Well, interesting, this talent thing.
We have the traditional view: some are Talents, some are Big Talents, some are Lesser Talents and the rest are No Talents. (Bad luck if you happen to be one of those, ha ha ha.)
But we don't know what Talent is. It SEEMS to be the ability to learn a skill faster and with more ease than the average Jane Doe. Or ... maybe the ability to achieve better end results than the average Jane Doe? Maybe stamina, is that the same as Talent?
Obviously there is something we don't understand about ourselves. We don't understand where learning and mastery really come from, how it works, what kind of processes that are involved within ourselves. As we don't understand, we cannot define it, and so we helplessly shrug and say "well - it as about talent. Some have it, some don't have it."
But you have of course heard the old saying by Henry Ford: "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right". These words of wisdom seem to prove themselves over and over, and still there are MANY who think this is rubbish. And still they prove this saying over and over again, by saying "I cannot" and look, they cannot ...
What if we imagine that "talent" really is an illusion, that there IS NOT SUCH THING AS TALENT. Period. Just in illusion, a model because we cannot explain the real mechanisms of learning. As we cannot explain them, learning tends to be a random activity. Some are lucky and push the right button quickly, then they learn quickly. Some are not that lucky. And we are lazy and explain it with "talent" and case closed. But if we say that there is no such thing as talent, we can start studying the mechanisms of learning instead, because we know THEY MUST BE THERE, as we don't have the magical explanation of "talent" to rely on.
It is also a well-known fact that once ONE person has achieved a certain goal, he or she will soon get followers. For many years it was said that is was not physically possible for any human being to run the English Mile faster than 4 minutes. No matter how hard everyone tried, they just could not break the "wall". It was like the speed of light, the final barrier.
1954 Roger Bannister managed to do it, after a long time of studies. Two months later the second guy did it too, John Landy who had claimed that the Dream Mile was a "Wall". And three years later, 16 other runners had done it too. The "final barrier" was just another psychological barrier. I believe most things in life are like that ... and that goes for piano playing as well.
I believe that if we tell piano students that there is no such thing as special talent, that it is perfectly normal to achieve this and that goal, most of them will make it. We are just too good in telling each other that "you don't have enough talent", or "you are too old" or "you are a bad sight reader" etcetera. And we believe what others tell us, we tell ourselves the same things. And the old saying by Henry Ford remains true: Whether you think you can or that you cannot, you are right.
(Personally I struggle with the idea "I am a bad sheet music memorizer" which I KNOW is rubbish as my memory in fact is very good. But still, it seems to be a conviction I have subconsciously.)
My mother, who is 76, does not like computers. She always curses them. She has got Online Bank now so that she can pay her bills online. And she struggles, struggles, struggles. Everything is hopeless with this #¤%& computer. She sits with her login procedures, she calls me and cries, because there is always something strange, some trouble, it is so HARD. She has been struggling with this thing for years by now. And she is a very sane and intelligent person, highly educated.
The other day my son, who now has turned 18, also got his Internet Bank. He has authism and he cannot cook a simple meal for his life, even though he has normal IQ and all that. I showed him the instructions, the login procedure IS in fact a bit complicated, and he got it in the fraction of a second and proceeded with his login like he had done it for years. I showed him an account excerpt, something he had never seen before, and explained how he should read it, and he instantly told me that I was reading it wrong. He was right ...
My son is in no way smarter than my mother, and I don't think this is about age either, actually. It is about attitude, he belongs to the computer generation and nobody has ever told them that computer activities are difficult or strange. They don't have any psychological obstructions saying "this is so complicated, I am too old for this, I cannot learn this, my peers cannot do this either, you need special education to understand this" - on the contrary. But when it comes to cooking, then my mother is the master who can read and follow any complicated instruction, and my son is helpless. Suddenly he cannot read at all.
In the first case we like to explain this with the age thing, and in the second case we explain the opposite situation with the experience thing, and as you can see, this is illogical. It is all about mental attitude - whether you think you can or that you cannot.
So, if we take a certain skill, let's say piano playing, and claim that it is NOT difficult, that you do NOT need special "talents" to learn to do it well, that you do NOT have to be of a certain age - what will happen? Just speculating ...
Topic: What is talent? How do you know you're musically talented?