Category: Let's talk
a few days ago a few of us were involved in a discussion about music and musicians and talent ... it started when I made a comment about all musicians being arogant. actually it was meant as a joke although the slightly more serious underlying point I made afterwards was that if you want to ever succeed as a musician you have to be slightly arogant and sell yourself, because if you don't, potentially nobody else will. however, we then started talking about talent, and what makes a good musician .. etc. one user said that she was very talented, and became quite annoyed when we pointed out that it is others who have to recognize your talent for it to be worth anything. so what do you all think. do you think that people should go round telling the world how good they are? this does not just apply to music of course, or do you think that true talent is when someone else recognizes it.
Hi Sugar baby,
I was in the middle of answering this post earlier, but mom saw lightning so I felt I had to shut down. I think if you are talented, people will tell you so. I believe it takes others to recognize your talent. I don't dislike musicians, and I've talked to some, but it seems to me that most musicians are in a world of their own, where nothing matters, or is interesting if it doesn't revolve around music. I think it's pretty much impossible to be objective about your own work. For instance, I don't know if I have a talent for writing or not, but odds are, I probably don't. When I come up with a story or poem, writers boards are better for getting it out, because I don't enjoy lettingit sit in a drawer gathering dust, just because it's not publishable, but I don't like to force it on people either. In conversation, I might say I wrote this or that, and if the person responds with an enthusiastic, oh, I'd love to read it, would you send it to me? I will send it to them, but if they change the subject, or don't say anything else on it, I just don't bother.I think also, it's all in what you like as well.
wonderwoman
Interesting topic, SugarBaby. It is probably true that individuals aren't usually perfectly positioned to be the judge of their own talent, or lack thereof. This can go either way, i.e. it can lead either to over- or to underestimating oneself, since objectivity is hardest to gain when things are about oneself.
But that's not even the most interesting aspect of your question, in my opinion. The question this post raises is how to assess talent in general. Is there a specific criterion for talent one can apply and then, to put overdraw the point, compute a person's talent? Or is talent something more elusive that can't be measured by objective standards? In short, what makes talent?
You'll notice that I'm only posting questions and not answers, but that's because I simply don't have them :-).
Well, some musicians are arrogant, some take drugs and all that, but you can't say that about everyone of them. Some are not arrogant. For example there is a girl I know who's famous in Germany because she plays the piano really well, and she is not at all arrogant.
I think tallent is the ability to be truely good at something and to have other people recognise that. I think thinking your good is not a bad thing but there is a difference in thinking you're good and not being prepared to accept that maybe you're not.
In my opiniom, it's a bit of both. I think that yes, you can believe that you're tallented, but you also have to have others believe it to. I've sang since I was a child, and I feel that I am tallented. Not because I just woke up and decided it, but because people have put that in to my head. I also think with a musical talent or any type of talent, you always have to keep working at it. You can be good, but you want to be better.
Well I think the question of what makes talent is actually a difficult one. After all, we all have different taste, different standards, and let’s face it, different knowledge of things. For instance, jo blogs on the street might walk into an art galary, look at an abstract painting and say “what utter rubbish! All the artist did was chuck some paints on a bit of canvas – any toddler could have done that!”. Whereas, an art critic could walk into the same galary, look at the same painting and say “oh how exquisite! One can clearly see here how the artist has used the blends of colours to cause the effects” … I’m sure there is some recognized lingo to describe art but unfortunately I do not have the knowledge of it, but see what I’m saying … one painting, two absolutely different opinions. One comes down to personal taste, and the other down to knowledge of the subject in hand. And of course the opposite could happen critic could think It was rubbish and jo blogs might love it purely because he liked the look of it.
As for me saying all musicians are arrogant, well to a degree I think I was right, a lot are, course a lot aren’t, and I think ther is a vast difference between arrogance and self belief. I think that in order to succeed in the music business, you have to be able to go out there and say, yes, I think I am good enough, give me a chance, that is self belief, and it comes with confidence in your own ability, and if you have that, people will most likely at least give you a chance. It doesn’t mean you’ll make it, because the music industry is very difficult to break into, but you’ll be that one step closer. If you say, oh I’m not good enough anyway, you don’t stand a chance, because you won’t ever be discovered, and there are a lot out there prepared to stand up and be heard while you hide in the shadow of your lack of self confidence. But if you go out there and say, as this user did the other day, I am talented, and I know I am because I have grown up with music all my life, that is arrogance, and it will not earn you any respect.
I think arrogance and self-confidence are essentially two completely different things. Arrogant, to me, indicates you are claiming to be superior in some way or another and it is not necessarily indicative of your talents in any way, it's more of a negative personality trait.
Self-confidence is nowing what qualities you possess and have a realistic estimate of how they compare to those of other people. I believe myself to be slightly above average guitarist and a pretty good drummer. However I will not go blair it out to the world, if the opportunity shows itself and I need to play I will play to the best of my ability and I sure will hope I impress people with it, but if not then it means I'm not good enough or they don't apprecite my talents.
You do need to believe in yourself and for arts/music where there is strict competition you need enouh arrogance to go out there and show your work to someone and claim it to be pretty good, but you can't go around teling people how good you are without anything to back it up. I think being humble is a very admirable trait in musicians.cheers
-B
I would imagine having played more than a sell out gigs with our goth/black metal band... that constant adulation, could go to a pro musician's head...I know that after a gig we are literally flying and it takes several days to land ....are we talented well our audience seem to think so we aren't so sure but that's our way of keeping our feet on the ground otherwise well..smile...arrogance is a bigger problem in the stuffy restricted world of classical music,where there is culture of superiority, due to the long years of difficult study involved in playing, composing and arranging, classical pieces...however Elton John and John Lennon hmmm arrogance personified...
oh yeh Elton jon is definitely arogant though, but no one could ever deny that he's brilliant, and some would say that being as good as he is, he has the right to be arogant, personally I think he perhaps should remember that he once was, where I am now, admittedly when he was a lot younger but none the less he wasn't always famous.
ohh he's brilliant alright as was Mozart but a humbler man you couldn't meet ..EJ does remember in a way he still visits his elderly aunt in her high rise flat in Peckham, I think, and he's the perfect nephew..if a little pretensious... The most arrogant bugger is Mick Jagger he's a complete snob but at least he's honest about it..
See, that's perception of talent right there. There are ots of people who claim goth metal or death etal is just a bunch of noise and does not constitute music in any way whatsoever, peple also claim this about rap hehe, I rather claim this about bad r&b and a lot of the rap world .. so, different people perceive different things as talents for sure.
If one is talented and one doesn't recognise that, one risks not making the most of it. I do agree that we are not in the best position to judge our own personal talents, but my view is that if someone says to you "Hey look you're very good at this, you know" or "Keep it up, you've got real talent", it would be chirlish not to recognise that. And that is what we have to beware of: humility is one thing, allowing your natural ability to go to waste because of a misconceived high-mindedness is quite another. Sugarbaby, I think another important aspect of this topic is recognising the difference between talk and action: you ask whether we should go around telling the world that we are talented, but by doing so you imply that recognising your own talent necessarily leads to going about the world talking about it. whether you intended this implication or not, it is plain that the latter does not follow the former as a matter of inexorable logic. This is a subtle but necessary distinction: to pontificate about one's own talents is, in my submission, where the true vice lies. Remove this, however, and you are left with the true virtue of recognising your own talents and building on them. To put it another way and to give a direct answer to Sugarbaby's question: no, we should not go around telling the world about how talented we are. We should, instead, go around showing the world how talented we are. We thereby avoid falling short of our true potential, whilst at the same time failing to don the cloak of arrogance.
Well in its defence Black metal is THE most difficult and challenging music to play, due to the speed and acccuracy required, particularly in the drumming..talent is an impossible thing to quantify as its very much down to personal choice....the 1st performance of Madame Butterfly was a disaster so confused Puccini rearranged the entire opera, and the the new version was a huge success, to me that kind of nonsense is insane...
Goblin, black metal can often technically speaking be very challenging and I actually have nothing against it, I used to listen to it and was even in a black metal band for a very short time but I lost interest in it due to lack of melody and the lyrical content nd the overly dark feel to the music, I still appeciate it, I just don't listen to it at all these days. To me bad rapping over a drum loop is what I really perceive as a severe lack of tallent, good rapping, however, is a talent, musical or not, it's hard to say and can be debated but I think it's as valid musical gift as technical skills with a voice or an instrument.
cheers
-B
most definitely, the ability to put down meaningful and well-rhymed and timed lyrics, is definitely a tallent. wish I had it, but anyway. Also freestyling is a tallent, the ability to here a beat and with know knowledge of the subject, put things together, is it musical? maybe not, but certainly not everyone can do it and become the next eminem, can they.
I think the problem people have with Black metal is due to poor quality bands such as Cradle of Filth..As you hail from Iceland you will know that the Scandinavians have a far superior choice, such as Mortis who I'm quite fond of.
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..as for rap well hmm ...it's my least favourite genre I find the "lyrics" repetative and derogatory to women, also the image is so overblown and childish ...but Eminem is 1 rapper I can tolerate he has genuine talent and has succeeded against all expectations...
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Fabulous why not Eminem was told he couldn't and wouldn't get anywhere..at least you could try and see where you end up..
I think over-all any genre becomes too one-dimentional for my personal taste. I think one chooses music to fit one's mood or feelings, at least I do that a lot, happy for going out, dance music at clubs, silly music / kids music while driving and bored, depressed music etc. I think bands that can cross genres and display a bit of everything are the most impressive ones, Radiohead and the Cure are prime examples of bands that do that. Radiohead crossed brilliantly into the dark ambient electronic music without losing their band identity or even their signature sound and the Cure have written the happiest "Why Can't I Be Yo", "Friday, I'm in Love" and the saddest "Apart", "Pictures of You", and some of the angriest "Disintegration" and most romantic "Love Song" songs I've ever heard by any band. I very often get the feeling when I go to concerrts that after about 90 minutes I feel the band has played the same song over and over again because their songs sound so similar, a lot of bands suffer from this, even good bands like the Music (although I believe they just had a very ba night that particular night), Green Day to some extent (although their horizons are broader) and well death and Thrash metal bands often suffer from this.
Not to say they are not talented but the talent is in a very narrow area and does not keep my interest for long enough, and the same goes for rap music, the vast majority of it actually.
I like Tricky, Eminem, Ludakris (some of his stuff anyway) and some other lesser known bands like OUtlandish (although it's more of a hiphop cross over).
As a music undergraduate at university, i see this quite a lot. most of the people i'm studying with are trained classical musicians and a small minority of them are somewhat big headed, either because they've got great tallent or because they've been lucky enough to be the big fish in the small pond all their lives. They then inevitably leave university and get quite a shock when they come across musicians who've done 4 hours more practice a day than they have ever done and they fall on their asses.
In terms of my own abilities, I'd like to think i'm ok as a musician but i also know there is a lot of work to be done for me to be even close to good.
I think to be talented you have to recognize it yourself and have other peoples' opinions of your talent. I also think constructive criticism is good; I have some problems taking it sometiems, like I'll take it really personally, but i get better at accepting it and using it constructively. This sort of criticism has really helped me hone my musical talent and so yeah. Lol.
i myself think it has to be a little of both. theres nothing wrong with acknowledging your talent, cause if someone else recognizes it that makes you feel great too. by all means, you shouldnt tell everyone you see, but its okay to admit your talented.
I'm a great lazy person. I'm sooo great at being lazy.
Well some might be arrogant. It's okay if they're confident, but as soon as they get arrogant, tthen I don't feel confortable with them anymore. I even doubt I'd be a fan of an arrogant musician.
I'm good. Quite good in fact. However, I am a good performing musician, but not nearly good enough to be a music performance major. I am a great teaching musician, and would make an encredible music education major. Part of talent is realizing that you have it, then recognizing where it could be best expressed. Many people tell me that I am talented. That's nice, but not the important factor. Most people know very little about the genres of music which I excell at and only know slightly more about music in general. Therefore I value and appreciate their praise, but I don't use it as a measuring stick. I may measure people's enjoyment of my abilities from their oopinions and in-put, but not my actual level of talent. Now, I have had a few musicians say that I am not very good and a few say that I am excellent, but the majority of musicians who offer up their opinions say that I am quite good, not perfect certainly and then point out some of my best strengths and also give some constructive critisisms. Those are the people who's opinions mean the most to me and prove the most helpful. I tend to believe more in the views of other musicians than in those of friends, family members and acquaintences, but that is not to say that I don't appreciate the complements and yes, the constructive critisism from where-ever it comes. Also, talent is not enough, one must have intelect, drive, motivation and a fare amount of luck to become a great musician. I have seen many talented students flunk out of Eastman or Crane because either they fooled around with drugs, alcohol, or partying, couldn't maturely handle their sex-lives or their relationships, didn't study, couldn't succeed accademically or weren't motivated enough to attend classes or practice. All of them had talent, but in and of it's self talent is not enough. As for arrogance, that is where good mentors come in. They know when your head is getting to inflated and they pull out a strait pin to deal with the problem, and they know when your spirits are flagging and you need some encouragement and a hug. It is a good mentor and music professor who can either boost you up a rung on the ladder or knock you down a peg depending on whether you are being overly or under confident of your talent. These people are invaluable because they can be realistic and objective for you when you are convinced that you suck, that you will never improve or when you think that you exceed all others in ability and that you are being treated unfairly anytime that someone else succeeds.
I'm average when it comes to everything. I can be good at something if i put my whole heart into it. I'm good at writing and singing. And if i keep on working, i might be more than average when it comes to running. I love to run, but i think that i need to excert more effort. I just didn't have enough time. I'm pretty good academically, but yeah, i'm just average.
Like many on here, I too think that tallent is subjective. I have been told that I am tallented, (I play some keyboards, and more guitar). My personal oppinion of my playing though is that I do ok but there's lots of room for improvement. In music however, it is said that nobody knows it all, as there's always something to learn. Mark Knopfler said that, so if he's still learning, I sure as hell am lol.