Is it possible to be natuarraly good at an instrument or is it just done to hard wotk? I was just wondering
Thanks xxx

For some lucky people, learning a particular instrument may be quite easy and they can just 'do' it but I think for most of us, hard work needs to be put in in order to see some decent results.

There was a study done which prooved that people who turn out best at instruments often have to put in more hours to achieve the same results that medicore musicians do. I can link to the webpage if anyone is interested.

Can I have the link?

http://www.psychol.ucl.ac.uk/david.shanks/..._expertise.html

That's really interesting, thanks Bohemian!

I think it's a combination. I don't think it's possible to become really excellent without the hours of work, but on the other hand there's no doubt that some people take to certain instruments relatively quickly whereas others really struggle even given the same teacher and similar amounts of effort put in. So while I doubt there are many or indeed any who can just "pick up" a new instrument and play it very well without much work, some people will probably progress further on one instrument, and others on another.

I forget where I read it, but I understand that we will tend to enjoy and find pleasure in doing something we are good at... so I suppose if a person is good, they will probably enjoy playing, and are likely to practice more... so talent and practice feed off each other. One is unlikely to practice for the necessary 10,000 hours at something one dislikes.

A little like, for example, sports: no amount of practice will turn me into Jonathan Edwards, but he didn't get to be a world-record triple jumper just through athletic talent. Does that make sense?

Regardless, I think it should be the aim of every teacher to teach good sound technique and the best possible habits right from the start. While it's impossible to know in advance if someone will have the talent AND commitment to become very very good, it will certainly give them the best chance if they are taught well from the very beginning!

i took to the bassoon very quickly and easily, but it wasn't just that i got the knack of it quite easily, for me it was a combination of:

major amounts of hard work, for obvious reasons;
my respect for the instrument, which made me want to learn how to... 'tame' it;
the fact that, once i'd gotten good, i could join orchestras and ensembles and things (basically rewards!);
my teacher, a legend and a guy i get on with very easily

so, yes, it is possible to be naturally good at an instrument, but, in my opinion, it's not possible to be naturally excellent at an instrument...

Amen!



Amen to that, too!

Yes, I agree. Think I was trying to get at something similar, but don't know how well I managed it!

About being naturally suited, kind of links in with what I posted about a friend in the "hardest/easiest" instruments thread... here... I don't think anyone will get to be brilliant without a lot of hard work, but there are definitely those who just click with one instrument and not another...

Bohemian, I just did a rough calculation and guess what? 10,000 hours to be a prof musician in 10 yrs' time would mean for you 3.3 hours a day, 6 days a week, assuming you rest one day a week? You can manage that.

I've read the article and found it interesting. I'd like to make the point that the sample of musicians was taken from a 'Music Academy'. This suggests to me that these musicians had already shown ability in an audition to attend the academy. From these talented students, those who practised more attained a higher standard. If the sample had been those students taking instrument lessons in a 'normal' secondary school, would the same results apply or would some musicians never reach professional standard regardless of the number of hours practised. The trouble is that at the current number of hours I practise a week, I'll be well into my 70s before having amassed 10,000 hours.

3h20mins per day, 6 days a week? ! I've been playing in the band for oliver (our school play this year) and that's 2 1/2 hours a day for 4 days - and my face has like seized up!

Mattraley, don't worry, I was talking with Bo there and I know Bo takes the violin so no facial injury there.

Della, the sample HAD to be taken from a music academy as the researchers only want to check out music performers and music teachers, not part-time hobbyists. If you start like most kids in the UK at 8 years old as recommended by the UK government in writing as the optimum age, and you want to try to become a musician, I wonder HOW it takes 78 years to reach 10,000 hours if you do 6 days a week? Are you sure? I'd better stop typing to go and look for my old calculator.

I suppose I was wondering whether one has to have an innate ability to reach the level of a professional musician or whether anyone can make it given enough practise. If some sort of innate ability is required, then only those with that ability would become part of the study. The conclusion I can draw is that a considerable amount of practice is required, but I can't draw any conclusion from that study about the part that innate ability may play.

My calculation was based on half an hour a day for 6 days a week, 50 weeks a year.

Hmmm, I see where you are coming from...

We shall never know whether we/our kids have innate ability. But 0.5 hour per day is good for reasonable progress although if these want to be professional musicians as well like one of my kids, then that amount of time, according to the research paper, would be insufficient.

*stops having a heart attack*

of course - but still, you'd need to be superhuman to practice that much on anything... so from that it seems you need a degree of 'talent' (be it musical or superhuman!) to be able to become a pro? or not?

Ambulance recalled...

No, no, no ACCORDING to the article's author, there is no need for innate talent at all - if he/she is right.

Hey, you don't need to be a superhuman! If you are mad about the piano/violin, it's not unusual to get so carried away that you won't notice that 2 hours have gone - just like that! *snaps finger* I know a guy who's like that. He practises piano anywhere from 3 up to 5 hours and then wonders where the time went. Is he talented? Who knows? You need the practice whether you are talented or not so I guess one might as well do it. The thing is to enjoy it as much as possible, I guess.

Anyway, just for fun, I went downstairs to "scare" my kid just now. I said - Did you know I have just read an article which said to BE a professional musician, you HAVE to practise 3 hrs and 20 mins a day!!! She said waitingly - So? I replied - You mean you are not scared? She said in a matter of fact tone - That's okay. It's not too much. Two hours twice a day. Something in her expression made me laugh!

I've never timed her practice but it would seem that some people don't seem to mind the hard work! Don't seem to be fazed by the prospect, either, like the guy I told you earlier.

You'll be fine, Matt, if you do what your teacher tells you.

i think you can be naturally good at an instrument, like i seem to be pretty good at the flute without really trying... yea i scare myself, anyway, even if your a natural, it doesn't mean that you dont have to work hard!

I reckon its just certain qualities that are passed down genetically. e.g. your dad might have a good memory for music and your mum might be very picky, making your technique and general performance better.

Well, I think though inborn talent may be helpful, hard working and great interest in learning are much more important. Even if we can learn an instrument fast, if we don't spend time practising it, I don't think we can make obvious progress. And, if we don't really enjoy learning and playing with it, we'll give it up easily too.

Yes, absolutely. Natural talent won't get someone very far at all if it isn't backed up by hard work.

Amen to that. I am naturally gifted as a singer, but is has been the hours practicing that really made the difference. I am not a natural pianist, but hours of practice have got me to the standard I am today.

Hmmm I'm not really that usre. I think it can also depend on what you do when you're younger. Like if you were very creative when you were a toddler, then that can sort of contribute to it.

Awwwwww bless!
This day off business, I read a quote by possibly Heifetz, which said something along the lines of "If I stop practicing for 1 day, I will know, if I stop practicing for 2 days, my critics will know, and if I stop practicing for 3 days, the public will know". Someone else (Menuhin??) said that if he takes 1 day off, what is there to stop him taking another, and another, and another?
I can see that some people like their days off, but being a freak, I can't see that I would a: want to and b: keep my motivation if I realised what else I could do with my 3 hours a day.

Tess: Thanks for your calculation it has given me new hope

I wish that every teacher would aim to teach the maximum number of transferable skills, so that any student who turns out not to be well matched with their particular instrument doesn't start from rock bottom when they decide to try a different one. For example accurate rhythm-reading and a good understanding of how rhythmic notation works will transfer to any instrument and to singing. As an accompanist I meet too many people who have learnt a few pieces by rote but have almost non-existent music-reading skills.

Good point!


I've seen that quote applied to dancers, too.

This is exactly what's important, in my opinion, in music teaching. Even not thinking about transferring between instruments just between pieces on the same instrument. It seems, sadly, that a lot of people just rote learn one piece, then onto the next and so on, usually taking a long time over each piece (see the all too frequent one exam per year and no other repertoire...). People learning an instrument don't need to learn pieces; what they actually need to do is learn how to learn pieces. This is the skill that's needed and involves the important transferable skills that dacapo mentions. There's very little point learning a piece as a means to an end (apart from for enjoyment, or if one has reached the top and it's for a performance) what's far more important are the skills gained in learning that piece (which will not be very many if the piece is too hard and not learnt in the proper way). This is one reason I view sightreading as so important: it's a skill (and is transferable); playing a single piece isn't so much a skill as a party trick or a means to an end.

*nods*

I guess the two most important things on any instrument are how to handle the technical demands of your instrument, and how to turn the dots on the page into music on your instrument. Amazing how many instrumental teachers manage to make a complete pig's breakfast at teaching one or the other or both.

I was fortunate enough to be very well taught to read music etc from a young age. I count myself extremely lucky!

I WISH MY PIANO TEACHER WOULD READ THAT! i learn pieces, but no technique! i'm on grade 5 and i cant actually play!

I read somewhere that it takes 20 years of daily practise for an average person to become a competant pianist. This works out at 7,300 h which agrees pretty well with the figures quoted in that link.

I've read about that study before, but I'm still left with the feeling there must be talent somewhere even if it's just amongst the absolute prodigies.

Ten thousand hours works out at 1 year, 7 weeks and just over three days.

I can't see how someone like Mozart could have fitted that much practise in. Saint Saens could play all of Beethoven's sonatas frm memory by he was 10. If talent really wasn't important he would have had to have spent over 10% of his *entire* life playing the piano. If you assume that he couldn't realistically have started playing until he was three or so (at the earliest), that works out at 4 h a day. Possible I suppose.

Another critisism of the study is that it really only considers realtively able musicians (as people have pointed out on here). The studies of school kids looked at people who'd progressed quite well in the grades.

These studies therefore show that much of the variability *amongst* musicians can be explained by the amount of practise done over their lifetimes, but it is totally false logic to then go on to say the difference *between* musicians and non musicians is the amount of practise done.

Although it's not mentioned in the link, the study of grade progession did take "musical autobiographies" of a much larger sample and the most common response was "tried an instrument as a child but gave it up within a year". It could well be that this is the "untallented" group. factors like hand - eye coordination must be vitally important and there are huge variations in this.

There have actually been some interesting studies done on the effects of fitness training, where large groups of sedentary people were put through training regimes. This is a different type of study to the one described above as as it tests a hypothesis against a measured outcome (although how well the study was conducted is anyone's guess!)

The conclusion was that the response to physical training was highly variable and that there were a group of people who consistently showed almost no improvement in any indicator of fitness despite having been put through their paces like the rest. There were also a group who responded well to training and quickly became fitter, so "sporting ability" it does not seem to be all down to how much training you've done.

If you took a large sample of children, gave them all identical training and made them all practise to the same extent, that after two years you may well end up with a group of people with very difficult musical abilities. Basically it's an experiment that's almost impossible to do, which is why this sort of argument rumbles on for year after year.

I agree.

I also noticed in one of those articles that the measure was "getting to grade X"... but the thing is, we all know that that covers a wide range, from people who rote learned pieces for a year and got 100, to people who did grade X having covered a huge range of music, being able to play a wide range at and around that level, and get high distinctions after having spent a few months at most on the pieces. One couldn't possibly say that two people at the extremes of that were at the same level, so to set a grade as the standard without taking that into account seems a bit silly to me.