I was useless when I first tried to play the piano. I believe a 2 year old could of done better. This so called ‘talent’ people speak of is only something that Is fabricated and learned, right? Everyone is born with the same abilities (to a sense), so isn’t it up to the individual what he or she wishes to do? Of course, this may bring in the concept of 'Nature vs. Nurture"…for example, Is natural talent a synonym for being exposed to music while growing up? or is it genetic… Look at the children in china. These kids are being disciplined at incredibly early ages to do amazing things! Talent? More like parents yelling at them as soon as they exit the vagina: “Get to work on your music theory!” Does talent exist?

2

Everybody is NOT born with the same abilities. An exceptional ability in some area is called a talent. The term ‘natural talent’ may be applied to people who display exceptional ability with minimal additional training or practice, or just to people who are better than average. But talent is all about the nature part and not the nurture. That is not to say that talented people don’t benefit from hard work and perseverance. Talented people just start with an advantage.

ETA: The term ‘talent’ is probably also used to describe people who have displayed better than average ability only through their hard work, but that seems more like ‘expertise’ to me.

3

Talent. Hmmm, sounds like someone has been accused of lacking it.

4

But how can someone be naturally talented at playing the piano? I can understand being naturally skilled at running, surviving on very little food, being good at stuff like basketball (if tallness really is a factor), but the piano?

I too have been called a ‘natural’ at music, but what I always tell these people is that I’m really not, I put in a hell of a lot of work and time to get where I am. Yeah, I may be able to hear a tune and figure out the chords, melody etc and play it - but that’s only because I learnt every key, and am familiar with most popular chord progressions. I suppose it just appears ‘natural’ to people who don’t know how much work goes into it.

I can understand how someone may be a natural singer, however. But things like playing music - not really.

I suppose you could be naturally well coordinated - but that ‘talent’ could well have been turned to a great number of other things. Driving, for example.

5

Someone can be a talented artist or musician either due to natural “innate” abilities or through hard work and practice, or a combination of both. The result is the same, however some people are born with the ability to do something that most people can’t without training and practice.

There are numerous stories about 2 year olds sitting down at a piano and being able to play a simple tune without any training or real practice. Most 2 year olds would bang on the keys just to hear noise. Those rare kids that can play have some innate ability to do something, or natural talent. Someone like Mozart comes to mind.

I don’t think natural talent in any way takes away from someone who doesn’t have innate talent and instead works really hard to achieve mastery of something. If someone says you are talented simply say that your talent is due to hard work and didn’t come “naturally”.

6

I can’t understand how anyone not raised in a bubble could even ask that.

The vast, vast majority of people will never, ever be able to break par on a PGA-level golf course, or run a 4 minute mile, or any of an infinite number of other things that very talented high school students can do. No matter how much they want to, no matter how hard or long they train. If they don’t have exceptional talent, then long hours of training and practice, day after day, year after year, will allow them to improve, but they will plateau out at a level far below one that a talented person would reach in a few months.

Note that talent alone isn’t enough. Guys like Tiger Woods practice 8 hours a day. But one reason they are able to practice 8 hours a day is because they are motivated by how good they are. It’s a lot more fun to practice when you can master a new shot in a couple of hours, than when you can’t break 80 after years of trying.

7

Why would playing piano be different than any of those other things? Certain skills are required to play piano and people vary genetically with their ability to learn and develop those skills. Some are muscular, some are cerebral. Studies have correlated talent for music with talent for computer programming; these are clearly talents you can be born with.

Malcolm Gladwell discusses this in Outliers. Although that book is not a scholarly work, he concludes that talent notwithstanding, you have to put in about 10,000 hours to develop a skill to a high level. His theory is that someone without great talent can still excel by putting in the work, and the world is littered with geniuses who have squandered their talent by not making the effort to use it.

8

Oh on the contrary…do you need to re-read my post?

My thoughts exactly.

The vast majority of people will never EVER be able to break par on a PGA level golf course because they either: 1)choose not to 2) Don’t have enough willpower to do so! Are you saying these things are only achievable by the ones who have this ‘talent?’. My point is that the average person CAN do these things if they really wanted to. Yes, it may take years and years of training, maybe more than some people, but that’s just the differences between some people. Some people can adapt to things a little more quickly than others, but that still doesn’t say that they CAN"T ever achieve something? People CAN do things if they have the right mindset to do it. This means that they will result in the SAME talent you speak of, as ‘the gifted one’. It is not true that one will plateau at a level far below the talented one. Of course i’m talking about things like playing the piano. If you are able to use your hands, you have just as much capability than mozart with the right mindset. "It’s a lot more fun to practice when you can master a new shot in a couple of hours, than when you can’t break 80 after years of trying." Who are you to measure someone’s determination at how far they are willing to succeed?

9

Of course talent exists. Take the example of Derek Paravicini. Blind and suffering from autism, “He has absolute pitch and can play a piece of music after hearing it once. He began playing the piano by the age of two when his nanny gave him an old keyboard.”

Or consider Josh Waitzkin. If the movie Searching for Bobby Fischer is to be believed he learned the game by watching guys play in the park when he was six. He went home and beat his dad in several games with no trouble.

Those are exceptional cases of course but it shows that talent can be innate.

We all have it to some degree. Doubtless there are things you learn relatively easily and other areas you struggle in. Nature or nurture people tend to be wired better for some tasks than others. In rare cases someone might be deemed gifted in an area and in very rare cases we find prodigies.

Of course this does not preclude practice even for prodigies. Things must still be learned and their skills honed. Just the really talented tend to have an easier time of it. I could practice chess for the rest of my life and probably never be as good as Josh Waitzkin when he was eight years old. Even so, to compete at the highest levels, Waitzkin practiced constantly (as it happens he may be a rarity but not unique).

10

I know how to play the piano in a technical sense. I can read music (or could, I haven’t tried in ages), but there is no amount of practice that will make anyone consider me a talented musician. I have a terrible sense of timing in that regard, poor fine coordination, and some kind of flatness to my hearing that leaves me unable to distinquish fine qualities in tone, volume, and everything else about music. In addition, my mind does not hold tunes well, or even accurately when I can recall one. There are all sorts of basic abilities that contribute to a persons ability to achieve at a high level in particular areas, and people differ greatly in those abilities.

11

Let’s assume, wrongly, that people can reach the same level if they both try hard enough. Would you say that ussain bolt could run a 10s 100m with more, less, or the same effort that I put into it. If different, why?

12

I’m tone deaf, and have absolutely no musical ability, so saying I don’t play the piano well because I never chose to put in the effort is absurd. When my kids practiced and my wife made me help, the only way I could tell if they were playing the right notes was by looking at their fingers. (Not very practical!)

There is clearly a difference between Mozart and the average student.

13

Obviously no. Because that is a major difference in physical ability. The things i’m talking about, (originally, piano), require mental and very little physical power.

Mental power is very versatile.

I’m sure ussain was trained at a very young age. If you tell a 60 year old fat guy to beat him, that is obviously far out of the question. I’m merely comparing people of the same class (AKA average person). My original question regarded something like playing the piano.

14

Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying.

Yes, I understood that from your first post. You are wrong.

I agree with that up to a point. As I said in my earlier post, training and practice will let almost anyone improve. But how fast he improves, and the highest level he can reach, depends on his innate talent (or, for complex activities, his innate combination of talents).

Well, I agree that’s what it means, but it’s wrong.

The average, untrained adult can’t run an eight-minute mile, but if they train and eat sensibly, then they should be able to within a couple of years. When I was young and athletic, exercising several hours a day, I could run a six minute mile.

Now, it happens that I was more interested in strength training than running, so I weighed a lot more than a typical miler, and I’m sure that slowed me down. If I had sacrificed everything else and dedicated my life to running a mile as fast as I could, with the best training, coaching, and nutrition, I may or may not have been able to run a five minute mile. But there is no way in hell I could ever have run a four minute mile.

I don’t think it matters much what you are talking about. I don’t know much about the piano, but I know I’ve been to piano bars where the player seems to me to be very, very good — can play almost any song, any style, no sheet music, and make it all look effortless. But I doubt very much that they could play for the NY Philharmonic. It’s just another level.

A statement like that makes me very strongly suspect that this whole thread is a joke.

I didn’t say anything about measuring someone’s determination. I just said it’s more fun to do things you are good at than things you suck at.

15

First of all, why wouldn’t physical ability, which is important in piano, count as talent?

Second, are you actually claiming that all people have the same mental abilities? If you’re only talking about “normal” people, that’s hugely unfair. Yeah, there’s no such thing as talent if you exclude all the people that have it for no reason.

16

Who are you to measure someone’s determination at how far they are willing to succeed? I really think you’re projecting your own experience and making it universal; the fact that you have achieved a certain level of skill at playing piano after x hours of practice does not mean that anyone could achieve that level, even after x+y hours of practice. The fact that you’ve achieved a level that provokes praise without any formal lessons (!) strongly implies that you have an unusual level of natural ability at music. 99% of people would have been just as ‘useless’ as you when they first started plinking, and at least 90% of those people would have shown no appreciable improvement after months and months of undirected practice. This does not in any way devalue the hard work you’ve put into developing that talent–for all but a very tiny group of prodigies, the hard work is the most important part, along with the self-awareness of directing that effort towards something you have natural ability in rather than something you don’t.

17

No, they certainly aren’t. We’re not all identical clones. some people are brighter, or more athletic, or more musically inclined, or more artistic, or a million other things.

18

Sounds more like someone wants more credit for their efforts than they’ve recieved. I could understand someone who achieves through hard work are not pleased to have their efforts ignored and their success attributed simply to talent. But talent still exists.

19

When I first read your OP, I found it difficult to understand what your point was, and suspected something like Omar Little suspected. But now, with your denial of that, I think I understand your question better. I think that people were not accusing you of lacking talent; rather, they’ve been complimenting you, saying how very talented you are, and that irritates you, because you are interpreting their compliments as, “Wow! You have so much talent! You’re a natural!” This bothers you, because you perceive yourself NOT as a natural, but as one who has worked very very hard to become such a good pianist.

If I am correct so far, then I have a suggestion for you. Instead of interpreting their compliments as a failure to recognize your hard work, try interpreting their compliments as, “Wow! That was great! And you make it look so natural and easy!” You see, they aren’t putting you down for your lack of hard work; they’re complimenting you on the appearance of lack of hard work.

Read about comedians some time. The jokes flow so easily that it looks like they’re having fun on stage. But it is very difficult work, getting the words right, the intonation right, the timing right. Same thing for musicians like yourself.

20

Whichever poster said you were raised in a bubble was correct. Most human beings simply have innate physical limitations that will keep them from achieving the top levels of achievement in any particular activity regardless of their burning will to achieve and win. To believe otherwise in the face of the vast amount of empirical data and common sense observation that hammers that fact home is simply magical thinking.

To be at the apex of any physical or intellectual endeavor obviously means you must have a fierce will to achieve, AND a HUGE chunk of aptitude. The notion that anybody can be or do anything if only they want it bad enough makes for a fine motivational speech, but it’s not real life.

You may have willed and worked yourself in being a pretty decent piano player, but it silly to think you did not have some innate musical aptitude. Beyond this, is it your contention that if you keep working hard enough you will eventually be one of the top piano players in the world?

Seriously? This is your attitude?