Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Realistic Goals as adults/late starter

"Anyone can learn to read Chinese (just ask one of the 1 billion or so literate chinese), speak French..."

This is kinda, how you say, not smart. It's one thing to learn Chinese as a toddler, which is what all those teeming masses you allude to did, another thing entirely as an adult. I know plenty of adults, including my not very bright brother, who would have one very difficult time learning any foreign language, never mind Chinese.

Language is not a good analog anyway. It takes brains, and determination to learn one as an adult, but linguistic "talent" is not an essential element. Of course if you have it, it's all to the good.

I find this thread tiresome. It's like trying to argue with fundamentalists, or George Bush admirers. A losing proposition.

If you've posted more than 10 times in this thread, your "realistc goals" have been reduced due to lack of time.

Could we leave the politics out please? This thread is bad enough already.

Philip Lu does not raise the flag of the "hard work only camp". He simply says, "Even if there is talent in seeing I do not believe that chance could create a trait in the past 2000-5000 years or so since more complex musical instruments have been around." Then "IMO the environment plays the great role in determining whether a child will be successful or not".

I think that he is not foolish. In fact he shows a better grasp of genetics and evolutionary theory than anyone else who has touched on these subjects in this thread, despite the cynical responses to his post, for there is a very mechanical view that permeates all of this discussion of innate talent, and that leaves you with two choices, the religious and the Stalinist:

God has given a gift to some human beings, they are inhabited by an angel.

Or

Some have a genetic trait, a "basic physical apparatus", the same as eye colour or height or skin colour, necessarily reproductable.

These two interpretations are just two sides of the same coin, and are equally absurd.

Monica in no way supports by what she says the non-existant "hard-work oly camp". She doesn't say anything more than that "we don't have the data at the current time" to prove the existence or demonstrate the origin of "aptitude for music".

Meh.

But can we talk about religion?

While I knew cardguy's statement would be unwelcome to some, it gave me pause to realize how much talent is like spiritual faith: intangible, hard to corroborate with objective evidence, and yet our credence in it—or not—is a fixture of our individual belief systems.

And that does explain why such a debate can be both futile and exasperating. If you believe in the existence and importance of something (or its nonexistence or unimportance) with all the certainty that faith permits, you are highly unlikely to be dissuaded by anyone else's faith. A personal epiphany—or incontrovertible scientific proof!—would be required.

Steven

Excellent point!

WHAT AN AWESOME THREAD!

I don't find either one absurd.

Your comment about cynical responses to Philip Lu's post calls into question your own contributions here, notably the aggro directed at argerichfan, cardguy and me.

Steven

What we don't know isn't the problem. It's what we're sure of that just ain't so.

Haha wow, Voltaire and Lang Lang in the same list.

FAIL

Actually Monica made this very firm statement:
"Innate talent" (if it even exists) plays only a negligible role (if it plays a role at all).


So she obviously doesn't feel a need for empirical evidence to make up her mind.

At the risk of beating this in to the ground, I’ll repeat what I said before: in the end, nothing is purely genetic, biological or environmental-- how much of one's potential gets expressed is always some synergistic combination of all these factors. I don’t think anyone here (at least I know I’m not) is arguing that the environment or the amount of work someone puts into learning music is not extremely important but I’m also arguing that the underlying endowment or aptitude factor is also not irrelevant. I agree that there is very unlikely to be a “violin playing” or “piano playing” gene—not because there is not a physiological substrate to our physical and cognitive functions but that there are so many of them involved in these complex activities that likely a large number of individual difference factors come into play (literally!). They probably all interact with each other and depend on various environmental factors to allow them to be expressed.

Ok, here's another thought experiment: Let’s say that it is ALL environment, hard work and effort and there is NO innate aptitude difference among individuals in learning a highly skilled activity like the piano. (I’m not talking about any kind of musical activity like singing a simple song where the bar is set so low that virtually everyone can do it (e.g. “Happy Birthday”), but professional level piano playing. If that is the case, then what we ought to see is that everyone who puts in the same amount of effort should progress at the same rate, and should reach approximately the same level of proficiency, and in the real world we don’t see that. Of course, it’s an impossible experiment to run perfectly because we can’t precisely control how much effort, focus and time people put in, or assign people to certain training regimens. But what we see in the population at large is a distribution of achievement, with some people progressing much faster than others and reaching much higher levels even when they have had similar access to good musical training (think kids entering conservatories) and a very large number of people dropping out for a variety of reasons, one of which is lack of progress beyond a certain point.

The other problem with the “it’s all hard work and there is no such thing as innate individual differences as applied to music” argument is that it flies in the face of lots of data on the normal (Gaussian) distribution of physical and cognitive abilities in humans, abilities that certainly come into play in learning to play music at a high level of proficiency. Why should music be an exception and be one area where this phenomenon is not seen?

Let’s go to the other extreme. Let’s say it’s ALL innate “talent” and there is no effect of training or environment. If that is the case then we should not see the data on the effects of focused practice, which are quite impressive.

Suppose however that we assume that there is a complex interplay of genetic, biologic and social/environmental factors including training that allow aptitudes or abilities to be expressed and amplified under the right conditions. If there is an underlying continuum on a bell-shaped curve of "talent" or "aptitude" for piano playing, I would bet that after the 10K hours of focused practice, we'll still have a bell-shaped curve, or probably one that is stretched out even further on the top end. Everyone who puts in the focused effort will have moved up and gotten better, and many might even now be in the "expert" range however we define it, with a few (likely those with exceptional aptitudes (notice the plural) AND exceptional ability to work in a focused manner) having achieved “elite” level skills, which I think is similar to what we see happen in the real world.

None of this is to argue that any of us should be discouraged from working as long or as well as we can and to progress as far as possible because we can’t know until we try how far that might take us.

Sophia

Sophia, I agree with you that of course innate skills, sheer hard work and environmental opportunities all go into making us the kind of pianists we are - or aren't.

On your point about virtually everyone being able to sing 'Happy Birthday': I understand what you mean - but surprisingly, a fair proportion of people actually can't sing Happy Birthday, even. I don't know how many of the general population are tone deaf but I have come across enough to realise it is a great many people. Presumably such people wouldn't really be able to hear what they were playing on the piano, either.

These are all great questions. You are correct that I have been speaking mainly of technical playing skill. The literature talks a little about compositional skill (e.g., some of the studies showing that great composers don't produce their greatest works until they have put in that 10,000 hours). So it seems clear to me that focused practice matters a great deal for creative endeavors. But creativity is even harder to understand than technical skill. I would not want to go out on a limb and state that I thought 10,000 hours of focused practice in composition would be sufficient to make most people an expert composer... whereas I am willing to go out on the limb and say it would be sufficient to make most people expert players in a technical sense.

As for playing artistically, is it not the case that musical expression is something that teachers work on with their students and that can be taught? Musical expression has to be communicated through the skilled motions of the hands and fingers, so it's hard for me to think of an a priori reason why it should be any less susceptible to the 10,000 hour rule than other behaviors.



I don't know. There are some tests of musical ability (e.g. an older one that has been used for some years is the Seashore test). But they have not demonstrated the same kind of psychometric properties and empirical base that we see in other tests like standard IQ tests. This could likely be due to the simple fact that these tests don't attract the same kind of research attention as do cognitive ability tests, and not because of any inherent flaws in the tests themselves.



The "hard work only" camp can't, nor can the "hard work mainly" camp (which is where I would cast my allegiance). But then again, the "genetic only" or "genetic mainly" camp can't explain the abilities of savants, either. There is a lot we don't know about the brain.

I did say the former, but your interpretation in the second sentence doesn't follow. I felt I was being sufficiently clear in my previous posts, and I don't think it would add anything to this rapidly becoming ever more awesome thread to repeat them here. So I'll simply state that you are mischaracterizing my views in that last sentence and will direct interested parties to re-read this thread if they have any motivation--which I seriously doubt--to sort it out.

landorrano,

Months ago I mentioned the childhood experience of a besotted mother whose notion of the correct interpretation of Chopin involved cocktails, cigarettes and a swaying rubatissimo—and her remonstrations to me that I played "without any feeling."

Your response to me was "I am certain your mother was right. You can be certain that your mother was right."

Aside from an obvious and offensive callousness, you showed certainty of something that "just ain't so" (or, at the very least, the veracity of which you would have no way of knowing).


I don't think you believe Twain's words. If you feel it's significant somehow to quote Twain's words back to me now, I don't think you understand them.

Steven

With over 170 posts spread over 18 pages everything that needs to be said has been said. But I might as well say it again (Sam).
Everyone seems to agree “that through hard practice and dedication most of the difficult literature out there is within reach for most people”,.. “most people can play practically anything or make a career out of it to one degree or another”, or ” learn and master respectable pieces or get to a level where they can play difficult music”… or ..”that most people with good teaching and appropriate hard work could be more than adequate cocktail pianists”.
We all seem to feel that this goal is within the reach of 2 standard deviations of mean ability and that for these people “innate talent” (that immeasurable what if) is not the rate limiting step in achieving their goal.
Nobody is saying that we can all play like Lang Lang, and others whose abilities are massively outlying from the 2 standard deviations mentioned.
What I understand everyone over the last 18 pages is saying is that for the vast majority of people, if they choose to become a good pianist, they are not limited from doing so by an innate lack of ability.
They may be limited by other environmental circumstances which could equally be beyond their control. To me this is a positive outcome of the thread since my as yet unreached goal is within my reach.
So yes I do believe that…. "Innate talent" (if it even exists) plays only a negligible role (if it plays a role at all)….in achieving the goal stated by the rest of the board as quoted above.
In agreeing with this it is utter nonsense to assume I believe that “every one of us is a potential Confucious, Voltaire, Dale Earnhart, Claire Chennault, Tiger Woods or Lang Lang?”
By stating a belief that most of us are capable of learning Chinese or flying a plane (is that even legal to do as a child?) it is surely innately stupid to suggest that I am saying that everyone can learn to do it equally well even with comparable background, motivation and amount of practice.
Much of the heated debate has stemmed from people refusing to read each others posts and acknowledging the truths of others posts.
It was not me who introduced reincarnation, politics or God to the thread.
I didn’t mention “evolutionary principles in such an ignorant part of the world” or bring to the boards attention the 25% of high school students who can’t name the first American president and think that Chernobyl is Cher's full name.
I therefore feel no need to enlighten the board anymore than it has enlightened itself.

Meh. Ever more awesome by the moment.

Steven