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Who is saying we should tell anyone this?

(=short summary of Gary's excellent post )

I know a piano teacher who told her daughter at a very young age that she didn't have talent. Years later, after a concert, the daughter said to her mother 'You see, I do have talent'. The mom's comment had, and still does (the daughter's now 65), affect both their lives.

Um? Could you guys clarify what you are arguing about, Larisa and Steven? I am totally lost. What is the point, and what does it have to do with deciding to learn to play the piano and managing to do so? Or what is it about, in fact (it might not be that)? What does competing with anyone - including yourself - have to do with trying to achieve something?

Why do you always say something to make me sad?

Life is not a bowl of cherries (for some).

"All that 'talent' nonsense"? Yipes. It's time to repeat my own words from earlier in this thread.
Larisa, I don't mean to be rude or insensitive, but I have to make a comment at this point based on the abundance of your self-referential anecdotes and your candor about your own background as an emigree from the former Soviet Union.

You've had experiences that most readers here have not, and I have to wonder to what extent your convictions about this subject are a by-product of the social philosophy of totalitarianism to which you would have been exposed in your formative years. I find it impossible to read such doctrinaire missives here and not get a sense of unrelenting dogma concerning the denial of individual differences and enforced supposition of social equality. This honestly seems to confirm the worst stereotypes Westerners used to have about suppression of individuality under Communism.

I believe that for most people it suffices to admit that talent is nebulous, that it can be a blessing and/or a curse, and that the effects of overemphasizing it (or even acknowledging it in some situations) can be deleterious. The vigor of your assertions, on the other hand, compels me to wonder about the reasons for it; the temptation to try to connect the dots is irresistible.

Steven

I wanted to play the piano ever since I was a little kid. However I never tried as I was told by my mother that I had no musical talent. And you know what: I probably don't have much talent. But finally, in my mid-40's I thought, "what the heck" and started taking lessons. I bought an inexpensive digital piano. Now, a few years later, and I am enjoying playing Chopin, Bach, Schubert and other music that I really enjoy. And I have a nice little Bosendorfer grand in my living room. I get enormous satisfaction out of working on a piece and then being able to play it after a few weeks or months. Maybe I am not Rachmaninoff or Horowitz, or even the high school music major living down the street, but when I come home at night, and can sit and play a Chopin prelude over and over again, it makes my night! Hey, that's ME playing Chopin and those chords sound wonderful! Lesson: don't ever let someone tell you that because you have "no talent" you should not try something that you think you will love.

I've got no talent either but playing the piano is still the most satisfying thing in my life.

(So there. Stamps foot. Think I'll flounce off and go practice.)

Time for an off-topic tangent!

I love the rich vocabulary of English, and the number of colorful words we have to depict ways of moving is a great example of it.

Flounce, traipse, sashay are among my favorites. Can anyone hear these terms and not have a corresponding and distinct mental image?

Does anyone remember the episode of The Simpsons in which Bart and Lisa argue about whether they are going to amble or saunter around the block?

Steven

Ahh yes, there's nothing like gallivanting down the street on a summer's day, hand in hand...something like that...

Topics related to talent are always tricky... However one wants to define it, whether one believes that it exists, it's simply true that people are all different, what name we give to the differences is less important than how we deal with it. It's simply not true that we can all accomplish the same things given the exact same amount of hard work. But whether talent matters depends on one's goals: if your goal is to enjoy music, whether you have musical talent is irrelevant; if you want to become one of the top pianists in the world, talent matters a lot. And of course hard work ALWAYS matters.

Whether it's bad for a teacher or a parent to tell a kid that "you lack the talent" probably should also depend on the kid's goal. If the goal is too unrealistic, blind encouragement will only hurt.

I still don't get the debate on talent between our two horn-locked peers, but in regards to telling someone they do or don't have talent - what is the point of that? Anyone trying to learn to do anything will have a set of strengths and weaknesses which will be bolstered, exploited, strengthened, brought into balance over the course of time. Even talent (consisting of any number of things) has its disadvantages that must be brought into balance. You define the goal, you work toward it, and you see what you are working with which is a thing that will also change as you grow.

It's true that my background, growing up in Soviet Russia, has something to do with my assertion, but not what you think - not a totalitarian byproduct (and don't you think that someone who barely managed to escape from a totalitarian regime will be anything but a totalitarian?), but a cultural assumption. In Russia, no teacher would even take a child as a student unless they had "talent". The idea was that a teacher didn't want to waste their time teaching someone who was never going to become a concert pianist, or a professional ballet dancer, or an Olympic gymnast.

The problem with that is that sometimes, these evaluators of "talent" would be wrong. How can you tell, with a 5-year-old? It's not always that easy. So, you got stories about musicians who were rejected by the "establishment" but who picked up music at a later age and got really good. Such stories always entailed a certain amount of pain, of lost opportunity. Why do that to someone? It took me years, long into adulthood, to learn to enjoy physical activity, after a determination of "no talent" made when I was 5.

So yeah, people have different abilities, and everyone is different, and so on. But lumping it all into "talent" oversimplifies the issue.

And moreover, isn't it nice to have the freedom to learn whatever skills you want to learn without the teacher making this kind of arbitrary judgment about you? Would you want your piano teacher telling you that you have no talent? This is one of the things I really like about the United States - that here, anyone, no matter who, can learn a musical instrument. No one will stop you, even if you are tone-deaf and missing 8 fingers; as long as you want to learn, you can learn.

I understand very well what you are talking about. If people in this forum are doing that, to me it is wrong. But I have no heard of anyone doing such a thing, not here. So in this context, it remains a potential problem.

For the record, I have NEVER told someone not to play, to study, or to dream by saying, "You don't have what it takes." Not for reasons of potential, what I might guess. I have warned people about lack of motivations, hard work, etc.

Instead, I warn everyone that making money in music is very difficult. I continued with music because I just could not stand to do anything else. I don't even think I made a wise decision. It just seemed the only path for me.

As I suggested before, I feel that you are creating a straw man here. I don't disagree with many of your points, but I don't think your points are responding directly to what any of us have said.

That was my point, in fact. Thank you for stating it better than I have.

Actually I've only just remembered (it can't have been that important), the same mother and daughter declared I was not 'musically talented' (but the mum always insisted I was a genius otherwise - quite a compliment from her!). I think it's the Eastern European thing of sorting wheat from chaff at the age of 5 that Larisa mentions - not the sort of talent I'd be interested in anyway.

You know, I think that what got me going in this discussion in the first place was the sentiment expressed in your last sentence. I've been thinking about this quite a bit today, on a long train ride, and came to a few realizations.

First of all, I like unrealistic goals. I always set them for myself (and sometimes I meet them). Goal-setting is one place where realism will hold you back. When you're punching a punching bag and you want to give it your strongest punch, you are advised to visualize your punch going right through the bag, in complete and total defiance of the laws of physics. If you visualize your punch "realistically" - i.e. complying with the laws of physics and stopping shortly after you hit the bag - it won't be as strong. Try it on a pillow or something - it really works. Goals work similarly, in my experience.

I am a pragmatist. If visualizing myself performing in Carnegie Hall will get me practicing more and get me to play better than a "realistic" visualization of myself performing for my parents and friends, I will visualize myself performing in Carnegie Hall. My goal is to coax the best possible performance out of myself, by any means necessary, and if manipulating my subconscious will get me there, I will do so. In my case, and in the case of a lot of other people (including my students), unrealistic praise gets much better results than "realistic" assessments of their talents. People are not robots, and their performance - including their level of "talent" - is very much affected by their teacher's assessment of their ability (there have been countless psychological experiments that prove this). I refuse to handicap my students, and I refuse to handicap myself. No one gives out gold stars - or competition prizes - for the most "realistic" assessment of one's ability. Gold stars are given out for results.

Also, while blind encouragement can, and does, hurt sometimes, blind discouragement hurts a lot more often. There may be a few deluded souls out there who think they're the next incarnation of Liszt, despite having only mastered "Mary Had a Little Lamb" with one finger - but how many do you really think there are? And do you really think they'll listen to you if you tell them they have no talent? On the other hand, there are lots and lots of people who have some talent who are told they have no talent, and whose talent shrivels away as a result. This, I think, is far more common and far sadder, and if one must err, it's better to err on the side of encouragement.

Greetings,

After just finishing every word of this marvelous discussion, you all have sated my voracious appetite that began with the first word of the thread and ended as a satisfying meal of mind food. Bravo! This discussion should be stickied and made required reading upon registering for access to PW.

Sotto Voce and Larissa,

I commend each of you for eloquently projecting your viewpoints on the nebulous concept of talent. I must say that I am particularly taken by Larissa's point of view because she personalizes and makes applicable that which otherwise is always subjective and abstract. The viewpoints expressed by all are most valuable, but the act of encouraging talent rather than debating its existence, valiantly carries the day for me.

Thank you all for your knowledgeable and thought provoking insights.

Happy Holidays to all.

Sincerely,

Lisztener

I've been told I'm talented, But I just take it as an encouragement. I started late learning piano at age 19. I forget how I started. There is so much to learn about music.

I dont know if talent really exist. There are those who are good and something others aren't good at. Everyone is different. Experience? Talent? gee, I don't know. I can only stand with my statement "practice"