Talent Vs Hard Work

[shponglefan]

Originally Posted by Jack Duelisis

I think Bach made a statement about this : "I worked hard. Anyone who works as hard as I did can achieve the same results. "

It was easy to say. He had more talent that most of us would ever dream to have.

Talent, some. But most of what he did was a learned skill. That, plus the fortune to be born into a musically-focused family and with access to resources the average person didn't have.

[Joe Haze]

Millions and millions of folks can and DO produce reasonable enough product for broadcast or to jump start a career.

But you need business skills, funding and a killer team around you - for sustained visibility, income and staying power.

Yes, Yes ...and Yes!

[totalgear]

[Jack Duelisis]

Originally Posted by shponglefan

Talent, some. But most of what he did was a learned skill.

That is an incredibly bold statement.

I guess We'll have to disagree on this. I mean I wouldn't dare to state that most of Bach talent could be resumed to: "most of what he did was a learned skill".

Humanity have witnessed very hard working musicians and composers.

Did we came across that many J.S.Bach so far ?

[nuthinupmysleeve]

Originally Posted by Jack Duelisis

I guess We'll have to disagree on this. I mean I wouldn't dare to state that most of Bach talent could be resumed to: "most of what he did was a learned skill".

Read Gladwell's "Outliers" and then come back and tell me what you think! He makes a good case for it being more about skill development.

[Jack Duelisis]

Originally Posted by nuthinupmysleeve

Read Gladwell's "Outliers" and then come back and tell me what you think! He makes a good case for it being more about skill development.

Ok, not saying I won't read it. But still: do I have to read this book to make my own personal educated opinion of J.S.Bach talent, being a trained musician, arranger and music producer myself ?

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by shponglefan

Talent, some. But most of what he did was a learned skill. That, plus the fortune to be born into a musically-focused family and with access to resources the average person didn't have.

.

Bach was operating in an entirely different universe than 99.9999% of all musicians.

Talent for guys like him, or Mozart - creating symphonies when he was a mere child - is a level most musicians will simply never know.

To try and quantify pure genius is naive.

But if it makes you feel better...

The problem is - once again - neither talent NOR hard work (or even both combined) - are recipes for success.

Not by a long shot.

.

[Chris Lago]

Originally Posted by Sqye

.

Bach was operating in an entirely different universe than 99.9999% of all musicians.

Talent for guys like him, or Mozart - creating symphonies when he was a mere child - is a level most musicians will simply never know.

To try and quantify pure genius is naive.

But if it makes you feel better...

The problem is - once again - neither talent NOR hard work (or even both combined) - are recipes for success.

Not by a long shot.

.

I agree, the guy was beyond genius.

[nuthinupmysleeve]

Originally Posted by Jack Duelisis

Ok, not saying I won't read it. But still: do I have to read this book to make my own personal educated opinion of J.S.Bach talent, being a trained musician, arranger and music producer myself ?

You don't have to read any single source to form an educated opinion. However, one might argue you need to study a source other than anecdotal observation to truly have an "educated" opinion.

I believe most people completely overestimate their ability to think logically and underestimate the amount of confirmation bias they are subject to.

Just consider all the people who swear they can hear a difference between XX and XX... and in testing, they cannot beat random in blind testing.

I'm not saying put all your faith in Mr. Gladwell, I'm saying it's another data point that blew me away.

[nuthinupmysleeve]

Originally Posted by Sqye

Bach was operating in an entirely different universe than 99.9999% of all musicians.

Talent for guys like him, or Mozart - creating symphonies when he was a mere child - is a level most musicians will simply never know.

To try and quantify pure genius is naive.

Again, I'm not saying I disagree with you, but I'd like to see what you think after reading "Outliers" as well.

[Dean Roddey]

You also have to be careful with the word 'genius'. Various composers we call genius today weren't considered so at the time, or at various times between their deaths and our time. A lot of people probably during the romantic era would have considered Bach boring, mechanical and uptight. And probably plenty of folks since Mozart's death considered him fairly prissy and light weight.

And there's the whole issue that I mentioned above. Once there's been a Mozart or Beethoven or Bach, then it's hard for there ever to be another one. They had a lot more low hanging fruit to work with, and fruit that was still solidly in the tonal world. There may have been plenty of people since then who had equal amounts of talent, but they aren't considered a Mozart of Bach just like no one today is likely to be considered a Babe Ruth, despite the fact that many players could toast him technically. And almost no one can do tonal classical music outside of the shadow of great composers of the past because a huge amount of the tonal pie was eaten by those folks.

Anyhoo, nothing to do with the current topic really, just making a side point on the side points being made.

[Jimbob131313]

What if your talent is being stifled ?

[Sqye]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

You also have to be careful with the word 'genius'. Various composers we call genius today weren't considered so at the time, or at various times between their deaths and our time. A lot of people probably during the romantic era would have considered Bach boring, mechanical and uptight. And probably plenty of folks since Mozart's death considered him fairly prissy and light weight.

And there's the whole issue that I mentioned above. Once there's been a Mozart or Beethoven or Bach, then it's hard for there ever to be another one. They had a lot more low hanging fruit to work with, and fruit that was still solidly in the tonal world. There may have been plenty of people since then who had equal amounts of talent, but they aren't considered a Mozart of Bach just like no one today is likely to be considered a Babe Ruth, despite the fact that many players could toast him technically. And almost no one can do tonal classical music outside of the shadow of great composers of the past because a huge amount of the tonal pie was eaten by those folks.

Anyhoo, nothing to do with the current topic really, just making a side point on the side points being made.

.

When you say "toast Bach technically"...

Find me a composer since Bach who has been able to improvise 13 voices of counterpoint simultaneously.

I triple dare ya.

This is what I mean by musical genius.

In terms of other technical areas, of course there have been changes in harmonic, rhythmic and of course, arrangement trends - but there does not exist (and has not existed for hundreds of years) the most sophisticated composer alive today who doesn't tip a hat to Bach for sheer simultaneous calculation in improvisation and voice leading ability.

Not Coltrane, Debussy, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Wagner, Berg, Bruch, Rachmaninoff, Poulenc, or Babbit.

You can say Mozart and Beethoven added a few more instruments to enlarge their orchestras. You can say Wagner's orchestrations and vertical harmony were more sophisticated. You can say Stravinsky, Bartok, Ravel and Gershwin brought new modality, texture and rhythm to their designs. You can argue Cage, Babbit, Glass and Sun Ra brought new levels of energy, spirituality and concept to their presentation. And you can argue Miles, Trane and McCoy took mostly linear improvisation to new levels. Etc.

But NONE of these guys were capable of improvising so many voices in such a carefully and perfectly structured way.

The sheer density of spur of the moment musical ability is present in the most capable organists and musical directors, of which Bach was certainly the most advanced we know of in our history.

An organist and choir director's ability to sight read at tempo while transposing in all keys and clefs, conducting a choir and ensemble, playing three keyboards with bass pipes, perhaps singing as well - AND IMPROVISING - is beyond even most normal contemporary musicians' concept of multi-tasking.

Add to this one the largest bodies of work composed by ANY composer - including mountains of some of the most advanced harmonic and voice leading studies for keyboard - and 225 cantatas composed for consecutive Sunday performances (nearly 4.5 years, and each cantata almost an hour of some of the most beautifully arranged music).

There is no doubt, sir, that JS Bach was a highly unique phenomenon in our history.

Most great musicians now are lucky if they can improvise two or three voices - and at a much lower harmonic and contrapuntal level.

Just sayin'.

Genius is genius.

Just because Newton and Pythagoras did what they did a long time ago, does not negate their genius.

.

[kennybro]

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that nearly any intelligent person can learn to structure and arrange the technical aspects of Mozart's 40th symphony through practice, study and hard work.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that no one will ever "learn" to create the perfection of emotional melodic structure in Mozart's 40th through any amount of hard work and practice. Inspiration is not a practiced thing. Nobody quite knows what it is or from where it comes.

I know people from when I went to music school who worked their ever living asses off, 8 to 10 hours a day for months, trying to create a single important short symphonic work. Not one ever succeeded. Everyone's work, no matter how hard they toiled, sweated and bled, ended up sounding like cheezy movie soundtrack music. People like Mozart popped important pieces off daily, like they were bodily functions. And with most genius artists; painters, sculptors poets and musicians, the power to do that diminishes with age. It doesn't get better, as would be the case if practice and hard work made perfect.

It just is. Or it just isn't.

[Dean Roddey]

But you find it a perfect emotional melodic structure because you were exposed to it because he was already famous by the time you were born. He was presented to you as an incredibly auspicious artist. But of course lots of people would rather put hot needles in their eyes than listen to a Mozart symphony, so as with the 'best pre-amp' type threads, genius is a completely subjective thing.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE both of them. But one reason I love them is because at some point they were selected by history and most of their contemporaries were discarded as inferior, so I never heard or heard of any of those discarded people, while their music was used in all sorts of situations which lent their own emotional impact to the music.

[joelpatterson]

You make it sound like there's an arbitrary, pin-the-needle-on-the-donkey element here-- not so. Mozart was not "presented as a genius" in the same way David Cassidy was-- he toiled in major obscurity, died a failure. It was a consensus of succeeding generations that he'd put some stuff together in a noteworthy and moving way.

You can find people anxious for the hot needles re: ANYONE, maybe the better artist the more the perverse eagerness-- that doesn't prove much.

[Dz7]

Originally Posted by kennybro

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that nearly any intelligent person can learn to structure and arrange the technical aspects of Mozart's 40th symphony through practice, study and hard work.

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that no one will ever "learn" to create the perfection of emotional melodic structure in Mozart's 40th through any amount of hard work and practice. Inspiration is not a practiced thing. Nobody quite knows what it is or from where it comes.

I know people from when I went to music school who worked their ever living asses off, 8 to 10 hours a day for months, trying to create a single important short symphonic work. Not one ever succeeded. Everyone's work, no matter how hard they toiled, sweated and bled, ended up sounding like cheezy movie soundtrack music. People like Mozart popped important pieces off daily, like they were bodily functions. And with most genius artists; painters, sculptors poets and musicians, the power to do that diminishes with age. It doesn't get better, as would be the case if practice and hard work made perfect.

It just is. Or it just isn't.

In a day where Mozart learned to compose music from his father at a very young age, working day in and day out, your friends at school were probably at the same level as Mozart before he reached age 6 or 7, if not younger considering you said months not years. The difference is, your friends quit, and Mozart grew up. Music is a language, no different to any other. Some people are bilingual, others struggle...most is nurture, some is nature.

EDIT: Check out Mozart's first three pieces at age 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i-SzzhUtws ... remember how many genres of music there were back then, and how ambitious of a father he had. In today's age, you either have a dad like that or you are a father to yourself.

[kennybro]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

But you find it a perfect emotional melodic structure because you were exposed to it because he was already famous by the time you were born. He was presented to you as an incredibly auspicious artist. But of course lots of people would rather put hot needles in their eyes than listen to a Mozart symphony, so as with the 'best pre-amp' type threads, genius is a completely subjective thing.

Well, not actually. Genius is best described and defined by filtering aesthetic product of artists through generations of critique, debate, comparison and consensus. There is no other method with substantial validity.

The suggestion that each individual's opinion regarding level of any artist's genius is equally valid in comparison with the collective human consciousness that has developed over years, decades or centuries is the obvious alternate POV in the debate. It's a nice, comfy notion in this age of "everyone's a genius," but I feel that it disrespects the iconology of quintessential human artistic achievements gathered since prehistoric times.

I suppose the question of genius, what it is, where it comes from, and even if it exists at all is a difficult debate, worthy of extended and even heated discourse, even though the inevitable outcome is stalemate.

[kennybro]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

You make it sound like there's an arbitrary, pin-the-needle-on-the-donkey element here-- not so. Mozart was not "presented as a genius" in the same way David Cassidy was-- he toiled in major obscurity, died a failure. It was a consensus of succeeding generations that he'd put some stuff together in a noteworthy and moving way.

You can find people anxious for the hot needles re: ANYONE, maybe the better artist the more the perverse eagerness-- that doesn't prove much.

As usual, you hit it more squarely with greater economy of words. I guess some people are just naturally better at some things than are other people.

[kennybro]

Originally Posted by Dz7

In a day where Mozart learned to compose music from his father at a very young age, working day in and day out, your friends at school were probably at the same level as Mozart before he reached age 6 or 7, if not younger considering you said months not years. The difference is, your friends quit, and Mozart grew up. Music is a language, no different to any other. Some people are bilingual, others struggle...most is nurture, some is nature.

EDIT: Check out Mozart's first three pieces at age 4: Mozart's First Three Pieces - KVs 1a, 1b and 1c - YouTube ... remember how many genres of music there were back then, and how ambitious of a father he had. In today's age, you either have a dad like that or you are a father to yourself.

A lot of assuming going on there.

If Mozart learned everything from his dad, why do we not celebrate Papa's music today?
Picasso's dad, Jose Ruiz Blasco, was a painter, but he dropped the pursuit after seeing what his son effortlessly accomplished at 15. Some people just got it. The true humility is in being capable of recognizing and celebrating that unexplainable gift in others while accepting that you may not be as gifted, without being driven to the (fictional) madness of Salieri.

My less-than-successful buddies would be delighted with your assumption that their music would have risen to the aesthetic and historic level of Mozart's, if only they had started earlier or hadn't given up so easily. But somehow, experience and study strongly suggests to me that is very unlikely.

[oceantracks]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

Ultimately, to make it, you need

1. Luck
2. Some mixture of hard work and talent

If you don't get the luck, then neither hard work or talent will work on its own. If you do get the luck, but you haven't bothered to work hard or developed your talent, then the luck probably wouldn't help you either.

And the best answer is.....

Dean's.....

Hard work often, oddly, doesn't enter into it. "She's Not There" by The Zombies is a famous, and classic song. And a big hit. And covered a lot.

It was written by the group when they were in high school. A reporter later asked them how hard it was to become a word famous group with a number one hit. They said something like "Well, I wish we could tell you we worked for years and played all over, etc, etc, but we really wrote this song, took it to a label, and they immediately signed us. We recorded it and it went straight to number one." So luck was huge, but so was the talent to write the song in the first place. Work had little to do with it.

Of course for every one of those stories you can read about groups that struggled for years before making it, and for everyone of those, you can read about groups that struggled for years and never did, even though very talented. Luck is just plain huge.

TH

[FFS]

bottom line....
if YOU believe in what your doing, be it song writing, singing, producing, mixing, remixing etc I mean, really believe and can feel that it is gonna be a success the it will 100%
whether that success means money, fame etc is totally up to what you desire.
Neve consoles, fancy converters etc etc are all very nice (of course, this is why we are on Gearslutz!) but it's that idea and that creation formed from the mind into something that actually happens that matters

G

[kennybro]

Originally Posted by oceantracks

And the best answer is.....

Dean's.....

For the original thread subject, I totally agree.

Talent + hard work does it.

[Dz7]

Originally Posted by kennybro

A lot of assuming going on there.

If Mozart learned everything from his dad, why do we not celebrate Papa's music today?
Picasso's dad, Jose Ruiz Blasco, was a painter, but he dropped the pursuit after seeing what his son effortlessly accomplished at 15. Some people just got it. The true humility is in being capable of recognizing and celebrating that unexplainable gift in others while accepting that you may not be as gifted, without being driven to the (fictional) madness of Salieri.

My less-than-successful buddies would be delighted with your assumption that their music would have risen to the aesthetic and historic level of Mozart's, if only they had started earlier or hadn't given up so easily. But somehow, experience and study strongly suggests to me that is very unlikely.

There's always a certain level of nature involved, but in comparison it is minuscule and largely an excuse by those looking for logic/rationale in their lives (which humans are so famously known for). That being said, the right access to information/knowledge is paramount, but with resources like GS, etc and the internet at large, self education is a large reality now-a-days. In fact, I'm currently in the midst of starting an NGO around it to empower those who didn't win the gene lottery.

Take a look at the book "Talent is overrated"...I have a feeling you'll enjoy it (with an open mind, of course!)

[Dz7]

I should add, there's a difference between capability and accessibility. Plenty of trained doctors unable to find work, and plenty of bedroom Mozart's on youtube. Gatekeepers are largely responsible for any "luck"....doesn't dismiss hard work.

[kennybro]

Originally Posted by Dz7

...In fact, I'm currently in the midst of starting an NGO around it to empower those who didn't win the gene lottery.

Save me the first spot in line

Originally Posted by Dz7

Take a look at the book "Talent is overrated"...I have a feeling you'll enjoy it (with an open mind, of course!)

I'll certainly give it a look. I actually do believe that in many cases, talent is way overrated, depending on your desired goal.

[Jack Duelisis]

Originally Posted by Dean Roddey

genius is a completely subjective thing.

In the case of mozart and Bach, it's rather an objective thing.

You said you love them both ? Well, I don't: one of them is not my cup of tea. But I wouldn't dare to question they are both truly, undisputable and incredible geniuses.

You either don't get "why", or you must be mad at the world to refute such an evidence.

[joelpatterson]

Originally Posted by kennybro

...I guess some people are just naturally better at some things than are other people.

Sometimes the other people surprise you, though!

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by Jack Duelisis

In the case of mozart and Bach, it's rather an objective thing.

You said you love them both ? Well, I don't: one of them is not my cup of tea. But I wouldn't dare to question they are both truly, undisputable and incredible geniuses.

You either don't get "why", or you must be mad at the world to refute such an evidence.

No, I just, as a general rule, reject the notion that certain people are *inherently* vastly beyond anyone else on the planet. I don't believe that's true. I don't doubt that some people manage, in practical terms, to achieve bodies of work that very much stand out. I just don't call that 'genius'. I just call it 'great'. To me, great is good enough.

In my opinion, there have probably been large numbers of people over the last four or five hundred years who could have matched Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. They just weren't put in the right place at the right time in order for either them or us to ever get to know what they could have achieved, and the same applies to many other endeavors both the mechanics of which and/or the societal encouragement towards are not generally available to most kids at an age where they would likely have a chance to develop into such a person.

99% of people are never even in a position to ever figure out if they would want to be such a person. We don't even really provide the means to optimize the vast, vast majority of our gene pool's potential. IMO, people like Mozart, Bach, and Beethoven are those who did have the talent and desire and were put into a place and time that fit their skills and temperment, and situations that allowed or even required them to make complex music on a regular basis (and to have available to them the musicians to bring what they created to life so that they could hear it and build on it.)

It's just not the case that any society gives a large swath of it's very young a broad exposure of potential endeavors and the means to go as far as they can as fast as they can (and, at the expense of growth in other areas of their lives, which is something that today is much more frowned upon than back in Vulfy's time.) Not that there probably wasn't some sniping about it, but no one was going to be calling child services or anything.

Sports has traditionally been one area where we've come close to such a thing in the last hundred years. And look at what has happened to pretty much every record that existed back a hundred years ago. The gene pool in that area is, to at least a much greater degree than in something like classical music composition, much better 'exploited'. And now the difference between the best in the world and the next 20 people is usually milliseconds or minutes or inches or whatever.

I think that the same would happen in classical composition, at least modulo the lack of any similar means of measuring performance objectively and the tendancy to give more credence to anything old than anything new, if there was equal access, peer/societal encouragement, and possible financial reward for excellence. But there's almost none of that. So how likely is it that we will happen to find another Mozart when almost no kid today grows up on a world where what we call classical music is largely considered dead, much less what's popular and hip and likely to get you laid or famous or wealthy?

Anyhoo, that's my take on it. I'm certainly not dismissing the talent and hard work of those folks. I just deny, for the most part, that they were somehow in a world of their own. The same applies to someone like Einstein. If he was a 'genius' and endowed with an inherent, genetic mental superiority, why didn't he continue to make major discoveries after he was 30 years old? It's a well known phenomenon in science that after 30 you are vastly less likely to make such a breakthough.

I would argue that it's because it's not genius, it's just that you sometimes have people who have a talent and are completely obsessed and so they do it all the time, they are young enough not to be infected by all the knowledge of the past, and they have no reputation to sully. So they are willing to take risks and occasionally hit one out of the park. You never hear about the ones who take the risk but it goes nowhere. And everyone conveniently ignores the fact that Einstein spent much of the rest of his professional career arguing against quantum mechanics, which is one of the most successful scientific theories ever.

[Dean Roddey]

Originally Posted by joelpatterson

You make it sound like there's an arbitrary, pin-the-needle-on-the-donkey element here-- not so. Mozart was not "presented as a genius" in the same way David Cassidy was-- he toiled in major obscurity, died a failure. It was a consensus of succeeding generations that he'd put some stuff together in a noteworthy and moving way.

There's a lot of argument that this is a myth. I think it's clearly a myth that he toiled in obscurity. He was well known, he hung out with and exchanged letters with many great folks of his time and he was a very well known composer and performer. He was a member of the Freemasons, which included many of the great thinkers of the day.

He wasn't buried in a pauper's grave, it was the custom of the time to bury multiple (non-royalty) people in common graves. Because he was a Freemason, there was no big to do at his death and it was difficult to even find a priest, because they had been banned apparently by the emperor not long before, and it wasn't common in those days to have a big funeral because the widow would have had to pay for it.

He was often in a lot of debt because he lived beyond his means, but apparently that had actually been getting better when he got sick, because of the success of The Magic Flute. Part of his problem was that the kind of post that someone like him would typically have taken, which would have set him up, just wasn't available at the right time, and of course he wasn't exactly a buttoned down butt kisser which didn't help.

But, anyway, them's the facts as I understand it. And this is part of my point, that history is not a great record for the most part, at least popular history, which prefers the romantic myth to the actual facts. And it's highly selective, we only hear about the winners really, never the losers.