So I’m sitting at home last night watching a PBS documentary on Juliard. There are all of these people, most of them very young with unbelievable talent. I begin to feel a little inadequate. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not aspiring to go to Juliard, I don’t even think anyone plays Irish music there anyway. But I got to thinking, how does one know if they are talented or if they are just kidding themselves. I’ve been playing Irish flute for almost a year now. Up until recently, I havn’t been committing myself to it as much as I should have. I have changed that now and am practicing and playing almost religiously. I love to play and I’m sure that if I continue to apply myself to it that I can one day sound really great. But I can’t help to get discouraged sometimes thinking that I actually don’t really have any talent. So my question is: How do you know if you are talented? and if you aren’t, is it still possible to be a great flutist?
Talent will manifest as skill develops. Talent will inform skill sooner or later. Both are needed, but who can say where
one leaves off and the other begins? I certainly can’t. If you enjoy playing and do it devotedly, your question, Grasshopper,
will cease to trouble you. Meditate on the sound of one clam hopping.
“Pseudo-Zen Aphorisms 'R Us”
Catherine,
I agree with Brian and would add that you have to be patient with yourself. I have been playing seriously for about 1 and 1/2 years for about 5 hours a week. I am starting to see that I can actually play this beast. I remember when it finally hit me…I was like “did I just do that”. The funny thing about it is the next day I suffered from fuzzy lip and was wondering if I was dreaming the whole thing. Don’t give up…if your truly committed to learning this very difficult but rewarding instrument then you need to be patient with yourself. Enjoy yourself at every stage of developement you’ll get there.
I have heard now from almost every flute player that I admire (incl. Matt Malloy, Catherine McEnvoy) that they are in essence still learning and growing in their abilities.
Take Heart!
I re-read your post and I want to add something here. I work with people that have mastered instruments like classical guitar and piano and they are doing nothing with their skill. I think the prodigies are the exception and just because they excel in music dosn’t necessarily make them interesting to listen too. Check out the members of Mensa and you’ll realize being a genius in no way guarantees they will be successfull in all their endeavors. I think that many of the folks I admire got where they were thru good old fashioned hard-work. A matter of fact the only one that may have an extra ordinary gift for music would be Seamus Eagan. But he still works extremely hard.
[ This Message was edited by: CraigMc on 2003-01-31 01:22 ]
Oh Catherine, you need to put more pressure on yourself.
Assume you’re average: half the world has more talent, they are richer, more beautiful, luckier. Don’t worry, just live deliberately and go prosper. You will die soon anyway (not yet…not yet!)and you can’t take that flute with you.
It’s Chinese New Year today: be glad you’re not in Iraq.
i think ‘soul and spirit’ in your music are much more important than talent, or maybe that is talent.. the ability to put your spirit into your music, to get lost in it and pull others into the beauty of your reality, deep into your heart, just through the notes you play and how you play them..
talent itself, i think, manifests itself in different ways, at different times.. maybe its being inspired by something, being pulled by some inexplicable force to do that special thing.. be it music, or art, or mathematics. give in to the beauty of what you can do, give in to the power of the music, and run with it 
I think the secret is to enjoy what you are doing.
Forget about “talent”–it’s just a word people use to try to measure what can’t be measured, and understand what can’t be understood. As a concept, it is flawed from its initiation, for there have been many musicians who showed little “talent” at the beginning and yet, once they hit a certain point in their development and understanding, they took off like skyrockets. There are many others with great “talent” at the beginning who will fail in the end to be more than average musicians.
Forget about talent, and don’t worry about how bad or how good you are compared to someone else.
Enjoy the music (I sound like Lee but he’s right!!!), enjoy playing, and don’t make a job out of it. Drudgery never improved anyone’s playing.
Technique will come over time. Speed and accuracy will come over time. Tone and power will come over time.
It takes time.
Oh there are surely musicians out there who have broken down every possible finger movement into endless exercises, who have gained pyrotechnical speed and flash. Forget about them: they are trained monkeys. For them, music is programming a computer and they happen to be the computer: it is purely mechanical. You know who these folks are–we have all heard players who tried to out-flash their neighbor rather than add to the music, folks who view tunes as just coat-hangers for rolls and ornaments and endless flash. You talk about playing from the heart to these guys and they scoff at you.
(Note: I think actually programming a real computer to make music is certainly a valid form of the art, and I don’t mean to diss those who express the music in their soul in that way.)
If you start with the love of the music–and I can’t emphasize strongly enough the love of listening to it as well as playing it–then the rest will follow.
And if the trained monkeys don’t like it, give 'em a banana, and you keep right on playing.
Best wishes,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
[ This Message was edited by: peeplj on 2003-01-31 08:55 ]
James, I think you said just about all I was going to above, as did many others.
So, why am I responding? Impulse? Probably.
I have a six year old taking piano at a prestigious school here in NY. He has wads of talent, good hand coordination, and a great ear. Does he like to practice? No; it’s like pulling teeth, and I don’t want to pull to hard and discourage his love for music. In the time he started, last July, he is playing two handed, good position, reads notes, bass and treble, rhythms up to 16th notes, and one or two sharps and flats.
IF he keeps playing, and wants to keep playing, he will be quite good by the time he’s ten. That’s persistence, though, and not talent. Talent has him singing in the bathtub on pitch, or making up tunes on the piano when no one is telling him to sit up straight. The difference between him and me (him and I?) is that I didn’t learn any of this stuff till I was an adult, and even though I’ve played music semi-professionally most of my life, I didn’t get these fundamentals he will. Or those kids from Julliard will.
If he learns to play from the heart and can incorporate all the skills he is learning with his desire to sing in the tub and write songs, he will be one very talented guy indeed. If he learns to play, read and perform, as James said, like a trained monkey, he will be better served using his skills for higher math, not music.
But, since I can always use an accompanist, he better choose the former!
I, too, have to add my voice to others saying, “Don’t get discouraged.”
If you enjoy the music you play, then it’s worth the time to play it. If you play for others (even just your family) and they enjoy it, then once again it’s worth the effort. It doesn’t matter if you’re a prodigy or all thumbs (though, I suppose that could come in handy on the thumb piano ), whether you’re paid for sharing your music or volunteer your time, whether you have practiced many hours and can push your instruments to do amazing things or the toughest tune you can play is Amazing Grace.
I’ve been involved in community groups for many years from church choirs to community orchestras. I’ve played with some pretty amazing local talent and some folks that have a tough time of it, but enjoy it nonetheless. Talent to me seems most often to be a reflection of how easily someone is able to pick something up (let’s face it, we all learn differently and somethings just come easier to some people), how effective your practice time is (effective practice which can be long hours vs. simply practicing long hours), and most especially the ability to reach out through your music to touch someone else–to “sing” to the heart by voice or through an instrument.
If you’re comfortable where you’re at with your abilities, then honestly don’t worry about it and keep playing what you can play and enjoying it. If you want to go further with the music, it will require work no matter how “talented” you are, but the rewards are definitely there–at the very least it is a lot of fun to be able to play more challenging music and have a sense of accomplishment about it. Everyone has “talents” per se and few will ever reach the level of a Matt Molloy or Sean Potts or Eric Clapton or Sabine Meyer or Yo-Yo Ma or Dizzie Gillespie upon the grand stage, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy the “talents” we’ve been given and share them with others.
Peace!
I don’t think it matters much whether
we have talent. It matters that we
love to play. Folk music is
accessible to people without
a whole lot of talent. Musical
talent is pretty widespread,
in fact, so that average talent
can go a long way. I’ll never
be a great flute player–but why
on earth should I care?
The best people will be
extraordinarily gifted and they
will have grown up with this
stuff. Neither goes for me.
It isn’t as though my self worth
depends on how well I play
the flute!
The exception is if one
is thinking of being a professional,
earning a living and so on.
But for amateurs to care terribly
about how talented they are
is optional. I just figure that here
is one area of my life where I
don’t have to be vain or go
on an ego trip.
I f I may put the thing this way,
music is prayer. Do you think
God cares whether you are
talented at prayer? Or whether
you pray with sincerity;
whether you love to pray.
As a hardass flute teacher, I take “I’m not talented” to mean “I’m too lazy to practice.”
On 2003-01-31 10:26, Ro3b wrote:
As a hardass flute teacher, I take “I’m not talented” to mean “I’m too lazy to practice.”
I think there is a lot of truth to that, especially when there is a teacher and lessons involved who can guide the practice and reward (and detect!) improvement.
For those learning on their own the situation I think is different. Without a teacher’s guidance, it could be challenging to know what to practice and how to practice it.
Also a student working on their own may be improving but since it will be gradual, especially at first, they may not know that they are improving.
That’s one of the challenges of learning Irish flute: many of us live hundreds of miles from the nearest teacher.
And that’s why I think Scoiltrad in particular really fills a need for many folks who couldn’t get instruction any other way–as I’ve said before, I can’t say enough good things about Scoiltrad.
Best,
–James
http://www.flutesite.com
On 2003-01-31 10:26, Ro3b wrote:
As a hardass flute teacher, I take “I’m not talented” to mean “I’m too lazy to practice.”
That certainly holds true for people who have at least some musical aptitude. But I think it’s important to recognize that some people simply aren’t musical, and they won’t improve no matter how many lessons they have or how many years of practice they put in. (This is not at all directed toward Catherine, who sounds like she’s musically talented but impatient…a year is a very short time in terms of learning the flute!)
I’m a case in point, not for music but for dancing. I have no aptitude whatsoever for dancing, which is odd because I have a strong sense of rhythm in my flute playing. At least 10 people have tried to teach me how to do a simple waltz, and all of them, including experienced dance teachers, have failed. I tell them my story and they say, confidently, “I can fix that,” but they can’t, or at least nobody has been able to do it so far. I never approach it with the preconception of “I can’t dance.” I’m always optimistic about it. I have spent hours practicing those apparently simple steps, but when it comes to actually dancing them to music I fail miserably. I’ve also been contradancing for 20 years and am just as bad as when I started. People have actually asked me to leave the dance because I keep messing it up. I keep trying, but I do recognize that I have no aptitude or “talent” for dancing, and I’m at peace with it.
Thanks for your support and wise words everyone, I take them all to heart. I guess sometimes I do get impatient and don’t give myself enough credit. How did you get so smart? I think I’m going to start looking at my flute playing as a gift instead of worring about talent. Thanks again.
Hi all:
I’m in total agreement with those who say: just have fun. Making music is one of life’s great pleasures.
If I could be an academic for a moment, I would point out that the concept of talnet is an invention of western European culture; talent isn’t “natural.” If it were, you’d find conceptions of talent in every culture on the planet, and in every historical period in those cultures. But you don’t. “Talent” doesn’t emerge in western Europe (the first place it appeared) until the 16th century, for a lot of complicated reasons, including the slow rise in importance of the composer (still, however, a servant and artisan), and the desire of the rich noblemen who employed them (apart from the church) to think that they had purchased somebody of value.
So, talent is neither “true” nor “false,” “present” or “absent.” It’s a cultural/historical construction that you can ignore–in order to have fun playing!
Tim
But don’t you think, tim, that
some people are more gifted
than others at some things.
Mozart was more gifted at
music, in the sense of having
a greater natural ability,
than I am? Similarly
Einstein was more gifted
at math than I am.
Talent doesn’t seem to
be the same thing as
intelligence, by the way.
.
Lots to ponder in this venerable old thread:
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?topic=6924&forum=1
People really put their thinking caps on for this thread on innate vs. learned talent.
Cara
Yes, obviously some people are more “gifted,” musically and otherwise, than others. I’m just saying that, for most of western history, and the histories of other parts of the planet, the amount of musical ability possessed by a particular individual has mattered less than the simple fact that msuic was something practiced by everyone. This, alas, is no longer true in western culture (and others that are learning from ours) where the vast majority of people don’t make music but buy it. It is only western culture that has, fairly recently in the grand scheme of things, elevated those individuals thought to be “talented” or “geniuses” to godlike status, diminishing everyone else.
Tim
I’m a case in point, not for music but for dancing. I have no aptitude whatsoever for dancing, which is odd because I have a strong sense of rhythm in my flute playing. At least 10 people have tried to teach me how to do a simple waltz, and all of them, including experienced dance teachers, have failed. I tell them my story and they say, confidently, “I can fix that,” but they can’t, or at least nobody has been able to do it so far. I never approach it with the preconception of “I can’t dance.” I’m always optimistic about it. I have spent hours practicing those apparently simple steps, but when it comes to actually dancing them to music I fail miserably. I’ve also been contradancing for 20 years and am just as bad as when I started. People have actually asked me to leave the dance because I keep messing it up. I keep trying, but I do recognize that I have no aptitude or “talent” for dancing, and I’m at peace with it.
Brad, I think your problem is that no one has told or taught you that dancing is not about doing steps to music. Which is not to say that dancers don’t do steps to music, becuase they do. But that’s not the key to dancing. Dancing is actually all about shifting your weight to music. If you don’t do that, you can step all you want and you’ll never be dancing. As someone who used to do a lot of dancing (Irish sets and ceili dancing, a mis-spent year of contradancing, cajun dancing, swing dancing, even some ballroom dancing), I’m amazed that very few dancers or dance teachers ever talk about the weight shifts involved in dancing. They just talk about steps, figures, arm twirls, etc, etc, all of which without proper weight shifts are meaningless. I’m surprised by this, but I guess for people who are natural dancers it just comes so easy to them that they do it without even thinking about it. But to try to teach someone to dance without teaching them how to shift their weight is like handing them a flute, saying “Okay, just blow into that hole. Now, here’s how you do a roll…”
So Brad, I say that if you can shift your weight in time to music, you can learn to dance. And if you can learn to do this and you can walk and count to eight, then definitely you can be a contradancer. And knowing you, I think you meet these requirements. So find yourself a good teacher or a good partner, and give it another try!
[ This Message was edited by: johnkerr on 2003-01-31 15:59 ]
On 2003-01-31 15:57, johnkerr wrote:
So Brad, I say that if you can shift your weight in time to music, you can learn to dance. And if you can learn to do this and you can walk and count to eight, then definitely you can be a contradancer.
Thanks, John…I do appreciate your confidence in me but in this case it’s entirely unfounded. I’m hopeless.
I have indeed been taught about shifting my weight, but that hasn’t helped. I think one issue is that I get so distracted by the music that I forget to move…I’ve actually stopped dead in the middle of contradances to listen to the band, much to the consternation of the other dancers around me (especially my partner). I definitely can’t walk, count to eight, and listen to music at the same time. Music seems to take over everything, which is why I can’t listen to tunes at work, for example.
I think I also have some sort of three-dimensional spacial handicap. I am utterly incapable of learning a dance by watching someone else, unless they stand right next to me and guide me through it extremely slowly.
Also, I have no ability to retain what I’ve learned when it comes to dancing. I was in Brittany last spring and went to several festou-noz with my girlfriend (who’s from Brittany herself, a great dancer and dance teacher). She would teach me each dance before it started, but if the same type of dance (An-dro, Hanter-dro, or Plinn, for example) came around 20 minutes later she’d have to teach it to me all over again from scratch.
Anyway, I’m sure you and other people reading this think I’m nowhere near as hopeless as I sound, but believe me, I am!
I love to PLAY for dancers, though. I’m playing for a dance tomorrow night in fact, with The Big Night Ceili Band, here in Montreal. C’mon up…we sound great! Laura Risk and Karen Iny on fiddle, Steve Jones on whistle, myself on flute, and Rachel Aucoin on piano. Bill White is calling the dances, Irish, Scottish, Quebecois, and more.
[ This Message was edited by: bradhurley on 2003-01-31 16:37 ]
Well, I can’t speak to the measurement of talent in others, but I can tell you about when I realized I had talent. Years ago a fellow asked me to play the highland pipes at a dedication of two new church doors. Yes, he dedicated two new church doors in memory of his deceased parents. A wonderful gesture. I was to play a tune in the church during the dedication and then lead the congregation through the new doors at the end of the ceremony. All went went. The fellow paid me $100.00 and a box of 24 cans of peaches (I believe they were from Georgia, but they could have been from the Carolinas–really good peaches in heavy syrup as I recall). I knew right then that I had talent. Now, I guage my talent on the flute and the other instruments I play by how much money I can make. As good a measurement as any in a capitalist country, I reckon.