Re: [Harp-L] is there any such thing as talent?

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

There's lots of different kinds of talent, and you need most of them to 
rise to the top.

The four that come to mind:
1. The talent to really absorb and learn something.  I can easily learn 
some musical instruments.  I can't learn to cook above a certain 
rudimentary level, no matter what my wife shows me.  I could, but I don't 
HAVE TO, while with music, I don't have to, I just DO.
2. The talent to really put in the hours every day.  Everyone I know who is 
successful has put in lots and lots of time, daily.
3. The talent to get something out of all that practice.  I lived below a 
jazz pianist who practiced like a sonofabitch, but he always made the exact 
same mistakes, day in and day out.  No fun to listen to.  And he never got 
above a certain skill level.  On the other hand, the guitarist Carl 
Verheyen practices incessantly, hours and hours every day.  He's always 
inventing new stuff because of all that work.  Really good new stuff.  He's 
always perfecting his techniques so that they express more and more real music.
4. Fire.  I know lots of players who have come out of Berklee.  They all 
have huge chops and incredible technical knowlege.  The ones with fire 
wield their music like a sword.  The ones who lack fire can write and play 
but whatever they're doing doesn't reach into the hearts of the audience, 
no matter how hard they try.  They have no desire to astonish with music 
(as opposed to astonishing with chops) and no will to invent new 
ideas.  They do not understand why the big jobs don't come their way.

I hate the idea that you either have these things or you don't.  But hard, 
hard work will help you uncover the truth about what you've got.  If you've 
even got a tiny molecule of each kind of talent, you can develop it to two 
molecules and then zillions over time.

But most people really need a good mentor who can help them focus on their 
nascent talents.  A sad thing about harmonica is that most players are out 
there on their own.  There are few mentors.  Find a great harmonica player 
in your area and see if you can't talk that person into mentoring you.  The 
really good ones can see the tiny seeds and help you develop those and 
uncover others.

This advice may not be for Jim Alciere, the original poster of the 
question, who for all I know is an incredible, fiery player.  But I just 
want to make sure that newer players don't read what I wrote up there and 
think that since they don't really see any talents in themselves they don't 
have talents.  Hard work is the centerpiece to the whole thing.

But find a mentor if you can.