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However, there are many people who grow up in musical households who exposed to musical influences from the beginning, but they still do not turn into "talented" musicians. Certainly being born into such a household can make an enormous difference, but it isn't the only deciding factor, or the world would have many, many more Kissins, IMO.

Having the talent to get oneself born into the right circumstances shouldn't be underestimated, it's true.

I can do better, I have a real-life anecdote.

I know a couple of identical twin brothers who are musicians, one is cellist, the brother plays violin. When they were kids, their father locked them each in a room and made them practice for hours at a time, didn't even let them out to [censored] "winkle". He knew the likes of Casals, he wanted his boys to be great musicians.

It's another fellow, a musician himself who grew up with them, who told me about their childhood, and he says that even when they were little it was evident that the cellist had that "something", something special. And today the cellist is a world-reknowned soloist, and the violinist while a professional musician plays in a small town orchestra.

Was one more talented than the other? For my part, I don't think that this situation proves anything of the sort. There are many factors that enter into the development of a child and in the end you can't know exactly why one develops the way he does. The relationship between each child and the father, or with their mother; the rivalry between the two; the relationship with the teachers.

I think what Kissin did at 11 months is not remotely close natural or normal for someone that age no matter how much they are exposed to music.

OK. First let me say that this happens from time to time with my posts.
English is not my native language and I might sometimes use incorrect words.

Let me just say that these (OP's first post questions) are not meaningful questions, because the answer is obvious. It takes many years to become a virtuoso provided that one has the necessary talent and correct teachers. And hence my reluctance to answer them.

As for my definition of virtuoso, well a simple Google search returns many reasonable definitions. But here are some examples from the past, near past and present, whom I would consider to have virtuoso technique:

Paganini, Liszt
Cziffra
Volodos, Hamelin, Wang

Hope this helps.

Hakki,

Your command of english is extremely good and shows a natural "talent" and the necessary hard work required to bring that talent to fruition. Or, as Dr. Suzuki postulated, using the "mother tongue method", you learned the language by rote in the beginning along with your native tongue. Well done in any case.

Regards

Excellent response. Thank you.

So, you would say that, at 8, Kissin was far more talented than me, right? On what would you base this assessment? Would you base it on what he was capable of playing--is that how you determine talent?


The love of what they were doing at the time, the way they chose to practice, their focus and dedication levels while they were in the "room", what they did/liked/disliked/gravitated towards before they began this locked-room practice routine, what they thought about when they weren't in the room, what they did when they weren't in the room, etc etc etc.... You're right, there are far too many variables to consider, and when we can't (or don't want to) think of them all, we make up a mythological term to "cover our bases".

If someone showed me a study in which every variable were exactly the same, and we could reduce the experiment to 1=1, AND in that experiment one student out-shined the other, THEN I would be ready to consider the concept of talent. But such an experiment does not exist, and likely can never exist.


I don't think so at all. You act like he sang Bach as if he were Pavarotti. Likely, it is an exaggerated claim made by a biased observer (mother) that is being further exaggerated by the distance and time of parties who were not privy to the event itself.

For example, I overheard a mother say this: "My daughter can dance to Gangnam Style at 10 months!" When I observed the baby (and I actually did get a chance to do this), the baby put one hand over top of the other, and lifted it up in relative time, just like in the dance. But that was it. Now, if this child becomes a top dancer in the ballet, or a Rockette, or something of the sort, and someone else were to hear this story, they might think the 10 month old was standing up, dancing around the room just like Psy in the video. But it's not even close to what actually happened.

So, for example, Kissin may have shouted or tuned-in to a couple notes, which might not even have been the right pitch, but the mother makes the claim, and the rest is historical exaggeration. Will we ever be able to prove it? No, probably not. I've seen a very quick clip of him at what I think was 2-3 years old, but not at 11 months. But in all likelihood, it's probably closer to the truth than the idea that he could sing every pitch perfectly at 11 months.

Of course I agree that it isn't the only factor, but in my mind it's certainly one of the most important (:
I mean, he couldn't have been born in a "better" familly in order to become a professional musician.

Also, I think we need to remember Kissin is not God, because after talking so much of him as an example of/argument for prodigious talent, we could think so (:
In fact, it's probable that there are musicians who are/were better artists and better pianists who haven't this kind of impressive stories to tell.


About the fact that he was singing a subject of fugue at 11 month, we'll probably never know how well he was actually singing so it's maybe better to not argue too much on it, isn't it ?
It's more an anecdote than anything else.



Have you ever thought about the likes of Berlioz and Wagner ?
How come two of the greatest composers of the XIXth century (and arguably of our history) weren't at all doing the kind of exploit those child prodigies do ?
And Berlioz wrote some pretty poor pieces of music when he was a teenager, so obliviously he wasn't the typical prodigy.
On the other hand, it's not like all child prodigies end up being remembered after their death...

Good morning. I am struck by the indifference that many people show to this factor. But the living link, the intimate communication between a child and his family is of no small importance in shaping their development. I find it curious that people pass over it so lightly.

Isn't it Kodaly who said, in response to the question as to at what age one should start a child's musical education: nine months before birth !

None of which addresses my point - which is that if being raised in a musical environment is what "talent" really is, why aren't all kids who coming out of the right kind of musical environment talented? Because they aren't.

Very good point.



I still can't believe people are arguing over this. How can anyone think talent doesn't exist? It all has to do with the individual's brain. Some brains are wired up so that music comes easily. Others it might be dance, or chess, or whatever it may be. People (their brains) are different, and with that comes different aptitudes.

wr -> Maybe my answer wasn't well written enough.
I just meant that being raised in a musical household is one of the thing that can lead a child to learn music very quickly. Nobody said it was the only factor. An awful lot of other things count. That'd be why it's so rare to see child prodigies (I think child prodigies are over-rated anyway but that's not the subject) - it musn't be very often that all the right conditions needed are there.

For someone who seems to recognize there are other mitigating factors involved, and that "talent" can't possibly be the "only" thing that creates ability -- you certainly seem to want to ignore those other factors now in your above statement.

Well, it is getting rather tautological at this point, I think - the only set of "right conditions" is the one that produces the exceptional performer, and in fact, that's how the conditions are defined as being the right ones.

And you seem to be saying that it is all so vastly complex that the set of conditions producing such a performer is not something we can describe. But yet, even though you can't really say what all of these conditions may be, you somehow have figured out that whatever they are, none of them can possibly take the form of an innate predisposition for music, i.e., "talent".

Myself, I think that, given how it seems that genetic science is almost daily coming up with new information regarding how all sorts of aspects of our lives and personalities may be "innate" (that is, coded in our genetic makeup), I imagine that it's only a matter of time before a group of genetic markers are identified as a factor in musical "talent". That kind of thing is already happening in athletics. Once that happens regarding music, it will be interesting to see how its relative importance as a factor will be seen.

So anyone can compose on the level of Mozart with enough hard work? That argument just doesn't hold water.

Some of your arguments that talent is the deciding factor in all of this are absolutely fascinating. Talent has yet to been quantified, we don't even know the correlatives to talent. Does it mean that you'll reach a point and never make significant improvement? Does it mean that you'll learn things quicker?? Puleeeze! Jaques Lacan would love to do psychoanalysis on you guys because it's so obvious what's happening. If you didn't excel like other "gifted and talented" students then you can remove the psychological burden of blaming yourself for your failures and say well it must be talent which is completely outside of my control and so therefore its okay I'm not at fault, it is the mysterious forces of genetics that carries these people to their divine destiny of musical brilliance.

What if talent does play a large part? Consider the following the scenario. Two students starting at age 7 (like Liszt) study under the same teacher for 2 years. Student A practices 4 hours a day and Student B practices 2 hours a day. Student A plays a more difficult piece than Student B. Both students play in a recital and afterwards a member of the audience exclaims "Student B is very talented!"

Now what's wrong with this picture?


However to Hakki's point, if my questions weren't meaningful then the answers I've received were even more meaningless. Clearly many of you didn't even read my entire first post. It's pretty much asking what should one's daily practice routine look like but I digress. I'll just follow my teacher's customized syllabus

Good idea!

"For talent itself, in its most general sense-that exhibition of a strong bias toward some particular pursuit, may be defined, from its results, as simply: ability to learn with ease.

Tobias Matthay, "First Principles of PIANOFORTE PLAYING"

http://archive.org/details/firstprincipleso00mattiala

Click, PDF under, "View the book" and save to download a copy, the talent bit is on page 37.

Of course, being an English snobe (that's like a snob, but posher) I have a hard copy!

I haven not read all the replies, but I believe that the ceiling on technique is genetically dependent to a great extent. I think of the top pianists in the world in the same way that I do the top athletes in the world. Some people have just won the genetic lottery and have the musculature, nervous system response, skills etc. that 99.9% of people in the world will never have, despite how much work they put into it. Everyone is NOT created equal, no matter how much we would like to believe it is true. There is an element of luck involved too. You need to be born into a situation where your inherent genetic talents and skills can be fostered and honed.