<p>I sort of understand what you mean by lyrical expressiveness. I have a hard time identifying this factor with my tin ear. It also seems a bit hard to achieve without a great deal of proficiency in playing the instrument. Certainly there is nothing pleasant about a wooden performance. I would rather hear some errors and wrong notes from a student who puts a lot of feeling in the music. I am not sure if this is entirely an innate sense. Teachers and conductors spend a lot of time trying to turn the notes and sounds into music.</p>
<p>Oh, a certain amount of proficiency is clearly needed, but I have heard innate musicality in kids as young as seven, who are newish to an instrument. I have heard people who have played the piano for ten years who can not match the innate musicality (despite being obviously more proficient) than a child with the real gift. I don't quite know how to explain it, and I have something between your tin ear and perfect pitch, so am not an expert, by a long shot.</p>
<p>You might appreciate this discussion of innate musicality. It seems to be something that occurs well before 7 years old.
<a href="http://www.identicalharmony.com/music3.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.identicalharmony.com/music3.html</a></p>
<p>"Innate musicality," I'd be willing to venture a research grant to investigate, results mostly from more high-quality listening experience. My wife the piano teacher can tell pretty well which beginning students have listened to a lot of good music--not many--and which have not. From that baseline, established largely by experience, development of performance results mostly from deliberate practice. See the book</a> under review for many more details, and lavish citations to the musicological research literature.</p>
<p>I didn't want to brag, Edad. We knew our son had musical gifts before he spoke his first (early) word. ;)</p>
<p>Thanks for the article, though. Very interesting. You too, Token Adult. Would like to look into that book as well.</p>
<p>edad -- interesting article, thanks for sharing.</p>
<p>According to the article starting this thread, "A sober look at any field shows that the top performers are rarely more gifted than the also-rans, but they almost invariably outwork them. This doesn't mean that some people aren't more athletic or smarter than others. The elite are elite partly because they have some genetic gifts - for learning and hand-eye coordination, for instance - but the very best rise because they take great pains to maximise that gift." Which sounds a lot like talent exists to me ...</p>
<p>The way the articles about Ericsson's research are written, one can come away with the impression he is saying "talent" doesn't matter or even exist (as idad suggests). But a closer reading shows this is not what Ericsson is saying. In an earlier article in the NY Times about his work
[quote]
"I think the most general claim here," Ericsson says of his work, "is that a lot of people believe there are some inherent limits they were born with. But there is surprisingly little hard evidence that anyone could attain any kind of exceptional performance without spending a lot of time perfecting it." <a href="http://tinyurl.com/hwh7y%5B/url%5D%5B/quote%5DSo">http://tinyurl.com/hwh7y
[/quote]
So</a> he is NOT saying that talent does not exist, merely that it is not sufficient.</p>
<p>Actually, Ericsson elsewhere is quoted in the symposium volume </p>
<p>Bock, Gregory & Ackrill, Kate (Eds.) (1993). The Origins and Development of High Ability. (Ciba Foundation Symposium 178). New York: Wiley. </p>
<p>challenging other experts on high ability to identify what "talent" might be, and how we would determine who has it. It was quite interesting for me to read the transcript of the experts' discussion, because everyone from a BROAD range of opinions on other issues was ganging up on Ericsson and accusing him of having an extreme position. He kept patiently asking the others, if they believe in innate talent, to explain what innate talent is. Ericsson has come up with some amazing and unexpected research findings about malleability of human abilities, and that is one of the reasons he was named one of the co-editors of the new Cambridge Handbook that is the subject of this thread.</p>
<p>I think human abilities may be malleable, but there is absolutely no way that "anyone can do anything". As I said elsewhere, perhaps I would like to be a great skater, but I promise you, I could practice eight hours a day, and all I would have is blisters. A kid can work like the dickens, but may never ever understand deep physics concepts, no matter how hard he works.</p>
<p>I really would like to challenge someone who suggests that there are no innate musical, artistic, athletic, and certain academic gifts and that these can be matched by those without such talents, even extreme practice. Now, if a person doesn't cultivate his/her talent, with appropriate instruction and practice, it will certainly be squandered, but I would like hard evidence that proves the alternative.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I really would like to challenge someone who suggests that there are no innate musical, artistic, athletic, and certain academic gifts
[/quote]
</p>
<p>How do you show the presence of those gifts? How do you show their absence?</p>
<p>Have you seen natural proclivity and ease of process in any area? I know I have. To me, it is as obvious as the nose on my face! :)</p>
<p>Absence of such gifts is seen in difficulty with certain areas, despite hard work. I've seen that too.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Have you seen natural proclivity and ease of process in any area? I know I have. To me, it is as obvious as the nose on my face!
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I think I have too. But I don't have a publishable result that can establish a new view of human talent unless I can control for other, possibly relevant variables. That is the challenge: if you think talent is decisive, show the world how talent can be identified and distinguished from factors that are not talent.</p>
<p>Having observed students in the math and music arenas for a number of years, I agree with Marite and Allmusic. There is a level of oneness with the subject matter - some call it a subtlety, an awareness, a depth, a profoundness (I don't know what to call it- but you know it when you see/hear it) that cannot be reached by practice/study/repetition/etc. </p>
<p>I have listened to judges speak of students at piano competitions whose technical proficiency is truly remarkable - but they are missing that undefinable musicality. I have watched "mathletes" who have studied every problem solving books on the market - tackle a new problem - and they resemble the technically proficient musician. However accomplished both are, there is still something that eludes them - some undefinable something that exists in those with "gifts".</p>
<p>Refelctivemom discusses what I see, exactly.</p>
<p>And TA, I don't know how to scientifically prove or identify this. It is like an "it" factor. You just know it when you see it, but I am not certain it is quantifiable, at least by any standard measures.</p>
<p>
[quote]
There is a level of oneness with the subject matter - some call it a subtlety, an awareness, a depth, a profoundness (I don't know what to call it- but you know it when you see/hear it) that cannot be reached by practice/study/repetition/etc.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, all right then, there is a level of awareness of discussing what is innate and what is acquired that develops reproducible, measurable results, and goes beyond trading anecdotes. I look for that when I read psychological research, just as I listen for musicality rather than mere technical proficiency when listening to music, and look for mathematical insight rather than mere speed at reaching the right answer in mathematical problem-solving.</p>
<p>I am not sure I know "it" when I see it.</p>
<p>What I have seen, is musicians who love music get better when they play and practice. With athletics, it often takes a specialized body type to excel. You are just not going to make it as a linebacker, if you have a small build and height. For many sports, special and unique physical characteristics are not essential and again the interested individual will get better with experience and practice. If those dedicated individuals do not make it to an elite level of performance, does that mean they did not have innate abilities? I suppose, but that seems to be a circular argument. Those of you who have great skills in discerning innate abilities might want to try betting on the horses.</p>
<p>The problem is that truly exceptional individuals are, as idad suggested, anecdotes. They are sui generis and therefore not the stuff of survey. Ramanujan? Newton? Leibniz? Mozart? Just anecdotes.
A survey will show that the more average performer will certain achieve a higher level of technical proficiency by practice, practice, practice. It won't show how one could become Ramanujan or Newton.</p>
<p>Actually, the research on talent has examined the so-called outlier, the recognized "gifted" individual. What has been found is that even the "oneness" is a function of deliberate, guided, practice. There is simply no evidence for talent, hard as it is to accept. Most instructive is the analysis of the difference between the great and the near great. The great tend to have about 2000 more hours of practice than the near great, and maintain a higher level of practice throughout their careers. Physical difference is another matter, one cannot coach height, or finger length (though finger structure can change with practice), and there are other such differences from which one can build, but this is not the "talent" to which I believe many refer.</p>
<p>Of course practice will make the person with innate ability greater than the person who doesn't practice. That goes without saying.</p>
<p>There are a finite number of places at "the top" of any pursuit. Not achieving that level doesn't in any way mean the person wasn't innately talented. I don't have to bet on the race horse, because I know that being born with talent isn't much of a predictor, since drive, ambition etc. are the key cards on this one. Innate ability is just the initiator; without the ambition, the ability is lost.</p>
<p>And both the I and E Dads have not proven quanititatively that talent doesn't exist. I have seen it, unquestionably, in a number of domains, including those outside of music.</p>
<p>"What has been found is that even the "oneness" is a function of deliberate, guided, practice. There is simply no evidence for talent, hard as it is to accept."</p>
<p>No evidence? Are you sure about that?</p>
<p>There is evidence for intuition, creativity, inspiration, etc.</p>
<p>Some studies try to describe it in terms of left brain/right brain. Often studies attempt to disprove the existence of that which the researchers have not experienced.</p>