Last post on the subject so it doesn’t become just a guitar thread, but this for me is the ultimate ‘god mode’ video. It blows my mind that the ‘solo’ bit over the ‘Comfortably Numb’ chords is improvised. The YouTube comments are quite amusing too.
What really make it for me though is the fact that in a lot of his solo material, it’s really goofy, silly, feel good stuff... not pretentious at all.
There’s something deeply appealing about a master that isn’t arrogant. Like Yoda, or something
Good question. I think we all have natural talents although hard work is a large part of it. It's obvious though IMO that some people pick up skills much quicker and more sophisticated than others.
Art is a good example, you can train someone in art/drawing but much more difficult to train in freehand drawing. Whe presented with an object or person to draw on the spot and all artists have had the same training roughly, you'll see the natural talent shine through and some will really struggle and produce basic drawings.
It's how your brain is wired mixed with how your soul directs it.
Evolutionists will say it's luck of the draw how it's all pieced together whereas creationists will say it's God given talents and gifts. So you end up back at evolution vs creationism. Though even in the creationism world there's room for mystery and unknowns.
All in all I doubt you'll ever really get a complete answer because people's brains, souls, personalities and physical traits are too complicated to define mathematically.
I always remember being keen on ball sports like basketball and football at school and I worked hard training any spare second I got and at home also but it was obvious others had better skills with the same or less training.
But then maybe it was a case of stepping over a critical mass in training and the natural skills would develop. Not enough time spent on it etc.
Last post on the subject so it doesn’t become just a guitar thread, but this for me is the ultimate ‘god mode’ video. It blows my mind that the ‘solo’ bit over the ‘Comfortably Numb’ chords is improvised. The YouTube comments are quite amusing too.
What really make it for me though is the fact that in a lot of his solo material, it’s really goofy, silly, feel good stuff... not pretentious at all.
There’s something deeply appealing about a master that isn’t arrogant. Like Yoda, or something
Let's say, for example, I ran a marathon. Have I mastered marathon running? Is marathon running a skill? What if I was younger and both my knees worked properly and I trained a lot and ran a marathon in 3 hours? Is that mastery? 2.5 hours?
I'd say please don't bother because I have now knackered both knees and hips doing loads of Potteries Marathons and Half Marathons.
No matter how many I did I was crap at it.
I was having a right knee replacement at County on April 22nd and that got cancelled.
as far as technical ability goes on the guitar I'd say most people are at maybe 80-90% of their potential after the first few years...
I think that's probably true for most things...ie you can keep practising and improving but everyone will (almost) plateau quite early on and that will give you a good idea of your potential
as far as technical ability goes on the guitar I'd say most people are at maybe 80-90% of their potential after the first few years...
I think that's probably true for most things...ie you can keep practising and improving but everyone will (almost) plateau quite early on and that will give you a good idea of your potential
Yes, standard levels of practice and skill will take you 90% of the full guitar journey. It’s really just a few techniques that require ‘life dedication’ (really serious practice) to become merely ‘moderately good’ at them. Alternate picking is the obvious example and the one thing that sorts the elites from everyone else, I think. It’s absurdly hard.
I also think that you have to be at the end of the 90% guitar journey to truly make good musical use of ‘elite skill’ techniques. Otherwise you are just sat there being able to do one thiNg to a moderate standard, without any real context as to how to effectively deploy it.
None of that will help you be musically creative, which is something that should also be practised. I’ve always neglected being creative, opting to simply copy my heroes. My approach is fun, but it’ll never get you anywhere.
I think programming can be a good example of this - pretty much anyone can learn to code, but some people are just not wired for it despite doing it for 10 years plus.
If you've got the right brain for it and look at problems in the right way you'd probably make a better programmer in a few months over someone with loads of experience but without a natural aptitude for problem solving / analysis Etc (the world of work is full of people like this seamingly!)
I guess the same applies to loads of other skills - like mechanics, engineers etc etc
This reminds me of something from my school days. There was a guy in my IT class who wasn't massively academic. I.e. he was usually in the lower tier classes and had 1 to 1 help in some of them. I remember when the programming part of our A-Level came up and for most of the class it was awful and although we got there in the end, we were struggling. However this guy was able to code just like he was typing out a story. For whatever reason coding just clicked with him. The prime example was we had to make a noughts and crosses game and before i could even get mine to work he had colourised his as well as building cheats into it so he would always win. It really did impress me and i do wonder what he went on do do after his A-Levels and whether he realised he had such a talent.
With enough time and dedication, can anyone learn to master anything?
Or can some people naturally do some things, and some people can't, and thats just the way it is? No amount of forcing the issue will make them a master of a chosen craft?
There are going to be exceptions, physical barriers, someone with severe asthma probably won't win the 100M sprint in the Olympics for example. For the purposes of this discussion I am not talking about those examples.
There are clearly people with natural ability, for instance people who can learn to play an instrument quicker than others, but everyone has to learn in order to play that instrument. With enough time and dedication, could those people to whom it doesn't come naturally, the slow learners, become a master?
Could you pick a person at random in the street, and could they become fluent in Cantonese if they wanted to? Or become a master boat builder? Wood turner? Swimmer? Racing driver? Queen wasp killer? MAC10 acquirer? Can anyone learn how to give a lady the full Tony Williams Experience?
You get the idea.
Is the barrier the natural ability, or the dedication, the persistance, the practice?
Perhaps we all have the natural ability to do one thing really well, and the people who become masters are the people whos interests happen to align with that ability?
My personal experiences which provoked these thoughts in spoiler, because they aren't strictly helpful for the discussion! Read if you wish!
I started to play guitar when I was about 9 years old (I'm now 24) - I plucked away for a few years, had tuition on and off, that sort of thing. I gradually played less and less and at some point when I was about 15 or 16 I stopped playing. I just recently picked up the guitar again, and I haven't forgotten much of what I learned. It makes me wonder. If I had stuck with it... If I had forced myself to practice day in day out... You know?
But it doesn't come naturally to me, I can tell. I am definitely learning slowly. There are people who have only been playing a year who have long since surpassed my ability.
On the other hand I borrowed a drum kit from a friend a few years ago, and I felt like that did come naturally to me, I am very good at keeping rhytm, I always tap away at my desk or my thighs at particular bits in songs, and I could do drum covers of some songs within days if not hours. I'm sure it would take some people months to reach the point I reached (and I'm not claiming I was good!)
I didn't stick with it because it isn't the instrument I wanted to learn to play.
A couple of years ago I won £60 by rapping faster than Eminem did in Rap God. I am a pound-shop Jack Black lookalike who had never listened to a rap song in his life, and the bet was put to me because I appeared to be the farthest thing from a rapper, but I stuck with it, I got reasonably good at it, and I won the bet.
As others above, but also the answer is both yes and no!
A subject I know very well for example is photography. There are countless wedding photographers out there, check out your local ones that have been doing it decades and you will notice that many just showcase images that look like they were either shot in jpeg or just saved to disc straight off the memory card with no thought given to processing/composition etc. Does that make them skilled at the craft? Likely not. They reached a certain level years ago and decided to not bother continually driving themselves to learn and self improve. They are skilled at sales which is why they still get business, but are they good at the skill itself?
This applies to many things really and where talent separates out those that are skilled at a craft and those that simply learned a skill and stayed at a set level thereafter.
So I guess you could say anyone can learn any skill, but be creative with that skill is what shows those with talent and those that simply repeated actions that then resulted in muscle memory to be able to do that skill etc.
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