Technical playing is alot easier than "musical" paying.

[danny elfboy]

No one is born playing the piano but some people have a knack or predisposition for activities requiring extreme motor coordination.

Yes, because of the experiences they made and the things they have been exposed too.

[_dhj_]

No one is born with great coordination and motor mechanics ... it's absolutely impossible since they're developed later in life and are universally identical and neutral at the moment of born.
Coordination is especially influenced by coordinative experiences like taking up a sport, or playing with origami and videogames or riding horses and so on.

I do believe the great teacher Lateiner Grosz when she says that technique and coordination at the piano are learned skills and not inborn gifts.

It's obvious that in professional sports there are those with far better coordination and technical finess than others. This is not merely due to their "exposure" to activities that require coordination. In team sports such as football, you see players with a wide range of technical ability making the professional leagues because there are different roles in the team and there are other abilities to make up for technical deficiencies (such as strength, mentality and speed).
The difference between team sports and piano playing is that a high level of technical talent is vital at the professional level. Therefore you don't see many pro pianists succeed because they have "strength" or something else to substitute for their technical ability. Again, there are some professional pianists that display a higher level of technique than others, but you just don't see a spectrum at the professional level because they needed a certain level of technical talent to "make it".

[virtuosic1]

It's obvious that in professional sports there are those with far better coordination and technical finess than others. This is not merely due to their "exposure" to activities that require coordination. In team sports such as football, you see players with a wide range of technical ability making the professional leagues because there are different roles in the team and there are other abilities to make up for technical deficiencies (such as strength, mentality and speed).
The difference between team sports and piano playing is that a high level of technical talent is vital at the professional level. Therefore you don't see many pro pianists succeed because they have "strength" or something else to substitute for their technical ability. Again, there are some professional pianists that display a higher level of technique than others, but you just don't see a spectrum at the professional level because they needed a certain level of technical talent to "make it".

A genetic pre-disposition for fast reflexes (without going into medical jargon) is essential in most cases for producing prodigious velocity.

As far as innate musical talent goes, music chooses us. We don't choose music. It's a calling. From my experience with many students over the past 35 years, those with music in their heads and hearts find acheiving a desired level of musicianship without the high levels of frustration of those possessing musicianship only in their fingers, but lacking in the head and heart. It's indeed VERY rare when all three qualities are combined in equal partnership.

[danny elfboy]

A genetic pre-disposition for fast reflexes (without going into medical jargon) is essential in most cases for producing prodigious velocity.

But reflex and hence coordinative pathway are not genetical predisposed since there's no pre-encoded information about them and we're all neutral at the moment in birth in that respect. If you keep someone from ever doing any coordinative experienced even at 40 he/she won't have developed any kind of coordination (of course this mean shutting someone in a basement away from the whole words for many man years)

[virtuosic1]

But reflex and hence coordinative pathway are not genetical predisposed since there's no pre-encoded information about them and we're all neutral at the moment in birth in that respect. If you keep someone from ever doing any coordinative experienced even at 40 he/she won't have developed any kind of coordination (of course this mean shutting someone in a basement away from the whole words for many man years)

But some are better genetically ADAPTED and will take to perfecting a skill given the proper guidance as a given.

As an example: My ex-wife decided that she wanted to become a professional WWE wrestler. I started to train her. She was Trinidadian and had incredible genetics for strength athletics. She always worked out with me when I went to the gym, but she'd go her way, with light exercises, and I'd go mine, with heavy duty powerlifting exercises. Since she wanted to wrestle, I devised a plan for her and began training her. She was 5'3" 112 lbs. with a 22" waist. We used plyometrics, ballistics, and power/strength/bodybuilding training to promote all around athleticism for wrestling. After 9 months, her bodyweight was 147 lbs., her waist exactly 22", and she looked like Lenda Murray. Her leg presses started off with 1 plate per side (90 pounds). 9 months later, I had her using 9 plates (810 pounds) per side on the sled for reps. Her starting squat weight was 90 pounds. 9 months later, 315 pounds for 4 sets of 10 reps! On one arm Hammer rows, starting weight was 35 pounds for 10 rep sets. 9 months later, 3 and 3/4 plates PER SIDE (170 pounds). Guys wouldn't go NEAR the row machine when she came off of it.

I used different systems, each one designed to push up performance in another. Without the training, she would never acheive strength and muscle mass gains like that. Because she was pre-disposed genetically for athletics, she made huge, unprecedneted gains. People in the gym couldn't believe her progress and many urged her to go pro (bodybuilding).

Now, here's the flip side. She entered the first WWE tuff enough contest and just missed making the final 25. Taz (who we knew from the gym) was so impressed with her that he arranged for her to go to Dory Funk's training camp in Ocala, Fl., to train for pro wrestling under his tuteledge.

Here's where all of my training her, and all of her genetics DIDN'T matter. She couldn't take BUMPS. She did the flying through the air and the falls, and the hits, and all of the things that a pro wrestler must do to put on a show for one week and it damned near killed her! Low pain threshold. Strong as hell, looked dynamite, but couldn't take the hits. Nobody can teach you how to adapt to shock. Either you can fly over someone's head, land on your back, get up and keep moving, or not.

[arensky]

Yes, because of the experiences they made and the things they have been exposed too.

Maybe but I don't think so. I think most prodigies and exceptional talents are people who just "get it".  These individuals skip the figuring out process that most of us go through because they get it right the first time. Whether or not this has to do with superior intellect or genetic predisposition I'm not sure. But I feel it doesn't have a lot to do with external experiences outside of piano. Some people "see the light" and play correctly right off the bat, without the discovery process most of us must endure. Be that as it may, one can still acheive what they do, although they have an undeniable advantage.

It's the rest of us who must rely on our experiences and what we've been exposed too, imo.

[ted]

This might be an appropriate discussion to ask about my Virgil Practice Clavier, as dummy keyboards have been mentioned. Using the silent clavier certainly isolates technique from music and its use is therefore, in general, frowned on these days, not that many players seem to know what they are anyway as they're more or less antiques.

I probably go against the grain because I have used mine regularly for well over thirty years and it seems to have done my playing nothing but good. Mind you, I use it with discretion and invent a variety of different exercises for no more than ten minutes or so each day; and I don't screw the pressure up beyond about five or six ounces.

Does anybody here use one apart from me ? If so, has it helped you at all ?

[opus10no2]

Well, I haven't used one, but I know that each finger has 4 primary muscles facilitating its movements  - up , down, left, right.

The practice instrument you use accentuates the use of the 'down' ones, but you must also remember there are 'up' ones too, and in practicing fast runs, I advocate the old method of exaggerating the upward movement of the finger, simply as an exercise....
This doesn't apply to normal playing, but it does , in a way, do the same thing - adding more effort for the opposing direction.

For lateral movement of the fingers, pieces that demand rapid finger position change, and stretching and closing of the hand - are useful.

Chopin's op10 no1 and 2 are probably the best studies for this , and their complimentary Godowsky studies do the same for the left hand.

[mike_lang]

I think that just as in practice, the musical intention/conception facilitates the development of the technique, complementarily, the hence-developed technique facilitates the expression and realization of this musical conception.  As the answer to this question, I'd like to borrow a Japanese word often used to answer questions in zen buddhism to indicate the fallacy of the question itself: "mu."  In other words, I believe that the technical aspect is so inextricably linked to the musical aspect in performance that it is absurd to separate the two.

[danny elfboy]

Maybe but I don't think so. I think most prodigies and exceptional talents are people who just "get it".  These individuals skip the figuring out process that most of us go through because they get it right the first time. Whether or not this has to do with superior intellect or genetic predisposition I'm not sure. But I feel it doesn't have a lot to do with external experiences outside of piano.

No, it does.
It's the same concept of being a natural.
We have all seen this at least once in life.
Someone with no experience with something is asked to try an activity, maybe while other more seasoned practitioner are doing it "Why don't you try? Just for the sake of curiosity ... maybe you're a natural talent"
The person then is explained a simple coordinative gesture and she/he moves perfectly and professionally for the very first time. At this point the other are shocked and claim "Wow ... you're a natural ... you should take up this"

That doesn't mean that there's an inborn tendencies for better reflexes and coordination (genetically this has never been proven) since coordination is one of those mechanisms that develop becuse of the environment. If we lived in a blank planet where there's nothing except blankness we would never have coordination and reflexest o begin with because they're not inborn.

Being natural at something means that the coordination and reflexes required for an activity have been already developed through other activities. This is also the reason why children who have been exposed to most different activities and things in their first years of life are very fast at figuring out everything and are more predisposed to all kind of coordinative tasks. In fact the people that just "get it" are the children who have activated most neuropath in the first years of life by being exposed to lot of different activities.

This is also why there's this controversial whether adults learn slower than children and there are teachers who have testimonial or both fast learner adults and slow learner adults.
The adults that that learn fast and don't seem slowed than children in learning things (especially coordinative tasks) are the ex-children that have been exposed to everything in their first years of life and developed most coordinative neuropath way. The adults that learn slow are those adults that missed all these experience and atrophied most of those pathways. Just asking the adult themselves about the activities in their childhood back up this fact and reveals this pattern.

Some people "see the light" and play correctly right off the bat, without the discovery process most of us must endure. Be that as it may, one can still acheive what they do, although they have an undeniable advantage.

It's the rest of us who must rely on our experiences and what we've been exposed too, imo.

No, it's not relying since the process is not something you're aware of.
Coordination exists only because of the environment which activate the coordination required by the environment itself (hence in a different environment we would develop different coordination and neuropaths and in no environment we would lack coordination)
So the "experience" I'm talking about is what develop and trigger those pathways, nothing else can. Coordination doesn't develop naturally and there have been cases of children being shut in basemenets for 14 years that didn't develop any basic coordination and lacked any basic reflex. Coordination can only be developed by activities that trigger the different pathways necessary for it. Many of these pathways are interfunctional and so the coordination at the piano is NOT just develop at the piano, even videogames, baseball, manuality in manufacturing objects, martial arts form a strong foundation that is appliable to the piano. The people who see the light are not people who form a neurologic pathway as soon as they see something requiring it, are people who have already developed that kind of coordination through other activities and as such they appear "natural" in the new activity they take up.

[_dhj_]

In the acquisition of any "skill" or "ability", there are genetic dispositions influencing the ease of acqusition and/or the potential to which one can acquire. The reason is that every human has our genetic particularities that include intellectual, physical and psychological areas. That cannot be denied. The acquisition of "coordination" is no different. In the final equation there is not merely one attribute in question known as "coordination" - that is an artificial construction. Instead, it is a combination of elements of all three classifications.

In our politically correct world, we like to make social assumptions contrary to scientific reality. Some of these assumptions include the notion that all people are equal, and anyone can achieve anything if they put their mind to it. For example, one explanation given the the fact that some people are geniuses involves the notion that they set out to prove their incredible intellect because others, by chance, asserted that they had that intellect, and thus with their actions will draw on more assertions and so forth. Of course, these types of explanations have motivational purposes, but they don't adequately explain the reality. One flaw of that explanation is that differing personalities mean that people respond differently to praise and criticism, and so the chain of causation that would eventuate disproves the egalitarian inferences.

Another politically correct assumption is the idea that there are no genetic differences in ability among different races. This is obviously untrue, since for example, almost all top sprinters are of African descent, despite being trained in different cultures and nations.

I think danny elfboy is doing the very same thing. That is, denying the differences in genetics and adopting a politically correct viewpoint contrary to reality. Again, I want to point out that while in some areas, person A may be genetically superior to B in absolute terms, in other areas A and B may be different but at the same time not necessarily superior to one another, For example, personality come under the latter category. There is no doubt however that these difference, being not under the control of either A or B, will influence A and B's capacity to acquire a skill, for better or for worse, along the chain of causation. This is because even if A does not have an absolute advantage over B, A's particular personality will cause A to respond to events in a certain way.

[ail]

Regarding the inborn talent / acquired skills subject, which seems to be recurrent in these forums, I'd like to say that there are indeed some reflexes that are recognized in newborns, that is, before they've had a chance to develop them by the environment. These are, for example:

- Glabela (might be a Portuguese word, don't know how to translate)
- Babinski
- step climbing
- reaction to an animated stymulus and voice
- reaction to an inanimated stymulus with voice and/or rattle
- automatic walking (yes, the baby can perform the walking motions if appropriately sustained by someone)
- Moro (automatic waking in response to a sudden fall of the head)
- palmar and plantar (foot, don't know how to translate) prehension
- search
- crawling
- sucking

As I've said elsewhere, I'm not a radical regarding this, I believe most things are acquired due to interaction with the environment, that others are lost through lack of interaction with it and that others are helped by innate abilities.

Alex

[danny elfboy]

In the acquisition of any "skill" or "ability", there are genetic dispositions influencing the ease of acqusition and/or the potential to which one can acquire. The reason is that every human has our genetic particularities that include intellectual, physical and psychological areas. That cannot be denied. The acquisition of "coordination" is no different. In the final equation there is not merely one attribute in question known as "coordination" - that is an artificial construction. Instead, it is a combination of elements of all three classifications.

In our politically correct world, we like to make social assumptions contrary to scientific reality.

No. In our world plagued by information constipation many people mistake science for unfounded and exaggerated rumors based on certain simplistic scientific information.
I suggest a book by the genetist Richard Lewontin (The Triple Helix) that not only explains why there are many aspects of our biomechanics, mind, through processing that are not at all controlled by genes, why genes in most cases needs external trigger otherwise they mean nothing (heart disease, diabetes) but expecially why the mainstream beliefs about genetics and environment mostly promoted by simplistic articles or news on magazines and television are entirely wrong.

The "common sense" on genetics is like the common sense about fats, carb and protein.
It's the problem of taking the most simplistic buzzwords and ideas out of a complex science made mostly of studies that have dozens of variables and turning it mainstream so that anyone may feel "correct" in talking about them simplistically. It's also worth mentioning that when we hear about "new discoveries or new evidences about that or this" they always talking about preliminary studies with a small scope and too many variables to be considered even small evidences.

There's no evidence of a genetical trigger in the development of environmental coordination.
Yes because coordination is just a product of environment, our body doesn't know to require coordination and doesn't have information about coordinative pathways until we get in contact with the environment. As Lewontin makes clear coordination (but also personality) are bonuses we develop because the environment requires it, if our environment didn't require coordination there would be no intrinsic coordination in humans. It's like developing antibodies after being exposed to pathogens ... not before.

[danny elfboy]

Regarding the inborn talent / acquired skills subject, which seems to be recurrent in these forums, I'd like to say that there are indeed some reflexes that are recognized in newborns, that is, before they've had a chance to develop them by the environment. These are, for example:

- Glabela (might be a Portuguese word, don't know how to translate)
- Babinski
- step climbing
- reaction to an animated stymulus and voice
- reaction to an inanimated stymulus with voice and/or rattle
- automatic walking (yes, the baby can perform the walking motions if appropriately sustained by someone)
- Moro (automatic waking in response to a sudden fall of the head)
- palmar and plantar (foot, don't know how to translate) prehension
- search
- crawling
- sucking

This is a actually a matter of semantics.
First of all the reflexes you listed are not all recognized in newborns but in babies that have been exposed to the world and the observation of the motions around them.
Walking is not automatic for example and nor is step climbing but information about them can be aquired quickly.
Such reflexes are recognized in babies who had a change to develop them or at least to develop the emulative pathways for them.

As for the other reflexes it's true that they're recognized on babies as they're born but they're actually product of environment: the womb.
The womb it's an environment on its own, it not only required the development of certain reflex but it also provides information from the external like sounds and noises.
So that's where the semantic is.
There are no encoded information for the earth environment.
There are no encoded information for the womb enviroment.
All of them are adaptative process occurring in relation to the exposition to the environment itself and only at the moment of exposition.
The development in the womb as a matter of fact is not considered a prime example of pre-designed pathway but as a prime example of adaptation.

[danny elfboy]

By the way: I hate political correctness with a passion!

[virtuosic1]

I think that just as in practice, the musical intention/conception facilitates the development of the technique, complementarily, the hence-developed technique facilitates the expression and realization of this musical conception.  As the answer to this question, I'd like to borrow a Japanese word often used to answer questions in zen buddhism to indicate the fallacy of the question itself: "mu."  In other words, I believe that the technical aspect is so inextricably linked to the musical aspect in performance that it is absurd to separate the two.

There's a book written about this called "Zen and the Art of Archery":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_in_the_Art_of_Archery

[virtuosic1]

Wrong thread. Info moved to the Opus 10 #1 thread

[debussy symbolism]

Thanks for all the input.