How do you know if you have talent?

jim stone · Post by **jim stone** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 7:07 pm

And when you are a great
flute player, I will
accompany you on the spoons,
if you'll kindly let me. All the best

CatherineQ · Post by **CatherineQ** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 9:51 pm

I would be absolutely honored Jim.

All the best to you too,

Catherine

energy · Post by **energy** » Tue Feb 04, 2003 11:24 pm

On 2003-02-01 23:10, peeplj wrote:
I've got this crazy, old-fashioned idea that each of us has something of great value we can contribute.

Actually, Jim, that's a very new-fashioned idea.

Doirlinn · Post by **Doirlinn** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 3:44 am

Beautiful, Catherine.

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 7:09 am

On 2003-02-05 00:24, energy wrote:
On 2003-02-01 23:10, peeplj wrote:
I've got this crazy, old-fashioned idea that each of us has something of great value we can contribute.
Actually, Jim, that's a very new-fashioned idea.

Well, to me it's old-fashioned, because I first heard it from a wonderful old teacher...when I was in 2nd grade.

I'm 37 now...and that puts it back a bit, though I suppose the dinosaurs were <i>probably</i> dead by then.

It was a different world then. We had manned flights to the moon. There was no Internet; instead, when people wanted to know something they either asked someone who was supposed to know, or they went to the library themselves and researched it. People met to chat, but it was in person, and usually over coffee, and, unfortunately, cigarrettes.

In school we said the Pledge of Alleigance every morning and sang patriotic songs before we sat down. There were fire drills, which school kids still have, and there were Bomb drills, which they don't, where we would all sit under our desk facing away from the window, head down, hands over ears. The spectre of nuclear war overshadowed almost every part of our growing up.

I had my first "date" in first grade, though nobody knew about it.

During lunch, a pretty little girl named Sharon and I held hands and fed each other our PBJ's and giggled like mad. Looking back, it was one of the better dates I had, at any age. Sharon is dead now, of breast cancer, and we grew apart in school and were never close friends after first grade, which I regret.

Anyhow, I'm sitting here shuffling through old memories like a much-dealt deck of old soft-cornered playing cards, while what I've got to do is come back to the present and get ready for work.

Thanks for stirring some good old memories in me, though.

I suppose I should have some flute-related content to this post, so I'll add that my Hammy hasn't darkned much (yet anyway) and still has a lovely visible grain. It is a phenomenally good flute, lovely to play and hear and to look at.

Best wishes,

--James
http://www.flutesite.com

Gordon · Post by **Gordon** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 8:46 am

Unfortunately for me, James, to me heading toward 45, you're a bit young...
Gordon

susnfx · Post by **susnfx** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 10:07 am

No, Jim, kids today don't have bomb drills, but fear is still a huge part of their lives. Fourteen years ago my daughter, who was in second grade at the time, told me they had "drill day" at school: fire drill, earthquake drill, and "a drill for when a man comes on the playground and starts shooting at us." Absolutely true. That's when we moved from southern California back to somewhat more isolated Utah.
Susan
(sorry for deviating from the topic at hand)

peeplj · Post by **peeplj** » Wed Feb 05, 2003 10:15 am

On 2003-02-05 11:07, susnfx wrote:
No, Jim, kids today don't have bomb drills, but fear is still a huge part of their lives. Fourteen years ago my daughter, who was in second grade at the time, told me they had "drill day" at school: fire drill, earthquake drill, and "a drill for when a man comes on the playground and starts shooting at us." Absolutely true. That's when we moved from southern California back to somewhat more isolated Utah.
Susan
(sorry for deviating from the topic at hand)

No problem. It all sort of links up anyway, how you grow up, how you view yourself, how you value yourself--all of these things will sum up to whether or not you believe in yourself, which I think is a big part of "talent," and brings us back squarely on topic.

Susan, I think I would prefer the bomb drills any day over the "armed madman" drills.

I don't think the bomb drills or the ever-present awareness of the posibility of nuclear war ever produced the same level of anxiety that the possibility of an armed intruder would.

Mainly the fear I had in school was of a few of the other students; my motto back then was "Meet interesting people and run like hell."

Best wishes,

--James
http://www.flutesite.com

Doc Jones · Post by **Doc Jones** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 7:41 am

Shinichi Suzuki wrote a book called "Nutured by Love" about his theories of "Talent Education".

This is the same Suziki that developed the famous Suzuki violin method which creates all of those little three-year-old kids that can play Beethoven flawlessly.

I am an Irish fiddler. WHen my daughter, a good fiddler herself, started taking lessons with a local Suzuki teacher I gave her a lot of ribbing. I have had to eat my words.

Read the book. His theory is that "talent" can be learned. He never required any testing or talent evaluation for any child that entered his school. In his opinion they could all learn it and excell.

There are, no doubt, brilliant prodigies in the world. But I believe anyone that wants to excell at something can do so with sufficient hard work and determination.

Doc

Jens_Hoppe · Post by **Jens_Hoppe** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 9:18 am

But I believe anyone that wants to excell at something can do so with sufficient hard work and determination.

Quite possibly true. However, the "fuzzy" factor in your statement is that of <i>sufficient hard work and determination</i>. What if "sufficient" means you have to spend hours each day for the rest of your life in order to excell? Probably not practical... In my mind, there is very little difference between "can't be done" and "can be done, but not with the time available".

Jens

totst · Post by **totst** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 9:35 am

What if "sufficient" means you have to spend hours each day for the rest of your life in order to excell? Probably not practical...

Jens

Well, there are people nowadays who practice 10-12 hours a day. If it means that much to you, you will put in the time. I don't think many "virtuosos" thought/think about being practical. They just had something they needed to express and had to find a way to let it all out. My thoughts.

LeeMarsh · Post by **LeeMarsh** » Thu Feb 06, 2003 9:58 pm

First, Cara thanks for the link to the related discussion. I lot of what I wanted to say here was said there. So I thought what else to add?

Catherine, my contribution ...

On 2003-02-04 17:53, CatherineQ wrote:
I have really enjoyed ... I decided to ... just surrender myself to the music and my flute. ... I learned a song, by heart ... I actually found my fingers moving without me even thinking about it. It was at that moment that I realized, ... I have been given a gift... the love of music and the desire to play it ... And one day I'm going to be great.

Why one day, why not every day?

One day you surrendered to the music and let that which in inside you come out, connecting you 'by heart'. You found the greatness in the music and made it part of you. This is something you can have everyday. The heart in music is not that emotional romantic warm fuzzy. This heart is more inclusive; it is the essence of a thing. Connect with the essence of the music and the fingers and breath will catch on quickly.

I would bet that your teacher thought you had a Great lesson that day. Maybe the greatness wasn't in your learning to move fingers and play a tune quicker, maybe the greatness is in connecting to it more fully than you had in the past.

So every day
Be Great
and ...

chas · Post by **chas** » Fri Feb 07, 2003 11:27 am

Wow, lots of interesting stuff. I know I'm getting into it kind of late. I'm surprised nobody has quoted Edison: Genius is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. King Crimson said: Discipline is not an end in itself, but a means to an end.

And, getting back to Piper's somewhat tongue in cheek remarks about talent equalling making money. I know it's quite fashionable to cite someone like Britney Spears as a counter example, that here's someone with no talent making huge gobs of money. But, while I have no respect for the music she makes, I think she's hugely talented both as an entertainer and a marketer, even if it's mostly by surrounding herself with the right handlers.

And there are broader definitions of music. John Cage often asserted that EVERYONE makes music -- whether it's on the flute, babies banging pans, impatient people twiddling their fingernails on tabletops, or a pianist sitting at the piano not playing it so that people can hear crickets chirping and leaves rustling in the wind. This may sound like a wacky idea, but Stephen Jay Gould said something similar in a Natural History column a few years ago. American youth are supposedly behind everybody else in science, but really only in science as narrowly and somewhat arbitrarily defined by the tests that are given. These tests completely ignore other things, like immersing oneself and learning everything about dinosaurs, gardening, or other things that really are science and are very good preparation for further education.

Charlie