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When's the last time you saw a pop singer give credit to the songwriters on the front cover, or did you think Christina Aguilera actually writes all her own stuff?First Santa and now this?! Say it ain't so! To the original question... What is talent?
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
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Originally posted by Derulux: What is talent? Talent, most often, is what allows someone to crap out and never reach their potential because it all comes too easy to them, so the people with NO talent are the ones who put in the sweat equity and end up reaching the sublime heights.
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it takes way more talent to write good music than to play somebody elses. everybody and their dog can play stairway to heaven on the guitar. any intermediate guitarist can master it. as well as fur elise. not a hard piece to master. chopin probably could write better peices than horrowitz or lang lang when he was 10 then they ever will/attempted to.
so the differance is
you cant teach people how to write good music but you CAN teach them how to play it big differance
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Originally posted by shajo: you cant teach people how to write good music you can't?
Sam
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Originally posted by shajo: you cant teach people how to write good music
Im with Jerome on this one... Why do people take composition lessons if they can never write good music???
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Originally posted by Debussy20: Originally posted by shajo: [b]you cant teach people how to write good music
Im with Jerome on this one... Why do people take composition lessons if they can never write good music??? [/b]Why take an English class if you can never write a good novel?
"If we continually try to force a child to do what he is afraid to do, he will become more timid, and will use his brains and energy, not to explore the unknown, but to find ways to avoid the pressures we put on him." (John Holt) www.pianoped.comwww.youtube.com/user/UIPianoPed
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Originally posted by Kreisler: Originally posted by Debussy20: [b] Originally posted by shajo: [b]you cant teach people how to write good music
Im with Jerome on this one... Why do people take composition lessons if they can never write good music??? [/b] Why take an English class if you can never write a good novel? [/b]Maybe music is just some supernatural art that can't possibly be created by human beings, except through rare divine inspiration. But literature and art are different - lots of people can do that. I think that maybe we just glorify "the" great composers (the famous ones) so much that we forget they are just people like us. I'm convinced that if musical composition was a required class during every year of grade school - as English writing is a required class every year - that a lot of graduating high school students would be capable of writing good music, and that music would not be viewed as such a supernatural art. (Although, even with years of 'learning' English writing skills, so many graduates still can't seem to write good essays!)
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Originally posted by shajo: so the differance is
you cant teach people how to write good music but you CAN teach them how to play it big differance The other part: "but you CAN teach them how to play it." Actually, I have been told by several teachers that you CAN'T teach someone how to play musically. I'm told that it is relatively easy to teach someone technique - you can teach them how to read music, and you can teach them how to hit all the right notes - but it is very difficult to teach them how to play musically.
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Debussy20: My son is 13 as well and he studies composition with a university music professor. You can indeed learn how to compose. But like anything else true greatness at it requires heart, persistence, and a willingness to make lots of mistakes and learn from them.
By the way, my son manages to like classical music AND Linkin Park. Go figure.
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Originally posted by shajo: it takes way more talent to write good music than to play somebody elses. everybody and their dog can play stairway to heaven on the guitar. any intermediate guitarist can master it. as well as fur elise. not a hard piece to master. chopin probably could write better peices than horrowitz or lang lang when he was 10 then they ever will/attempted to. 1. Yeah, those are easy pieces. How about Chopin ballades? How about Brahms Variations, or the Barber Sonata? Can everybody and their dog play these pieces musically? 2. Why was Chopin so special? 3. Horowitz actually did compose music, and some of his arrangements are actually fairly popular. Rachmaninov was a friend of his, and in fact Rachmaninov often asked Horowitz for advice when he was writing his music.
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Originally posted by Frank_W: Originally posted by Derulux: [b]What is talent? Talent, most often, is what allows someone to crap out and never reach their potential because it all comes too easy to them, so the people with NO talent are the ones who put in the sweat equity and end up reaching the sublime heights. [/b]I am reminded of a large boulder that sits on a hill. It has a lot of potential. But if it never starts rolling, it doesn't matter much to the house at the bottom of the hill. My father always said, "Potential gets you fired." As for whether or not you can learn anything, I've always defaulted to this quote: The things worth learning can never be taught.
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
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Originally posted by pianojerome: Originally posted by shajo: 1. Yeah, those are easy pieces. How about Chopin ballades? How about Brahms Variations, or the Barber Sonata? Can everybody and their dog play these pieces musically?
2. Why was Chopin so special?
3. Horowitz actually did compose music, and some of his arrangements are actually fairly popular. Rachmaninov was a friend of his, and in fact Rachmaninov often asked Horowitz for advice when he was writing his music. [/QB]i just think it takes way more hard work than it does talent to be a concert pianist. most concert pianists started taking lessons when they were 4 and practiced 5 hours a day. if you are asian you probably practiced 12 hours a day while being hit with a bamboo pole whenever you made a mistake. id hope to god that anyone who practiced that much would be able to play beethoven sonats by time they were a teenager. i bet i could teach a rock how to play a chopin ballad if given enough time. with writing music, composition lessons and music theory definitely help but it mostly just enabels you to use the talent you already have to its fullest capabitlites. if composing doesnt take more talent then how come there are so many good pianist(not saying its easy or takes no talent) and very few good composers?? here is why chopin, mozart ect = ridiculouse amount of talent + tons of hard concert pianist(lang lang or whomever) = a little bit of talent + tons of hard work
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and as far as playing "musically" i dont know. theres alot of people can play amazingly well to me. maybe not as good as horowitz but still its not like some rare thing to find.
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if composing doesnt take more talent then how come there are so many good pianist(not saying its easy or takes no talent) and very few good composers?? More people take piano lessons and fewer people take composition lessons. How many people do you know who took composition lessons as kids?
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I don't know... I just don't think there's going to be a clear answer. I can listen to Professor Longhair, Fats Waller, Jelly-Roll Morton, or Albert Ammons, and they are just jaw-droppingly fantastic! Brilliant!!
I can be just as moved by hearing someone play and express the genius of Beethoven or Chopin.
Which one takes more talent, hard work, or dedication?
I simply don't think that's a question that can be answered with a few opinions tossed about as if they were immutable facts, as some people in this thread have done.
In the end, it's all music. Listen to and play the styles, pieces, and genres that you love, and really spark your inspiration and imagination.
"If it sounds good, it IS good." -Louis Armstrong
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I don't know... I just don't think there's going to be a clear answer. Not so long as "talent" is, in this case, quite literally defined by "taste".
Every day we are afforded a new chance. The problem with life is not that you run out of chances. In the end, what you run out of are days.
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Well? How do you quantify something like talent? CAN it be quantified? Particularly in saying that someone who composes their own music is more talented than someone who plays the compositions of another. Personally, I think the basis of this entire thread is fallacious:
It may take a DIFFERENT kind of talent to compose and play one's own music versus playing what's written on the page, but I don't believe one can be said to be greater than the other. That's the point I was attempting to make, and I'm not presenting it as fact. This is simply my own opinion, for what precious little it's worth.
(By the way, I'm so impressed with someone who can turn out a classical piece beautifully. I can read music, but most often, I play by ear. To me, deciphering a piece of written music takes infinitely more time and is more of a struggle for me, until I get the piece memorized.)
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yes but you can take all the composition lessons you want, if you don't have talent you're not going anywhere, i think one composer asked this, if we put all the compositions "rules", harmony, counterpoint, everthg into a computer, would he produce a masterpiece?
back to the original question, i get that all the time, all the propositions so far are interesting, the icy smile and "why don't you enlighten us with your own talent?" is a good combination
"Music expresses that which cannot be said and upon which it is impossible to remain silent"-Victor Hugo
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Composing is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. (quote stolen from ben franklin)
Music is the poetry of the air. ~ Richter
All music is poetry whether you composed it or not.
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I find that people who say blah blah blah usually do not know too much about music. They think Fur Elise is the be-all and end-all. The trick is to be able to do it all - helps you stay employed in the music biz too...
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