So Why is talent over-rated – whether that be in learning to Play Guitar or anything else for that matter? And why exactly is the following statement regarding ability and limits, made over 100 years ago (written how people spoke around 1911), and still widely believed even today, completely wrong?
” A person bumps up against his or her limits early in life… at this sobering moment, the wise person gives up trying to do more …he discards the foolish notion that he can ever do better, makes peace with the idea that he’s as good as he’ll ever be”….
This was the thinking of Sir Franics Galton – a cousin of Charles Darwin who was knighted in 1909 as an English Victorian PolyMath – and yet ironically as someone who had “developed” skills in many different areas, writing over 340 papers, coining the phrase Nature versus Nurture – he was of the thinking that the majority of people have much lower limits of potential, that each person has a limit to talent – and very quickly everyone will ” bump” up against this (so-called) talent limit – This is completely Untrue – totally false as You will understand in a moment.
According to Galton, If You have reached a plateau as a Guitar Player, whether that is because right now You have reached a plateau in Your playing – quite literally reached a wall and are wondering whether You can get past this because :-
- You can Play chords/ play power chords but can’t play songs OR
- You can play songs but can’t play solos/ improvise OR
- You can Play but don’t really understand how to fully express Yourself on the instrument OR
- You can follow others Music/Tabs and yet You can’t compose Your own Music OR
- As a beginner You doubt You have the Talent and have perhaps already tried OR
- Any of many other musical goals and Musical desires You might have involving Acoustic or Electric Guitar…
Then according to the nature verses nurture theory – where ever You happen to be right now in Your Guitar Playing is where You are destined to be, and there is nothing You can do about it!
However while many people still believe ” You have to have the inborn talent” – and according to Galton You will quickly bump up against your limitations .. especiallly since “The ordinary everyday person only has so much talent – and is likely to very quickly get to the limit of that and not be able to progress any further – either on Your own or with guidance, expert coaching or assistance” – and sadly this is still a lot of the thinking even 100 years later – now in the first part of the 21st Century!
Now if that really was the case, and was true….
How Do you explain someone like 70 year old Guitar student John – starting as a mature studnet and making his debut on stage at age 70 at a workshop?
The nature verses nurture theory would suggest that this simply is impossible – and yet it is possible and did happen, its even captured on video!
How is it possible that from a Guitar perspective we have quite literallly hundreds of videos showing students of all backgrounds and ages, from 11 to 71 that have made breakthroughs in their playing, and quite literally transformed their playing frustrations towards playing fulfilment?
It has very little to do with talent; and while it does have something to do with teaching, coaching, training and instruction;
There is one thing that is more important than talent, than teaching, one thing that determines whether a student will or won’t take their playing to the next level – what ever that happens to be for them; and that one thing, that can help transform their playing way past their current plateau towards their next peak, beyond their current doubbt, any current frustration towards fulfilment .. And that one thing is :
The F Word – all about Focus..
The Number One thing I hear from people is I don’t have the time to practice, and it is this that puts them off.
In reality its not that they don’t have time – there are many inequalities in life and Time is Not one of them – everybody has 1440 minutes everyday that You and I must use.
Instead of time – its more about getting the most out of whatever time You do have – and this is all about learning how to focus. Why? Because a focussed 20 minutes of playing is far more usefull to You then an unfocussed 1 hour.
Infact a really easy thing you can do that will have a big impact on your playing, even without learning about The Attention Trifecta, how to navigate specific transition points in your playing, or how to put everything together in a continuous motion of music making evolution
one simple thing you can do is when You pick up the guitar – switch off all other distractions – You cannot effectively learn with distractions going on – alll Music Making needs Your full attention to make progress – if You are merely going through the mechanical movements with both hands then sadly You will not make the progress You deserve – even if You have an hour or more .
A focussed 20 or 30 minutes is far better than an unfocussed distracted 1 or 2 hours.
So the question is not really are You talented to get past where You are – rather do You have the time, do you have regular 20 minureslots s that You can use in between face to face immersion sessions.
It doesn’t matter whether You believe You have natural talent, the key question is do you have time in between sessions, because you can be trained to focus – and there are examples here of students from age 11 through 72 who not only did that decided to take their playing further and play at workshops, or even up on stage.
While Talent is certainly over-rated, Focus is not – it is a learnable skill that You can certainly apply beyond Guitar, beyond Music Making.
Even neuroscoence is showing that focussed Music Making uses more of the brain than anything – although first and foremost You must prime Your Musical Mind – to make sure that when your hands are on guitar, your eyes are on guitar – you are focussing on the right things in the right order – and in learning that You absolutely can achieve more in a focussed 20 minutes outside of Your Face to face immersion sessions than You would in a random 1 or 2 hours.
Ofcourse Guitar Playing can and should be fun, and yet when it is time to pick up with the aim of making measured progress – then it is forst and foremost all about focus.. focus is far more important than natural talent. And it is focus that allows you to compress down your learning time – makng learning faster and more enjoyable.
Sometimes in Immersion sessions, and also at Workshops, our guitar enthusiasts are surprised at how quickly time seems to fly – that is down to focus and being fully immersed in playing… the first fundamental thing that makes this possible….