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Teachers don't have to lie - what they do have to do is find the potential in every student, and believe me, after 45 years of music teaching, I don't think I've come across a single student who had no potential, and I certainly wouldn't have the arrogance to decide that on superficial impressions. (I'm not talking about students who have a burning desire to become the next Richter - but then I dare say the person you mentioned who couldn't keep a beat didn't have this ambition either. )

I was editing as you wrote this. Care to reflect on my addition?

A slight shift from "who lack absolutely any talent, yet they have a strong desire", but I find more to agree with in your edited post.
I've seen many people whose potential did not show itself for some time, and it's worth cultivating the patience that can listen to stumbling attempts and work out how to help a person develop skills - in fact, for a teacher I think it's essential.

True, but you would agree that coming from a musical family is no guarantee of professional success. For every Argerich, Arrau, Barenboim, Gould, and Gutierrez, how many hundreds from musical families have failed to make any mark whatsoever on the circuit?

The pianists listed above are exceptional examples, and maybe things would have been different had they not come from musical families. OTH, I don't know the particular details of their respective childhoods, but it cannot have been the same for all of them.

I tend to think of any kind of exposure as a learning experience, whether it happens in the womb or not. I'm not sure, but if I remember correctly, there isn't a huge learning gap between kids who listen to classical music (particularly Mozart) in the womb and those who don't. I honestly forget, though. Read a paper on it over a decade ago when a psych prof introduced me to the idea of how the brain learns.


Quite probably thousands..

In the martial arts, there are maybe 10-15 famous names. There are 30 million active practitioners in the US alone.

In the publishing world (for which there are no accurate figures in existence), Jack Canfield once told me 1 in 1,000 works gets published. 1 in 20 of those is by an author who makes their living from writing. And 1 in 100 of those is Stephen King. So, if 325k works are published a year (in the US), that's 325 million that don't get published.

Side note: our UK friends will be happy to note that, per capita, they publish more books than any other nation.

You're right, I misrepresented myself. My mistake.

I love this thread - the thread that keeps on giving! (or is that going?) The debate really centers around whether that monkey can come up with Shakespeare's plays and sonnets typing into infinity or once you've missed the boat that's that. I'll go for the former as I think wisdom is acquired or at least you gotta wait around a while whereas there are get-rounds when it comes to facility in learning (the most obvious one being time).

For practical purposes, that's that.

One of the prodigies in my list was Helen Huang. According to her bio, she began taking lessons at age 5 and made her debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age 8, after winning its student concerto competition. Assuming she didn't play the "Twinkle Twinkle Concerto in C Major", what could possibly explain such lightning-fast progress? From nothing to a concerto in 3 years?!! It's in the genes, folks.

And from a personal perspective, I was saturated with classical music from the womb onward. My dad was a church organist his entire life, my mom sold classical records in the 40s, and was quite an opera expert, so our home was suffused with music. My childhood idol was Vladimir Horowitz, not Mickey Mantle, and my passion for piano has never waned in 63 years.

But after attempting a couple of quarters at the university level, I realized quickly at age 20 that I simply didn't have the chops, and never would. Sure, a Chopin waltz or two, a Bach invention or two, but playing never came easy to me, no matter how many hours I practiced. I was forced to accept my limitations and move on.

This does not mean, however, that those of us with limited talent should simply throw up our hands and give up! With a good teacher and the discipline to put in the hours, anyone can and will improve. I think Kreisler summed it up quite nicely a while back:

The last word.

I genuinely feel bad for you, my friend. You gave up way too soon, and way too easily. A couple quarters at the university vs 20 years of hard work and dedication with an outstanding teacher (the Yuja Wang example we used earlier). What did you expect? We always perceive that we progress slowest at the beginning, but if we want the end result, we have to push through that and keep going..

If we ever get a chance to sit down at the keys, I should like to see and hear you play.

I'll have the last word thank you very much. Ha!



But you do explain the crux of the talent argument quite nicely, don't you?

Talent is often used to quell pain of our past failures. How utterly un-brave are those who let the notion of talent define them and their life. I will never offer any forbearance to such rationalizations for my shortcomings. At the heart of it all most have failed to tread upon the deep hidden corridors of our souls to find the genius that lies within us all. It is soothing to tell ourselves its not our fault, it is not because of us that we lack the skill. No, it must be our maker, it must be the universe that has cursed us to this life of mediocrity so no, I am not the one to blame.

So difficult is it for us to be honest with ourselves. So unwilling are we to entertain an extremely plausible truth that it is indeed us who are to blame. We don't want to believe that there is a 7 year old child out there right now watching someone else play the piano and is enamored by their playing. That this child goes home to its family's dusty out-of-tune piano and sits and plays for days trying to recollect what those notes were. And that child's parents too busy with the whirlwinds of life hardly notice this subtle yet monumental change, never paying attention. Days turn to months and in fact months turns to years and one day that child's mother who never thought much of the child's strange obsession with banging on the piano hears something. Something beautiful and she's stunned. For her it is the first time in a while that she stopped to listen but now these notes sound like heavenly melodies raining from heaven. My child has God-given talent she exclaims. But she's wrong.

She missed those days, weeks, months when that child struggled so earnestly with no success to recreate those melodies from long ago. No it is not God-given talent that propelled this child, it was the innocent naiveté to believe that those notes would eventually come but importantly that change that happened years ago when no one was looking when that child first heard those notes the change deep in this child wasn't a rewiring of the brain, it wasn't a sudden activation of a gene pathway. It was a fascination for what was heard, it was a deep affection for what was felt, it was beauty.... it wasn't talent.
Indeed, it was love.

Woohoo we're done.

Ha! As well you should! All I was trying to say is that Kreisler's quote was "the last word" on this entire subject.

Eloquently stated, but completely wrong. I can do without the psychoanalysis (on PW we leave that to MarkC ), and now wish I hadn't personalized it. It's no great tragedy that I don't have the innate ability to play well, and I'm certainly not making excuses. The list of things I can't do (understand quantum mechanics, write a great novel, play tennis like Federer, play golf like Tiger, perform neurosurgery, etc.) is infinite, as it is for most of us. We can all improve ourselves in these areas, but there is a limit to how far we can progress, and all the hard work in the world won't change that. You may believe this is a self-imposed, artificial limit (i.e. an excuse or rationalization), but it's simple reality.

All the wonderful things you described in your post will never explain how a child can be playing with orchestras in as little as 3, 5, 7 years after beginning lessons. I'd love to poll the teachers on this forum, and find out how many times in their teaching careers they've assigned serious study of a concerto in so little time. I'm sure it happens, but I suspect it's a rarity. To believe that just the right combination of hard work, dedication, exposure to music, nurturing, etc. can bring about this miracle is, IMHO, sheer fantasy.

So, KC, get practicing and prove me wrong!

I think I would consider the greatest limiting factor "time". It takes time to understand QM, write a novel (let alone a great one), learn to play tennis, golf, etc etc. If we dedicate that time, we will see results. If not....

I understand quantum mechanics. As well as Heisenberg, Schrodinger, or Bohr? No, but then, I didn't spend nearly the time they did trying. I've written a novel. Is it Stephen King? No, but then, I didn't take drugs so I could work for 20 hours a day on my writing, either. I can play golf. As well as Tiger? No, but then, I didn't play in college, nor did I hit 3000 balls a day, or spend 5-6 hours on the putting green like he did. I don't play tennis, and no one has yet allowed me to cut open their brain. Any takers?

I think it's perfectly fine to not be good at something. But I think it's important to understand why we're not, and why someone else is better. 99.99999% of the time, it's because they worked harder, smarter, and longer.


Yes, KC, put a nail in "talent's" coffin and please do this! haha

Yes, we will see results - but only up to a point.


Boy, I sure know how to pick 'em. I just pulled that one out of my ... never mind.


I would say that 99.99999% of the time it's never because of what you said.


OK, fine. Let's adopt Okiikahuna's phrase: "innate aptitude". As I said, names don't matter.


I guess that's the nature of internet forums. People think they can withstand anything! No, I will have my hands in my pocket, and you will astound me with your playing.

HAHA yeah, you picked a good one. If you had chosen 16th century French literature, I would have been in trouble..



My playing's not that great; I used to be better (lack of piano and available practice time). But if that's what it took, I'd certainly be willing to make you yawn.

I wanted to respond to this earlier, but got distracted.

Defining talent by results is a bit too easy, I think. To me, that result - ability to learn with ease - is just a result, but not the thing itself.

I think talent is more about a special kind of comprehension of a given subject matter. To get that comprehension manifested in the real world, it needs to be coupled with some particular physical attributes and the kind of focus/discipline/desire that propels a person to actually do what it takes to achieve what the mind is presenting as possible. I think there are lots of talented people who, for various reasons, never turn that talent into their life's work, much less a major international career.

There are many studies by neuro-scientists that indicate the mind develops some specific talents at particular times. For example it's well known that younger people learn languages more easily, but even children who learn a new language after somewhere between the age of 6-8 will have an accent. Among pianists it's believed that anyone starting to play the piano after the age of 8-10 will never develop the technique of virtuoso (and it's generally believed the younger the better). These are not self imposed limitations these are proven scientific facts.

For example this study indicates that hearing impaired children develop better language skills the younger there is intervention in their hearing impairment.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/106/3/e43.full

However, that doesn't mean that any child starting at the age of 5 can develop into a virtuoso. That takes commitment determination and yes probably innate talent.

It would be interesting if we could provide a concrete example of a technical skill that definitely could not be acquired after age 10. Like if could we say definitively, e.g. it is not possible to learn how to play an Ab major scale in perfect fourths at 120 bpm (semiquaver) with relaxed hands and good technical form after the age of ten. Maybe there are examples like that out there, but to me I struggle to think of any.

I approach this as someone who had a piano at home growing up from around age 10 but only started formal training during adulthood. For me, when I am approaching a new technical challenge (e.g. simultaneous trills in both hands) I generally start at the point of not being able to do it, break it down step by step, increase the tempo and end up being able to do it with solid technique. I am never 100% sure what is meant when people say it's not possible to acquire technique during adulthood because it seems to contradict my experience. And when we speak of technique aren't we just thinking of the sum of all of those individual technical skills? Feel free to straighten me out here if you think I am off track.

While I disagree that this "special" comprehension is called "talent", at this point, we would largely be arguing semantics and language, because I agree with darn near every word you said here.


I've read a couple of these, but I admit, most of the details have since left me. Regarding accents, particularly, I believe there was a study done that showed that some people's brains develop the ability to pick up accents much faster and easier than others. I believe it was because their brains used "movement" centers in conjunction with "speech" centers--impressionists do this very well. But I don't remember anything in that study that limited the ability by age..? (could be wrong)


No, I think you're on track. From my experience, and that's not to say it's everyone in the camp, those who believe that people can't learn the piano after age "x" tend to think of it more as a language, and use "language-based" arguments. But playing the piano isn't about language. It's about movement. And adults learn fine motor skill coordination far more easily than children.

Now, someone who has never heard music before may be at a disadvantage in interpreting the written notes into sounds, but I don't know anybody in that category, nor do I think it would be a permanent handicap. One could simply focus on movements to produce the required sounds.

Some people seem to intuit movement by sound; others intuit sound by movement. Doesn't matter much which side you're on, so long as the result is the same.