Have you ever seen an seven-year old child playing the piano?
Then listen to the same eight-year old playing the piano.
And then that child struggles on to become a nine-year old playing the piano.
And then he moves on to ten.
And then suddenly at eleven, something magical happens
The clunky sound disappears from the playing.
Suddenly, there’s flow and rhythm.
And you sit up in awe, saying: “What a talented child.”
And you’d be wrong.
Because talent has little or nothing to do with it.
Ben Zander, celebrated conductor of orchestras, and trainer shows you exactly what’s happening from the age of seven, eight, to nine, then on to ten. And finally what happens when the child becomes eleven?
The teacher hasn’t changed.
The method of teaching hasn’t changed.
So what did change?
Why does the child begin to play like a dream?
It’s a factor of impulses, says Ben Zander.
When they first start playing, children put an impulse on every note.
When they continue playing, children then put an impulse on every second note.
And if they persist, they then put an impulse on every fourth note.
And by the time they’re ten (and four years into training), they put an impulse on every eight note.
And then it happens…
The eleven year old plays music that makes you sit back in awe.
But what’s really happening?
Layering. That’s what’s happening.
When we learn a language, we learn to recognise sound.
Then we learn a word. Or two.
Then we’re able to string a sentence.
Then we’re able to add grammar, and make the sentence grammatically correct.
Finally we have enough layering, to not exactly pay attention to every word.
Every impulse.
We speak languages.
We rarely turn to an eleven-year old and say: Oooh, you speak such fine English.
You must be soooo talented in English.
And yet, English is a difficult language to learn. But learn it we all do.
The point is: If we’d given up speaking in our first year, or second year, or third year, we’d lose the ability to learn the language. The layering has to happen. Otherwise, we stop learning.
People consider talent to be innate.
But a core part of talent is mere layering.
One over the other, over the other.
And suddenly a child plays the piano with mastery.
We speak languages fluently.
And an ex-cartoonist (that’s me) starts talking about marketing and brain stuff.
We fail to become talented because we fail to layer.
We’re stuck at the basic impulses, instead of progressing onwards.
We’re just seven year olds hacking away at the piano.
That’s all we are!
Note: Look at this video (yes again). Because by the time you get to 2:30, you’ll see how Ben Zander explains the concept so eloquently. Yup, 2 minutes and thirty seconds should show you all you need to see. But watch the full video if you wish to, as well (I’ve watched it no less than eight times already) As you can see, I’m layering too 🙂
Your stuff is brilliant. Love it and this post – at least, mostly this post.
I also love your manner of expression. Brilliant.
Learned? Undoubtedly, in part, but you have your own unique voice – and that can’t be learned. It can only be discovered, inhabited and expressed.
In this post you’re describing the difference between raw talent or potential and the process (learned) of honing/developing it into and expressed strength.
To suggest that talent is not latent is like saying all we have to do to become a Mozart, a Picasso (or a Tiger Woods) is simply choose and apply ourselves and it will be so.
Hmmm…
Love the profundity of the lesson in layering, and the connection to the TED video of Zander, but as a life coach who helps folks recover from the cycle of ‘If I was just doing this right/often enough/good enough THEN I’d be…’ thinking does, I respectfully balk at the notion that talent itself is learned.
Just my take. Make of it what you will. And still love ya.
Lissa, good question.
But Mozart and Tiger Woods (among others) are commonly pulled out as an example. And what happens in such discussions is that several issues are mashed together. I’m unmashing them one by one.
So what’s mashed here?
1) The factor of individual voice.
2) Can we be a Mozart?
3) What’s with Tiger Woods anyway? Can we be Tiger?
4) Why most people seem to struggle with ‘If I was only doing…..right’
Let me tackle these four issues in separate posts.
And hey, thanks for the compliments 🙂
Lissa: Here’s how unique voice is created. It is indeed discovered, but can’t happen without the layering, and several other things too (like emotions, compliments etc).
But layering is the core.
And raw talent, or what we call raw talent, is simply a factor of doing the same thing over and over, and over. And better each time.
You see, is layering is not repetition. And hey, that reminds me: I’ll do a post on layering vs. repetition. 🙂
I’ve answered part of the question at:
https://brainaudit.com/?p=32
Thank you for pointing out this video, I have watched it 4 times now, and find it very moving and remarkable. (I was already a classical music lover, especially Haydn string quartets, and Chopin piano music)
I want to make a comment about the talent/layering discussion.
I learned to play music relatively late in life, at least compared to every other musician I know, and struggled for a long time just learning to tune a guitar. (When I started learning, electronic tuners were very expensive, one would have cost me more than I was taking home in a month, so that was not an option for me)
I persisted, while every musician I knew told me I was tone deaf, and should give up.
It took me more than a year to learn to tune the guitar, and only then, could I start to really learn to play.
Now, after playing for years, when I play my guitar, people tell me how talented I am.
I feel like they are dismissing all the struggling I went through with the word, “talent.”
Paul Winter (jazz/new age saxophonist, founder of the Paul Winter Consort) once said that musical talent was just pounds and pounds of muscle memory. (In other words, layering achieved by doing the same thing over and over and over, until it becomes effortless.)
I think most people see the effortlessness of mastery, and ignore the effort that produced the mastery.
Ed: Thanks so much for writing in and telling us your story. It’s interesting that you should say you’re ‘tone deaf’. And that it took you over a year to just tune the guitar. 🙂 Wow!
I don’t think people are dismissing you. I think they truly believe in the information they’ve been fed by their peers, family and friends: That talent is somehow magical.
Good on you 🙂
Good work.
And feel free to add your comments to this (and other discussions)because I’m going to be talking about this topic for a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng time.
Hi Sean,
It doesn’t always work like that…
I think I was teached to learn to play the piano for even more than 4 years. I have to admit one thing though: I never got my heart into it. So I don’t have the talent today in playing the piano.
I’m sure it doesn’t.
It’s always the teacher, the environment, and the system being used that matters. There’s no such thing as a bad student.
No one is saying you’d become Mozart. That’s not the point. But you’d still be playing pretty good piano, if you had the right teacher, system, and environment.
Which of course, brings up huge questions. Because it’s not like you had a bad teacher, bad environment or bad system. But rather: Is there a superior teacher, system and environment?
Hi Sean, Love your stuff.
Something I also think is important is you must want to achieve your goals. I mean REALLY want to achieve them. Its a little like giving up smoking. A lot of people go through the steps of giving up smoking but in their heart of hearts never fully believe they will, so they fail. Blaming what ever they think people will believe for the failure. I think its the same as achieving. I know people who aspire to excel but due to their own self perception are destined to fail each and every time. They are their own worst enemy. I guess they are almost fulfilling their own negative destiny. They are seen to be doing the right things, like the steps in giving up smoking, but ultimately still fail. It would almost come down to the need or hunger to succeed being greater than the other elements. I recall reading sometime ago that there was a big secret between the expensive schools and the “normal” schools and that was they all use the same books! Same authors. Amazing people can come from the humblest of environments and real duds can come from the very best. It has to be from within I think. The rest teachers, system etc can only help. If you dont have the inner desire it could all be for nothing.
I liked this post and it reminded me of the 10,000 hour rule I read about in Malcom Gladwell’s latest book: Outliers (it takes 10,000 hours of practice to achieve greatness in a specific discipline). Read it if you haven’t, you’ll enjoy it, I promise. Seth Godin had a slightly different take on it: http://is.gd/dYbw.
Phil.
Thanks for the link to Ben Zander Sean. I think its going to change my life.