talent or work? Case closed!

[MusicalSchizo]

Thanks for contributing to the discussion....

I already contributed, but you basically ignored all my points and provided no real explanation or evidence for your assertion that the article you posted "closed the case" which it clearly (to everyone but you) DID NOT. There are basically TWO researchers (Ward and Ericsson - I did additional, not-this-article research on the topic) who lean toward the assertions you make, who are studying this right now. The vast majority of other psychologists don't set aside/ignore talent (as defined by Merriam-Webster) like these men do in their studies, or as you do.

 

Still baffled why people won't accept that differences in learning speed CAN be explained. And still frustrated how people are obsessed of focusing on the difference in learning speed for the few first hours. A cross country runner doesn't care if he was a bit slow to learn to walk...

 

Differences in learning speed are what? What word would you use to describe something certain people seem to be inherently better at (or pick up more quickly) than others? Talent? Ability? Aptitude?

 

No one's saying that it's healthy to say "you can't do it" to someone (ESPECIALLY a child) who doesn't seem to immediately be getting better at something.

 

But Ericsson and Ward set aside the very concept of talent, and have yet to make a convincing case to the majority of psychologists who study this sort of thing for doing it. This is why the writer of the article featured the quote I snipped and posted here - to show, indeed, that the case is NOT closed.

 

Brian V.

[MusicalSchizo]

 

On a different topic, you may not be aware of this, but your posts often come off as condescending and obnoxious. -- Aik

 

 

Could be the language barrier, since he's Norwegian. I've noticed this a lot with non-native English speakers.

 

Brian V.

[Jersey Jack]

Worked Hard: Salieri

 

Not so much: Mozart

 

You tell me.

 

Bajazz, your perspective is to my mind 80-90% correct. But the desire to claim it all compromises the argument.

 

And I know Mozart probally worked hard, too. I'm merely bouncing off the cheesy movie we all remember. The talentless always find a way to do in the talented!

[Bajazz]

 

I already contributed, but you basically ignored all my points and provided no real explanation or evidence for your assertion that the article you posted "closed the case" which it clearly (to everyone but you) DID NOT.

I did reply to you. I did post a link to the article who refers to the research. So how excactly doesn't this research prove that it is the work you put into Singing that will make you a good singer?

 

I have never met or heard about any singer that suddenly started to sing beautiful without singing for hundreds of hours. I have never met any singers that haven't sung one note and then just suddenly started to sing.

 

My point is that talent (if it exists the way many people believe it) have very little to do with making a singer really good. If inborn talent would have a major impact on singing we would see singers that haven't tried to sing and then suddenly nailed it.

 

So my point in whether natural talent is useful or not is not interesting at all talking about my daughter. She is way beyond the point where any inborn abilities will speed up or slow down her learning. At this point her skill will be directly proportional to the 10 000 rule.

 

The vast majority of other psychologists don't set aside/ignore talent (as defined by Merriam-Webster) like these men do in their studies, or as you do.

So that makes them right. Just because thing is controversial, it doesn't make it wrong. Often new controversial theories are based by research pushing away old theories who often are based upon assumptions. This also match the fact that I've never seen any real concrete explanation of "talent" in scientific way.

 

I'm still awaiting to see link to any research or explanation in talents role of mastering a skill.....

 

 

Differences in learning speed are what? What word would you use to describe something certain people seem to be inherently better at (or pick up more quickly) than others? Talent? Ability? Aptitude?

Any word you want, I'm not arguing with definitions, names or anything.

My point has always been, and still is that there is no point in emphasizing talent, learning speed, ability or aptitude.

My point is that this difference will even out very fast

My point is that learning to sing has everything to do with work and none to do with [learning speed, or Insert word here] in the first few hours

My point is that worrying about [Chosen word] only will damage your focus

My point is that work alone one can make you a great singer

My point is that work is the only thing you need, no talent required to be a great singer

My point is that talent alone never had or will never make anyone a great singer.

[Bajazz]

Worked Hard: Salieri Not so much: Mozart You tell me.

Mozart had thousand of hours way before the age kids normally start their training. Mozart had broken the 10 000 limit way before the age I took up guitar. Mozart had broken the limit way before he started playing concerts professionally. Mozart is a perfect example of hard work. Sorry if I broke some illusions here......

[GreenAsJade]

 

Let's take singing as a example. Have you been at a hospital in the newborn division? No newborn can do anything that reminds of singing. All they do is scream, and everyone of them is perfectly able to scream with strong voices, very loud, but no one sings. How can you say that the singing ability is with born?

 

 

Ah hah. Here we have the root of the misunderstanding.

 

No-one is born with the ability to sing.

 

"He has a talent in singing" doe NOT mean "he is good at singing".

 

People are born with diffferent abilities to _LEARN TO sing_.

 

And "he has a talent in singing" means "he is good at learning to sing quickly"... he is talented - he picks it up fast and excells quickly.

 

Note that this is what I consider the sensible definition of the word "talent". It means "the apptitude, the natural temperament, that a person has for a skill - measured by the ease at which they can learn the skill".

 

As I mentioned before, people mistake or confuse apptitude to learn a skill with the the actual skill level achieved.

 

"He is talented" does _not_ mean "he is good at". He might be talented, but he won't be good at unless he does some work.

 

Like babies learning to sing. The talented baby will learn to sing with less work than the less talented. The less talented may end up being a better singer (more skilled) through lots of work.

 

It's hard to have a sensible discussion about talent if you don't have a shared understanding of what the word means.

 

"Talent" is not a myth, it is a concrete thing: it is the measure of how easily a person can learn a skill. Clearly different people learn different skills with differing amounts of ease - some are more talented than others.

 

Regards,

 

GaJ

[MusicalSchizo]

 

I did reply to you. I did post a link to the article who refers to the research. So how excactly doesn't this research prove that it is the work you put into Singing that will make you a good singer?

 

Because it's not the only research ever done on the topic? Because it's not widely peer-reviewed? Do you know ANYTHING about scientific research? Good Lord, man...

 

 

I have never met or heard about any singer that suddenly started to sing beautiful without singing for hundreds of hours. I have never met any singers that haven't sung one note and then just suddenly started to sing.

 

Please explain Christina Aguilera. She could sing beautifully when she was three years old, and she's worked her ass off since then to get better and better. Just because YOU haven't experienced something doesn't mean it never happened. Again, Good LORD, man...

 

 

My point is that talent (if it exists the way many people believe it) have very little to do with making a singer really good. If inborn talent would have a major impact on singing we would see singers that haven't tried to sing and then suddenly nailed it.

 

How about my own personal example: I never really sang until college, and then, after only a teeny bit of singing in the shower and in the car every now and then over the course of a few months, I decided I wanted to take voice class with my friend who was a very experienced and good tenor singer. I auditioned to skip the first phase of voice class (since they only offered part 1 in the fall, and I wanted to take it in the spring with my friend) and had a very experienced voice teacher, after hearing me sing, ask me how many years I'd been in choir, because I was really good. With basically NO WORK. That's not talent? I mean, I've gotten a lot better since then with all the work I've put in, but I was able to do it pretty much from the start...

 

 

So my point in whether natural talent is useful or not is not interesting at all talking about my daughter. She is way beyond the point where any inborn abilities will speed up or slow down her learning. At this point her skill will be directly proportional to the 10 000 rule. So that makes them right. Just because thing is controversial, it doesn't make it wrong. Often new controversial theories are based by research pushing away old theories who often are based upon assumptions. This also match the fact that I've never seen any real concrete explanation of "talent" in scientific way.

 

This does nothing to support your opinion that talent is a myth.

 

 

I'm still awaiting to see link to any research or explanation in talents role of mastering a skill.....

 

This gets right to my point - people being able to do things passably is not the same thing as people being able to do things masterfully. And people with the "mythical" inborn talents generally excel more than those without them, possibly because of environmental factors that you describe, but also possibly because we gravitate toward things that affirm our beliefs about who we are, and we tend to stick with things that we are pretty good at.

 

 

Any word you want, I'm not arguing with definitions, names or anything.

 

Semantics.

 

 

My point has always been, and still is that there is no point in emphasizing talent, learning speed, ability or aptitude.

 

I don't disagree with that...I just think saying it doesn't exist is borderline moronic.

 

 

My point is that this difference will even out very fast

 

"Very fast" is pushing it.

 

 

My point is that learning to sing has everything to do with work and none to do with [learning speed, or Insert word here] in the first few hours

 

I don't really agree with that.

 

 

My point is that worrying about [Chosen word] only will damage your focus

 

I agree with this.

 

 

My point is that work alone one can make you a great singer

 

All other things being equal (which they're not), sure.

 

 

My point is that work is the only thing you need, no talent required to be a great singer

 

Perhaps. I don't imagine you've ever seen American Idol (or Norwegian Idol?). Lots of well-educated, well-practiced singers on there who still suck donkey balls.

 

 

My point is that talent alone never had or will never make anyone a great singer.

 

I can't argue with that. But then again, no one here has.

 

Brian V.

[SevenString]

I was singing on stages in clubs by the time I was five. My mother and father did not teach me to sing. I had no "Papa Mozart" rapping my knuckles every time I made a mistake. It just came out. No effort.

 

I had relative pitch since I was a toddler, and perfect pitch soon after that, and could harmonize without effort. By the time I was seven, I was getting paid to play and sing in bands with adult musicians. Things that other more experienced musicians struggle with came to me without even trying.

 

Music just "happened" with me, almost like breathing. Yes, later in life, I certainly spent time and effort improving certain aspects of my playing and singing, but for the most part, it just happens. I don't even have to really think about it, and I never did.

 

And on to the next generation, why did my youngest daughter, as a 1st grader, get the lead role of Maria in her school's production of "The Sound of Music", beating out every other girl in her school (even 5th and 6th graders) for the role?

 

It isn't because she drilled drilled drilled on vocal exercises until she could "squeak by" and "sort of" carry a tune. Her mother and I never coached her on singing at all. She got the role because she has this natural, amazing voice, and an innate ability to listen to anyone from Julie Andrews to Aretha Franklin, and imitate their styles, pitch-perfect, without even trying.

 

I was not born a biological robot from an assembly line, just waiting to be soft-programmed. I am a unique individual who's predispositions to excel in certain areas were formed when my father's DNA first met my mother's.

 

Anyone who has ever had a talent, an ability that "comes easy" for them, understands this at a deep, almost cellular level.

[GreenAsJade]

 

My point is that work alone one can make you a great singer

 

 

This is clearly nonsense, if it is supposed to mean "any person in the world can become a great singer with enough work".

 

It would be like saying "anyone can become a great weightlifer with enough work". Sorry, some people aren't born with the necessary equipment, bodily or mentally.

 

Just as it is wrong to tell someone that they can't be a good singer because they are not talented, it is also wrong to tell everyone in the world that each of us can become a great singer if we work hard enough. Why would you even want to put out such a message?

 

The world is not a place where everyone is born equally suited for everything.

Everyone has the right for an equal opporuntity to do something - that is a human right (which can be debated, but I'm not debating it). This does NOT translate to "everyone will be able to do the same things, if they just work hard enough".

 

Why does anyone want to tell everyone that, even without first checking if they have the right equipement, they can be great at something?

 

This is so different to giving each person that wants to try something a fair chance. Of course do that. Encourage people to fulfil their whole potential (which I think is the OPs key concern - to enable not disable that).

 

But don't confuse the issue with blanket generalisations that are clearly nonsense and detract from credibility of the real important message.

 

This would be my advice to someone passionate about enabling people to achieve their best.

 

GaJ

[Bajazz]

People are born with diffferent abilities to _LEARN TO sing_.

You mean the recently discovered "learn-to-sing"-gene?

 

The moment we are born, we start to learn and learn to learn. There is a mass of impressions, we listen and scream, and by the feedback we start to copy. The sum of all this feedback, listening, vocalizing and how the environment tackles this develops our "talent".

 

This explains this phenomen: People born in countries where they have micro-toned scales (36 notes or more notes in an octave, typically eastern countries) and being adopted in the west will learn to sing the western style.

 

If singing ability was something genetic they would tend to divide the scale differently.

[Bajazz]

 

The world is not a place where everyone is born equally suited for everything. Everyone has the right for an equal opporuntity to do something - that is a human right (which can be debated, but I'm not debating it). This does NOT translate to "everyone will be able to do the same things, if they just work hard enough".

So when someone struggles with something we should kill their desires by telling them "Sorry, you won't make it cause you lack the necessary talent"

 

As you all see here, everyone has their own definition of the phenomena talent. It is nothing that can be measured. The only thing in being a singer that can be measured is work. Following the 10 000 hour rule you will become a great singer. It is the only thing that is a fact.

[Bajazz]

sing beautifully when she was three years old, and she's worked her ass off since then to get better and better. Just because YOU haven't experienced something doesn't mean it never happened. Again, Good LORD, man...

Do you know how many hours she had sung at the time she started singing beautifully?

[isaac42]

 

Research HAS PROVED that what matters in the long run is work, HARD WORK! There are no shortcuts. There is no talent thing that will help you skip the work.

 

 

I've known people who worked long and hard at things and never got good. Technically proficient, sure, but never found the spark that made it music. They just didn't have it. What they didn't have is what I call talent.

[isaac42]

Thanks for contributing to the discussion.... Still baffled why people won't accept that differences in learning speed CAN be explained. And still frustrated how people are obsessed of focusing on the difference in learning speed for the few first hours. A cross country runner doesn't care if he was a bit slow to learn to walk...

 

Sure it can.

 

Some people have a talent for learning! :poke:

[isaac42]

 

I think that you are the one who is confused. Most people don't associate talent with some mystical ability that allows someone to pick up an instrument and play with no practice whatsoever (August Rush B.S.). Most people, in my experience, associate it with the ease and rapidity with which someone can learn a certain skill. Some people are able to learn certain things more quickly than others. I have seen children that are more gifted (learn more quickly) in math/science related areas than liberal or fine arts areas...and I think you might have meant inborn, rather than withborn. Sometimes physical differences do matter. They can make a particular activity easier or harder. If you want to be on the line in HS football and you are 5'5'' and 120lbs, then you've got a problem. On a different topic, you may not be aware of this, but your posts often come off as condescending and obnoxious. -- Aik

 

 

I have often wondered why, when physical differences are so obvious, that some people insist that all other differences are illusory.

[isaac42]

One final post, before I go.

 

For the last three years, I was taking voice lessons from a former professional singer. Helped me quite a bit. He told me about a woman he had been teaching, a mutual acquaintance. Of her, he said, "I used to think I could teach anyone to sing. I don't believe that anymore."

 

Some people just don't have it. Extrapolating from that, it seems likely that some people have more than others. Lots of basketball players have worked long and hard, but they don't become as good as Jordan was. Why not? I say they don't have as much talent.

[MusicalSchizo]

Just give me the link

I would suggest you read any academic book on the subject of talent - there are about a million out there, all with many notes that will lead you to studies that show you're wrong in making an assumption that there's no such thing.

 

Do you know how many hours she had sung at the time she started singing beautifully?

How on earth can a three-year-old practice for 10,000 hours?

 

I think you need to read up on fundamentalism, because you're a fundamentalist about this subject. People have repeatedly showed you that there is still a controversy on this issue, and you ignore them...like Ward and Ericsson's studies are the gospel, when they're merely ONE STUDY on the subject, and even their own conclusions don't support the dogmatic approach you take to their research.

 

CASE IS NOT CLOSED. TALENT EXISTS.

 

I'm going to troll like you are now, only for the other side:

 

CASE IS CLOSED! No one is the same - everyone has different things they're good at, and many of those things are indicated by their genetic makeup, whether they be cognitive abilites or physical ones. TALENT OVERRIDES EVERYTHING...

 

Brian V.

[strat2]

Einstein, Mozart, Chopin, Oppenheimer.

 

I don't think genius is learned.....I could study Math and Music for the rest of my life and never hope to achieve the abilities of the above.

 

I thought we went through this ................

[Bajazz]

Please do me a favour and read my first post. I posted a link to an article, and suddenly people are arguing with me over research done. I think you should contact the original researchers and scientists and argue with them instead!

[GreenAsJade]

No, I think we have already pointed out that the article doesn't say what you say it says.

 

No point in going over and over that.

 

The article says that practice goes a long way, further than the researchers might have thought.

 

It does not say anything about whether people have different latent abilities to learn.

 

GaJ

[GreenAsJade]

Well well well. I just found this at the bottom of the article

 

 

Dr. Gardner said: "I taught piano for many years, and there's an enormous difference between those who practice dutifully and get a little better every week, and those students who break away from the pack. There's plenty of room for innate talent to make a difference over and above practice time. Mozart was not like you and me."

 

 

Case closed.

 

GaJ

[Bajazz]

Dr. Gardner's quote is not a part of the Ericsson and Charness study, he is a psychologist that argue their research. But I still haven't found any research or studies from him to back up that quote, thus making it a point of view.

 

In his 1993 study Dr. Ericsson found that by age 20 top-level violinists in music academies had practiced a lifetime total of about 10,000 hours, while those who were slightly less accomplished had practiced an average of about 7,500 hours.

 

 

 

"It can take 10 years of extensive practice to excel in anything," said Dr. Simon. "Mozart was 4 when he started composing, but his world-class music started when he was about 17."

 

 

 

Dr. Charness, comparing the rankings of 107 competitors in the 1993 Berlin City Tournament, found that the more time they spent practicing alone, the higher their ranking as chess players.

 

 

 

As has long been known, the extensive training of an elite athlete molds the body to fit the demands of a given sport. What has been less obvious is the extent of these changes. "The sizes of hearts and lungs, joint flexibility and bone strength all increase directly with hours of training," said Dr. Ericsson. "The number of capillaries that supply blood to trained muscles increases."

 

 

 

Until very recently, researchers believed that the percentage of muscle fiber types was more than 90 percent determined by heredity. Fast-twitch muscles, which allow short bursts of intense effort, are crucial in sports like weight lifting and sprinting, while slow-twitch muscles, richer in red blood cells, are essential for endurance sports like marathons. "Muscle fibers in those muscles can change from fast twitch to slow twitch, as the sport demands," said Dr. Ericsson. Longitudinal studies show that years of endurance training at champion levels leads athletes' hearts to increase in size well beyond the normal range for people their age.

 

 

 

The most contentious claim made by Dr. Ericsson is that practice alone, not natural talent, makes for a record-breaking performance. "Innate capacities have very little to do with becoming a champion," said his colleague, Dr. Charness. "What's key is motivation and temperament, not a skill specific to performance.

 

 

These are the results of their study, and Gardners counter-quote is added at the bottom, to illustrate that it's a controversial subject.

 

But the idea that the earth was not the universe center was also controversial. Even long after research had shown the evidence, scientists tried to come up with theories about the wrong movements of the other planets and sun to support the idea that the earth still was center.

[Bajazz]

I'm going to troll like you are now, only for the other side: CASE IS CLOSED! No one is the same - everyone has different things they're good at, and many of those things are indicated by their genetic makeup, whether they be cognitive abilites or physical ones. TALENT OVERRIDES EVERYTHING...

At least, this troll links to studies and research....

[Bajazz]

One final post, before I go. For the last three years, I was taking voice lessons from a former professional singer. Helped me quite a bit. He told me about a woman he had been teaching, a mutual acquaintance. Of her, he said, "I used to think I could teach anyone to sing. I don't believe that anymore."

Maybe he didn't have the talent as a teacher....?

 

Seriously, Not all teachers can teach anyone. I've had students that are seen as hard learners blossom up and developing as hell, when doing things in a way that cathces them.

[Bajazz]

I could study Math and Music for the rest of my life and never hope to achieve the abilities of the above.

EXCACTLY How do you know????