The Fallacy of "Talent"

[Michael Marino]

PS to Mark: did you read the article? Have you read Gladwell? I think you missed the pointed reference to the very young Mozart. That when he was a prodigy he had enormous encouragement and plamas from his father, even to the extent of his rewriting and editing WM's compositions.

 

 

I've no use for studies by this cat or any other. Like the ignorant peckerwood I am, slogging along at being a musician and being damned lucky to have been allowed to make what passes for a living at it, I've come to know what I know. It is simply past me to lay aside my life experiences and except that anyone given the proper influence can do anything with hard work.

 

You can keep bringing up Leopold beautifully guiding his son all ye want, but if Wolfgang had not one whit of talent or potental under the hood, they wouldn't have gotten very far now would they?

 

What about our dear troubled Beethoven? Quite the freakin' peach of a soddened bugger his dad was! What a grand influence, beatin' the crap out of Ludwig every time he took a notion or suspected the lad hadn't spent enough time at his scales. Please, let's not go there.

 

On this talent vs. hard work thing, we will never agree. You gotta have both.

 

Mark I agree with you completely.

 

I have read the article and a piece of well crafted spoiled tripe it is. They go to one of the highest musical schools in all of germany to start their study and than create the measures by which to ascertain their goal. In doing such they create a venue by which their rationalization will be seen as the logical end and to argue against them is to defy the authority of the all powerful academia.

 

I have a Doctorate. I deal with lack of proper process in research and treatment on a more regular basis than I would like (myself being the current subject of such, not a victim though). Psychology is a science that is still very young and very arrogant. There is an equal amount of research that shows talent does exist and that it does require development to see it full possibilities. To argue that either talent is not or that a disciplined student will not go far for lack of it is a fool's game at best. To hide behind this kind of tripe is in my view worse yet as the study was very poorly done and set up and I am surprised it ever got published. Than again these days there is alot of tripe getting published as the quality of research and education takes a very deep nose dive (medical school without gross anatomy, shudder but real).

 

Michael

[David Levine]

Than again these days there is alot of tripe getting published ....

You can say that again. Witness your post. Wouldn't you at least have to spell to get a doctorate?

I have a doctorate too. Big deal. All it means is that we did the work we were told to do.

Looking back on it it I wish now that I'd spent more time playing music.

 

Psychology is a science that is still very young and very arrogant.

Perhaps. I sense you are too...

[Michael Marino]

Than again these days there is alot of tripe getting published ....

You can say that again. Witness your post. Wouldn't you at least have to spell to get a doctorate?

I have a doctorate too. Big deal. All it means is that we did the work we were told to do.

Looking back on it it I wish now that I'd spent more time playing music.

 

Psychology is a science that is still very young and very arrogant.

Perhaps. I sense you are too...

 

Possibly can be considered that though at 41 not considered by many as young. I apologize for my spelling the hands don't work as well as they once did. Still I should have caught it. No, getting a Doctorate also requires the ability to dedicate the time and energy (though these days that can be argued, with online degrees and all). It still does not excuse a very poorly organized and structured piece of research that was than published at a level where the information there in could be used to support opinion in the public sector as it was done on this very site.

 

Thank you but the only things i have had published where poetry and a few non peer reviewed articles on health and fitness.

 

Michael

[michael sam wild]

Hi David

 

Funnily enough our Sunday paper 'The Observer' had a double page spread on Gladwell. He was the one who stated that 10,000 hours would get you there. I quote this on another thread in October , I think.

 

He also said that Obama put in the hard work and hours within an environment favourable to black americans, thus giving him the odds.

 

 

I've just been reading about Irish bards and their training ( In a piece written in the 17th C ) Just at the end of the great Gaelic bardic period, following the Engish conquests.

 

 

They had to submit themselves for a course with the masters. They were checked out for character, talent, , skill in writing, memory and performance . Then they went to a 'camp' where they were put in cells 'away from noise and the normal world' where they worked hard , learning in the dark to memorize, and had to be tested and subjected to performance before the bards, and within the local community for effectiveness and skill in entertainment and ability to play for dances. The locals sent food and money if they were satisfied, for the masters and the students,

 

After some months in 'The Cold Season' when there was no agricultural work, they went home and put it to use within their home clan and got on with the agricultural year.. Then they came back next season and did the same thing again and again if they could hack it. Sounds like a Noel Hill school!

 

Mike

 

Mike

[Dave Weinstein]

My personal peeve is the people who say, "I wish I had learned to play music as a child".

 

To which the only appropriate response is, "You dead yet?" What they really mean is that they wish they had already done the work.

 

Work is a necessity for expertise at anything.

 

I would classify "talent" as both an inclination towards something, and sort of an initial "rate of return" on early invested time. We tend to work more on things we enjoy, and early positive results also help reinforce the work.

 

I freely admit to being at best a mediocre musician. But I also don't practice as much as I should (half an hour or so a day just isn't enough).

[michael sam wild]

This fascinates me as a teacher and a parent and grandparent. What is it that grabs kids and makes some go for it and others back off. I have 5 boys and 3 have become musicians but not involved in trad. Are there other forces at work (hence social environmemt) Are there other forces at work?

 

I 'rejected' Irish music and went for Rock and Folk in the 50s and 60s, only to return in the 70s.

[Anglo-Irishman]

My personal peeve is the people who say, "I wish I had learned to play music as a child".

 

To which the only appropriate response is, "You dead yet?" What they really mean is that they wish they had already done the work.

 

Work is a necessity for expertise at anything.

 

Dave,

These people get on my wick, too

My response would be, "So why didn't you?" But I usually keep my trap shut. Because I know that there are other factors than inclination involved. Like parents who couldn't afford an instrument or tuition fees. Or who withheld the musical support until the school marks got better, which they didn't ...

 

What really peeves me is the line "I wish my father had made me carry on with music lessons when I wanted to stop." (My candid response - which I ALWAYS suppress: "Well, if you weren't musical enough to want to continue then, it was probably best for all concerned that you stopped!")

 

To my mind, work is not the only necessity for expertise. I believe that early conditioning is equally vital. Think of the language you started learning as a toddler, and think of the language you started learning at the age of 11. Are your levels of proficiency anything like comparable? Music, as we are repeatedly reminded, is a language

 

I would classify "talent" as both an inclination towards something, and sort of an initial "rate of return" on early invested time. We tend to work more on things we enjoy, and early positive results also help reinforce the work.

 

Very well put, IMO!

 

I freely admit to being at best a mediocre musician. But I also don't practice as much as I should (half an hour or so a day just isn't enough).

I can subscribe to that

 

Cheers,

John

[tzirtzi]

To my mind, work is not the only necessity for expertise. I believe that early conditioning is equally vital. Think of the language you started learning as a toddler, and think of the language you started learning at the age of 11. Are your levels of proficiency anything like comparable? Music, as we are repeatedly reminded, is a language

 

Not to make any particular point on the subject at hand but to jump in as a linguist(ics student) - regardless of the effects of early conditioning, these aren't necessarily comparable. Human beings have a critical period for language - that is, a period of time during which it is possible to make use of certain brain structures to learn a language natively. This isn't physically possible once this critical period has ended - so being taught a language in a classroom at 11 and learning an environmental language as a toddler (note: learning, not being taught) are necessarily methodologically completely different and have completely different mental outcomes. However important early conditioning is in musical ability, it doesn't result in different brain structures at the end of the process than music learning later in life does.

 

Though, all of that said, a thought occurs to me. The ability to appreciate rhythm appears to be innate in and (unlike the ability to distinguish speech sounds) unique to human beings. This isn't something that has to be learned like other areas of music as such but is a predetermined function of the brain. However not much research has yet been done into this (I think) and I'm pretty sure no-one has done research into whether it has a critical period in development - that really would explain an importance of early musical conditioning (and completely invalidate everything I've written above )... Of course, such research would be very hard to do.

Edited November 17, 2008 by tzirtzi

[Guest Peter Laban]

On the other hand, those who were immersed in music as a child have a headstart that is hard to overcome for late® starters. When children acquire music like they do language they'll have a fluency they may otherwise not reach (and they'll have a good headstart putting in the practice as well).

 

"Well, if you weren't musical enough to want to continue then, it was probably best for all concerned that you stopped!"

 

That's a bit harsh isn't it? My son is 15 and right now he doesn't take his concertina out as much as he did and he didn't want to go to Noel Hill this year either. He's quite musical though and he can lift a tune he has heard before quite easily. Other interests, girls, school. The yget in the way and have nothing to do with ' enough musicality to continue'.

[Simon H]

This is really no different to the nature vs nurture debate, and similarly the answer does not lie fully in either camp. There will be partly heritable traits which predispose the individual to the riogour of endless hours of practice, and the small intangible stepwise rewards that that can bring. Whilst those traits may have nothing to do with the common concept of talent, they may in fact distinguish the so called talented individual from the one who prefers to spend his or her time out in the sun climbing trees. To simply say that all it takes is 10,000 hrs is to assume that we are all the same - ready to be moulded. That has been demonstrated to be patently false. Its the individual being hard-wired to do the 10,000 hours that differentiates. I note too that recently published studies are wiping away the nonsense of gender similarity in mental function. Girls need different educational processes to boys through adolescent years to achieve their potential.

So while talent may be the wrong word, an innate ability and willingness to learn may predispose musicians to go that extra few thousand hours, just so someone can come up to them in the pub, clap them on the shoulder and say,

"see you, that wash magicc you got talent, you have, its a gift you've got, you know that man, a gift, bless you, that wash boooootiful."

Edited November 17, 2008 by Simon H

[Pete Dunk]

"see you, that wash magicc you got talent, you have, its a gift you've got, you know that man, a gift, bless you, that wash boooootiful."

That's frighteningly realistic Simon, perhaps you should take more water with it.

 

Sometimes I wonder if the whole 'talent' thing isn't more to do with a combination of aptitude, interest in the subject and a willingness to work hard. I've said it before but I have zero 'talent' and little aptitude; I love music - so there is the interest in the subject; I have the mindset to practice to the point of obsession but I only have the actual time to practice for an hour a day at most.

 

When I was younger I would often spend a whole evening several times a week practising guitar. Almost forty years on and now quite badly out of practice, the highlight of my playing career was when Tony Capstick commented on one of my folk club floor spots.

 

"Not bad kid, I didn't fall asleep 'til halfway through the second verse"

[catty]

The ability to appreciate rhythm appears to be innate ...

 

Quite so. 'Tis why some people "cannot" dance.

 

When we speak of "music," we are speaking of multiple phenomena--some more easliy acquired and others, not..

Edited November 18, 2008 by catty

[ceemonster]

"The real gift of talent is not the gift to be able to play, it is the love you have for the music. That's what takes you over the hurdles."

 

That gem comes from Paul Oscher, a blues man (I'm not using the term lightly) who lives in my city. Paul Oscher is about 60; he learned to play blues harmonica from an uncle at the age of 12 and spent his teens as a sideman for various Chicago blues musicians until meeting Muddy Waters backstage at the Apollo theatre and becoming a fulltime member of Waters' band. Oscher lived for years with Muddy Waters & a passel of blues musicians in Waters' own home on Chicago's southside, playing every waking minute. Point is, Oscher doesn't consider himself "gifted" in the sense of motor skills or pitch ability...he feels he got a "gift" from a higher power in the form of a passion for that music that kept him with it for years & years & years until somewhere along the way, he became....a blues musician. You have to listen & listen, and play & play...A LOT.....& it is precisely the love & passion (A LOT, say, an obsessive amount)....that keep you listening & playing enough to get there.....http://www.pauloscher.com/documents/po_bio.pdf.

Edited November 18, 2008 by ceemonster

[hjcjones]

Empirical observation suggest to me that talent does exist, in all activities and not just music. We have all seen someone in a class of beginners who seems to have a natural affinity, an intuitive understanding, an instinctive response which most of us have to work hard to develop. But talent without the hard work won't get you there. Hard work without the talent will get you a long way, but not to the very top.

 

You also need that love for the subject which will keep you going when it gets difficult (which it does, even for the talented). Some people have the talent but just aren't interested.

[Anglo-Irishman]

Not to make any particular point on the subject at hand but to jump in as a linguist(ics student) - regardless of the effects of early conditioning, these aren't necessarily comparable. Human beings have a critical period for language - that is, a period of time during which it is possible to make use of certain brain structures to learn a language natively. This isn't physically possible once this critical period has ended - so being taught a language in a classroom at 11 and learning an environmental language as a toddler (note: learning, not being taught) are necessarily methodologically completely different and have completely different mental outcomes. However important early conditioning is in musical ability, it doesn't result in different brain structures at the end of the process than music learning later in life does.

 

Tzirtzi,

To me, this paragraph is self-contradictory.

Your first statement seems to say that learning language and learning music are not comparable.

But what you say to support this is true of both language and music development.

The critical learning period is not only critical for language - it is critical for learning. And of course there is a difference between learning a language at school and learning one as a toddler - but this difference applies to music as well. You distinguish between learning as a toddler and being taught as an older child or adult. I don't know about you, but I was not taught music as a small child - I learned it "environmentally", as you put it. Later, I was taught both music and my mother tongue, but this teaching was more a systematic codification of what I already knew. For instance, I wrote my first tune at the time when I was struggling to get my brain wrapped around French, and before I had had any music theory. But, looking back at it now, though it wasn't the young Mozart by a long way, it did have that classic A-A-B-A structure of a typical song tune. I hadn't been taught to do it that way - but somehow I had learned it

 

I was, of course, very privileged. My parents both enjoyed making simple music and listening to complex music, and encouraged me to imitate them. I had almost as much music in my environment as I had language. So, later, I had the brain structures to dock my learned music theory onto. But I'm quite sure I'm not the only person who is priveleged in this way.

For others, who grew up in a musically deprived environment, music is a foreign language. If they have the talent, they can become quite fluent at it, but, as with any foreign language, this is "methodologically completely different and has a completely different mental outcome".

 

Though, all of that said, a thought occurs to me. The ability to appreciate rhythm appears to be innate in and (unlike the ability to distinguish speech sounds) unique to human beings.

Do you think so? Then how can a horse change so elegantly from a walk to a trot to a canter to a gallop, if it hasn't got an innate sense of rhythm?

 

Cheers,

John

[David Levine]

To say that "empirical observation" proves something is in this instance begging the question. You cannot argue that excellence proves that talent existed before the fact. If you say that without the hard work a player will not become accomplished -- and that therefore talent won't mean all that much anyway -- then talent might as well not exist at all.

We know that you cannot get "there" without hard work. It begs the question to say that without having talent as well the 10,000 hours would be of no help. How can you know this? Success (in the form of monetary reward) depends in large part on hustle and luck as well as on accomplishment. Talent has nothing to do with appearing on a world stage. I find the concept of talent to be not only useless but self-defeating as well. Talent is always something that is appealed to after the fact. It is much more helpful to deny that there is such a thing. Because then it is up to you rather than on something you can't help.

 

Based on their study, Fujioka and his colleagues reached a conclusion that musical training has an impact on the wiring of the brain in areas related to memory and attention. This matches up nicely with earlier studies showing that music students demonstrate better memory skills, even for non-music material, than their non-musical peers. They have thus demonstrated that there is more to the Suzuki Method—and instrumental training at a young age in general—than character building and getting children used to performing: it increases memory abilities by positively influencing brain wiring.

Opening Synapses

[Ishtar]

Do you think so? Then how can a horse change so elegantly from a walk to a trot to a canter to a gallop, if it hasn't got an innate sense of rhythm?

 

Because that's what a horse does! A horse that can't instinctively move around in a horsey way won't survive long in the wild. It may look rhythmic to us, but it has no choice - that brain-muscle coordination is necessary to stop it falling over. It could be the difference between life and death.

 

While a certain amount of co-ordination is also necessary for humans to function, individuals can get along without it, because we are able to survive in different ways - we can create tools and weapons, build protection, develop medicine, we're omnivorous, we can plan a survival strategy from our armchair/tree/cave.

 

So humans who can't run fast or who are clumsy and fall over can still live and breed, and (obviously) they pass their genes on. And we are the result! A planetful of mixed-ability mutts!

[tzirtzi]

Tzirtzi,

To me, this paragraph is self-contradictory.

Your first statement seems to say that learning language and learning music are not comparable.

But what you say to support this is true of both language and music development.

The critical learning period is not only critical for language - it is critical for learning.

 

People's ability to learn changes continuously as they age - brain pathways are more easily formed when young, thus learning is easier (although the more associations and previous experience when older actually also aids learning). But the term 'critical period' refers to the discrete period in which it is not just easy to learn language but possible at all. If a person isn't exposed to any language before a certain age (probably between 7 and 9 - obviously no actual experiments have been done to test this, only observations where children have been isolated by circumstance) it is impossible for them to acquire certain aspects of language at all (ability to acquire morphology seems to be lost first, then syntax, then lexis). If you have acquired one or more first languages (more properly, mother tongues, or L1s) then after this period has ended you can acquire a second, but it is a different process using different areas of the brain.

 

And of course there is a difference between learning a language at school and learning one as a toddler - but this difference applies to music as well. You distinguish between learning as a toddler and being taught as an older child or adult. I don't know about you, but I was not taught music as a small child - I learned it "environmentally", as you put it. Later, I was taught both music and my mother tongue, but this teaching was more a systematic codification of what I already knew. For instance, I wrote my first tune at the time when I was struggling to get my brain wrapped around French, and before I had had any music theory. But, looking back at it now, though it wasn't the young Mozart by a long way, it did have that classic A-A-B-A structure of a typical song tune. I hadn't been taught to do it that way - but somehow I had learned it

 

I quite agree with your description here - just not with the comparison with language. As a small child you are able to learn more readily and less consciously. Later on, you are then taught terminology and a structure for the information already acquired. However had you not been exposed to music as a small child it is not the case that you would be unable to learn later on - I know someone who started playing the fiddle at 40, having never done any music previously, and now plays in a band. Nor is it the case that music learned later on is learned in a qualitatively different way than music learned as child.

 

I was, of course, very privileged. My parents both enjoyed making simple music and listening to complex music, and encouraged me to imitate them. I had almost as much music in my environment as I had language. So, later, I had the brain structures to dock my learned music theory onto. But I'm quite sure I'm not the only person who is priveleged in this way.

For others, who grew up in a musically deprived environment, music is a foreign language. If they have the talent, they can become quite fluent at it, but, as with any foreign language, this is "methodologically completely different and has a completely different mental outcome".

 

Well... I would argue that it isn't - or at least there's no evidence that it is.

 

Though, all of that said, a thought occurs to me. The ability to appreciate rhythm appears to be innate in and (unlike the ability to distinguish speech sounds) unique to human beings.

Do you think so? Then how can a horse change so elegantly from a walk to a trot to a canter to a gallop, if it hasn't got an innate sense of rhythm?

 

Equally, every animal has a regular heartbeat. However, these are just automatic functions of the body which happen to generate a rhythm. Experiments have shown that a horse couldn't choose to walk, trot, canter or gallop in time with anything. Nor can any animal thus tested recognise or respond to rhythms - including animals very close to us, such as chimps etc.

 

EDIT: double posted with Ishtar, but I think that our posts generally agree .

 

The rhythm stuff I learnt from a psycholinguistics teacher last year - she said that one of her colleagues was in the process of investigating this apparent lack in non-human species and the possible connection between this and the uniqueness of human language. However, I don't think very much has yet been published on the subject - so this is a very debatable area.

Edited November 18, 2008 by tzirtzi