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by buzzcut
4769 days ago
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"And while this is somewhat true, it gets the causation backwards. It was obvious to me from a very early age that I was better at sight reading as a singer, so I spent more time doing it." This is self-refuting really. You admit that you spend a lot more time on one skill and then report that you are better at that skill and are hopeless at the one you tinkered with. K Anders Ericsson, who is one of the sources of the research on this speculates somewhere (I can't recall of the top of my head where), that there are very likely extremely small marginal differences in initial aptitude, but that these alone are enough to garner praise and tiny edges in performance that are self-rewarding to the practitioner and that these advantages make them more likely to continue with the work required to get better. That's not natural talent, if it's true, that's just a minuscule advantage that may help foster interest and practice and lead to better skill. |
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This is incredibly disconnected from reality. This is the sort of theory you come up with when you want reality to reduce down to something simple and elegant.
I understated my experience when I used the word "tinkered." I studied organ at a collegiate level for four years, and gave a senior recital that ended with this piece: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtA_6lIhKWY I've spent plenty of time at the keyboard. And yet I can still barely sight-read four part hymn writing.
Let me give you another side of the equation: someone I sing with frequently has to work really hard to get all the notes right. Every time we sing a concert she has to get the music in advance, practice it for hours beforehand, whereas I just show up at the first rehearsal and sing it. We've both been doing this for a long time, and she is very skilled at actually singing and loves doing it. But she has to work really hard to get the same results that I get by hardly trying.
This idea that it's all about how hard you work is just that: an attractive idea.