The Myth of Musical Talent

I have just got home from a day of watching talented young musicians compete in a music competition at our local senior school. The standard was incredibly varied, from complete beginners to those who could play complicated pieces with their eyes shut.  There were singers, flautists, pianists, rock bands, drummers and almost every other instrument in between.  Judging these competitions is an almost impossible task because knowing who is the best is often down to personal preference and it can be really difficult to choose between instruments.  Sometimes the decision seems obvious, the next Lang Lang might be easy to spot
Lang Lang 74 seconds of virtuosity but would it be so easy to find the next Buddy Rich.Buddy Rich vs Animal ?

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the beginning of musical talent. So many adults tell me that they are not musical, they can't sing, have no rhythm, had violin lessons for 2 years and were never good enough to play in the school orchestra.  Part of these stories always include a music teacher telling them that they couldn't sing, were lacking in talent and should give up, keep quiet or just mouth the words rather than actually sing in the choir.  These teachers sound like horrid individuals but they are not uncommon and they have a lot of support from normal people.(Not that I'm saying that all music teachers aren't normal people but those of you have met me will understand that many of us aren't!)  People will tell you that they think it was a good thing that this teacher saved the world from the untalented or unmusical individual.  I'm not sure that was the music teacher's job.  They were not a judge on a reality TV show but someone who was supposed to help every student reach their full potential. I wonder if the teacher would have the same support if they had told a dyslexic child to give up trying to read because they just weren't very good at it?

There is a myth that musical people are born with their talent and maybe some people have more natural ability than others but there is one thing that is common to all talented musicians that has nothing to do with their natural ability to keep a beat, distinguish pitch or produce a nice tone with their voice and that is work.  All musicians practise.  Sometimes for whole days at a time.  They play when they are sad, or happy, or hungry or angry.  They play because they walk past the piano or because they hear a piece of music they just have to try out.  They play because they want to. But they don't only play when they want to, they also play when they hate every moment of it, when nothing is going right and everything sounds horrid.

Music teachers are often under pressure to only work with the naturally talented individuals.  I am stunned whenever I hear of a primary school choir auditioning students.  Singing in tune is catching and there is no better way of teaching the child who appears to be tone deaf to sing in tune than to wedge them between two strong, tuneful singers. A few years ago, I took a primary school choir to sing for a combined church Christmas Carol concert and at the end one lady, from quite a stuffy adult choir took me to one side and said, "my dear, you have a growler in your choir, you need to get rid of them quickly.  One bad apple and all that..."  She couldn't have been more wrong.  That 'growler' is now a very good, tuneful singer.

I don't know why I'm surprised by this attitude about music because I was a child once and I remember it.  When I was in primary school we had a visit from some musicians from the local music school.  They said that if we were good at maths (and only if we were good at maths) we could audition to be considered for music lessons.  Our parents still had to pay for these lessons and buy our instruments, so they had already chosen the wealthier, more intelligent children.  Then at the audition I had to play my recorder; have an aural test to see if I could sing in tune and clap in time; have an interview to tell them why I wanted to play an instrument and tell them about the music I liked to listen to.  I was SEVEN!  I was terrified that I wouldn't get in and I remember my mum telling me that I could join the majorettes if I didn't pass the audition, which terrified me even more because I would have been a terrible majorette being the most uncoordinated person on the planet and I wanted to make the bird noises that I heard on the Tom and Jerry cartoons. My first term of flute lessons was with a teacher who told me I had the 'wrong shaped mouth' and that I should give up now because I would never be able to play the flute.  I didn't give up. I worked on it.

Every music teacher has had a bright pupil, with an interested supportive (slightly pushy) parent who has natural aural skills, who seems to have a natural ability to make a good noise with their instrument, who gives up the first time they come across something they have to work on.  I suspect that any brave music teacher (who hasn't first screened their pupils) has taught someone that they thought would never be any good; someone who couldn't make a nice noise; struggled to read music; couldn't count to 4 if their life depended upon it who one day just got it.  After the competition today, a few music teachers and the adjudicator and I were talking about this and the adjudicator said that he thought it was really important to encourage everyone because there maybe talent lurking behind immaturity or nerves.  He said that he had taught several people who looked like they'd never get it, who had a little break and then came back to it being brilliant. Another teacher said that sometimes changing the instrument the person plays can suddenly find a musical talent that seemed absent from their genetic make-up. Luckily, the people running and judging this competition agree with me and don't come from the school of thought that it is better to tell people to give up than to give them 'false hope'.

Maybe, I don't know this rule about crushing a child's confidence to make for better music because I am a fraud. Because I'm untrained I missed this essential part of a music teacher's training.  But my student's all did well today because they did the most important thing.  They turned up and played. They did the work and I am amazingly proud of them.