Talent is a funny old word. Everyone thinks they know what it means but at the same time almost all of us use it as a lazy way of describing ones skill level. It’s easy to look at someone who is at the top of their profession and immediately attribute their success to some form of superpower we mere mortals were born without.
We also use it as a way of an excuse when we struggle to do something. “Oh I can’t play guitar, I have no musical talent”.
It’s the ultimate get out clause. It’s lazy. Stop it.
I’m willing to bet everyone reading this right now has something they can do better than anyone they know. It could be something impressive like being able to speak several languages, create incredibly complex balloon animals or complete a Rubik’s cube in 30 seconds. Equally, it could also be something really trivial like being able to recite the alphabet backwards (guilty). Regardless of what it is, this feat will seem impressive to some people, especially if they have a strong desire to one day emulate this ability for themselves.
Not the alphabet thing though. Only an idiot would want to do that…
The point being; to a lot of people, being able to do something that requires a high skill level will seem like magic and wizardry – probably because they don’t get to see behind the scenes and the level of sacrifice these abilities merit.
Which, as you’re about to discover, is quite a lot…
The 10,000 rule
You may have heard about the 10,000 rule before. If you haven’t I’ll give you a quick summary. Basically there is a theory that all experts in their particular field have put in at least 10,000 hours of meaningful dedicated practice to get where they are. A book was written by Malcolm Gladwell on this very subject titled ‘outliers’, and while the theory is controversial, I definitely believe the findings were not only spot on but were logical and displayed a lot of common sense.
In the book, Gladwell focuses on one of Dr K. Anders Ericsson’s key studies on violinists at Berlin’s Academy of Music. Most of the students began playing at approximately five years of age, and all putting in similar practice times; but by the age of eight, subtle differences in their study became apparent. By the time these musicians reached the age of 20, the elite performers totalled 10,000 hours of practice each, while the merely good students had totalled 8,000 hours, and the lesser-able performers had just over 4,000 hours of practice.
Also a similar pattern was discovered in professional and amateur pianists. By the age of twenty, amateurs had put in 2,000 hours of practice, whereas professionals had done considerably more; reaching 10,000 hours. Gladwell states, “The idea that excellence at performing a complex task requires a critical minimum level of practice surfaces again and again in studies of expertise.”
So does talent exist at all?
Yes and no. If we are talking about sports then you could say it’s impossible to be a 100m sprinter if you aren’t born with the right proportion of fast twitch muscle fibres. This is obvious and some people call this talent but I just call this good genetics. The myth of talent creeps up when we use it to describe skills we had no use for in our primitive lives. We were never meant to play the guitar, to juggle chainsaws or solve complex algebraic equations; thus we simply do not have a natural innate ability to do these things. Purely cognitive skills such as these are made, not from genetics, but from countless hours of focused practice and repetition.
There is no us and them
So what does this say about the people who are at a world class level in their chosen career? How are they different from the rest of us? What’s their secret?
It’s simply the desire to succeed and to improve which keeps them going hour after hour, day after day, and at the point when most of us choose to give up and go down the pub, they are still putting in those hours.
It’s a relentless obsession with perfection.
It really doesn’t matter what the subject is, nobody is born world class. Everyone is the same; we are all normal human beings with the same opportunity for greatness, but it is how we choose to spend our days that will determine if our potential for success.
Are you a struggling guitarist with dreams of becoming the new Hendrix, Van Halen or Satriani? That’s great but what have you done today to help realise that dream? How many hours have you practised your craft? Are you looking for excuses or are you looking for ways to improve?
Without dedication you have nothing
This is what it boils down to. How much do you really want it? Mastering your art isn’t something that is done part time when there is nothing to watch on the TV, it is something that you need to embrace day in day out regardless of how you are feeling. You need to become the person you wish to be.
If you aren’t practising with dedication and consistency then you will struggle to improve. There really isn’t any special hidden insider knowledge to any of this. If you believe you favourite guitarists achieved their ability because they are special then you’re living in cloud cuckoo land. It’s because they practise more than you – more deliberate practice. They are putting a level of effort into their craft which is above and beyond the amount you’re willing to try, and in doing so, these guys are reaping the rewards.
You get out what you put in and there are no shortcuts.
- Are you struggling to jam over backing tracks? It’s because you aren’t improvising enough.
- Are you stuck when trying to figure out where the notes are? It’s because you haven’t learnt the fretboard.
- Does it always seem like you can’t get above a certain picking speed? It’s because you haven’t spent enough time with the metronome.
- Is your rhythm playing confined to 4/4 and nothing else? It’s because you are hiding away from other genres, styles and time signatures.
If something isn’t up to scratch then you simply aren’t putting in the required time and effort into improving it. With the above 4 examples, the people who don’t worry about these things are the people who are willing to try new ideas, who are focused on improving their weaknesses and are inspired to fill in the gaps in their knowledge.
You point of this article was to hammer home that nothing comes easy. Everything worth doing is hard and that is the beauty of it. That is where the satisfaction comes from and if everything was easy, well how boring would life be? Whether you are striving for a career as a professional guitarist or you’re just looking to improve your general playing ability – if you aren’t working on your technique every day, then how can you ever hope to improve? It just won’t happen.
Don’t be lazy.
Don’t moan.
Just put the effort in.
Leave the excuses behind and give yourself a huge kick up the ass.
Ask yourself this.
What have I done today to help me become the player I truly want to be?
What are your thoughts on talent vs skill? What does the word ‘talent’ mean to you? Let me know in the comments below, thanks.
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