The Talent Myth

Talent- a special innate or developed aptitude for an expressed or implied activity usually of a creative or artistic nature


I believe Talent is a myth. This is my own personal belief, and I have had spirited discussions with friends, family and colleagues about it. It came up again the other day with a co-worker, this notion that people who pursue and succeed at music are somehow different from regular people. It comes up that the defining difference is "natural" or "god-given" talent, and I reject this notion. Maybe it is the liberal and democratic part of my being that does so. I want everyone to feel able to participate in the joy of making music, and not sit on the sidelines because of some perceived lack of "talent". When it comes to music, I believe that everyone and anyone can learn, and the only real limit to that learning is what I call affinity.

Early exposure to music of all kinds, and an expectation from parents that a child WILL play music can give a person an advantage out of the chute. I see this every day, where kids who come to start a band instrument succeed quickly because they have had piano lessons and/or the parents have exposed them to lots of music, especially live performances. Such students take success on the new instrument as a given; that they will have to work at it to succeed is also understood from day one.

But I have also seen students who have no early exposure to live music, or very little, have had no previous training, and whose parents have zero expectation of their child becoming a musician move to the head of the class. But is it talent that explains musical success where the groundwork is missing? I don't think so. I think it is that a student discovers he really LIKES making music. He likes fooling around with the flute  or cello at home, making attempts to get sound, dragging the bow across the strings, trying the buttons, figuring out how to play Jingle Bells or the first few notes of Happy Birthday or the USC fight song.

And no one at home tries to stop him. Nothing makes me sadder as a music teacher than when a child tells me she cannot play at home because a parent won't let her. The family lives in an apartment, or has a small baby who needs to sleep, or the parent can't stand the squeaks and squawks that are inevitable at first. Or there might be a toddler in the home who might damage the instrument, so it is put away in a safe place, which is, unfortunately, not accessible to the fourth-grader either. These impediments WILL keep a student from succeeding.

But if the child has access and loves it, he or she will succeed. There ARE students who try it for a while and discover it isn't their cup of tea, this blowing and scraping away on some piece of arcane equipment. Some don't even feel compelled to try; music doesn't have any pull for them. They become visual artists or actors or dancers or soccer stars or history experts or spelling buffs or scientists, because that is what they LOVE to do.

What makes one person like one thing and not another? I don't know the answer to that. Maybe we need to redefine "talent" as something closer to "desire".

Maybe the job of the music teacher is to make sure the student is having fun. Due to some scheduling issues last year, I have almost all beginners in my elementary classes this year. There are a bunch of them. What's fun for a group of 30 beginning violinists, or a beginning band? I think, and am basing this year's pedagogy on this, that what's fun is success. I have been keeping this idea in mind, focusing on basics and getting it right. Sitting up with good posture, forming good embouchure, playing in tune, using a "beautiful bow hand", starting and stopping together are all things easy to overlook in the throes of trying to get some music happening, but when made the focus of the lesson, can be achieved by everyone and create an atmosphere of teamwork and accomplishment. What is interesting to me is that I hear from kids and the parents of those kids that they are having fun!

I have to admit, I didn't really think about this as I was going into the new year. I was thinking more about crowd control, breaking things down so I could manage so many beginners at once. The added benefit of creating successful moments for my students is something that I didn't foresee, but am enjoying nonetheless.

Now I hope I can keep the fun going, because that's where their future lies. Talent-shmalent. If they are having fun, they are going to keep playing. And if they keep playing, then doors open into worlds of fun they can't even imagine yet.