I don’t believe in natural talent.

Show me someone who you think has natural talent and I’ll show you someone who spends an inordinate amount of time doing that thing which you think he or she has the natural talent.

Quite often in my life, I have been accused of having natural talent; mostly by my guitar students. Could it be that I was born with the predisposition to play guitar solos behind my head while singing the chorus of a song I wrote or do you think that maybe, just maybe, it has something to do with the fact that at the age of eight, I was trying to figure out how songwriters could make the words to their songs rhyme and make sense at the same time. I guess it could also be that I listened to music on average 4-5 hours a day throughout my childhood. Maybe it was because I had an overbearing brother that made me want to hide and create my own world where I could do and be whatever I wanted without someone looking over my shoulder to tell me everything I was doing wrong. It could be that I started writing songs when I was 9 in part because I was trying to get away from that overbearing brother. The 5-10 hours a day of practicing the guitar throughout my teenage years may have been the reason.

I bet that you understand what I’m getting at by now. My natural talent is actually that there were/are conditions in my life that made it possible for me to become good at music and that I took advantage of those conditions because I wanted to be good at music and I bet that that is common with people who are good at stuff.

Somewhere around the age of 17, I decided to impress a friend of mine by playing a really awesome Metallica solo on my guitar. Afterwards, I said something to the effect of “pretty good, huh?” His response was “It should be with all the time you spend practicing.” He didn’t think I had natural talent. Because I was expecting a much more worshipful response, I didn’t appreciate his comment at the time, but I agree with him now.

Since then, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to figure out how some people get so good so fast and some people seem to take forever to do the most basic musical things. From what I’ve seen, people who have been around music their whole lives get it faster. I’m not just talking about people who spent a lot of time in elevators; I’m talking about people who really listen to music. For some (most?) people, music is background noise for when they’re driving, dancing, or cleaning the house. For the people who “get it” faster than others, the music tends to always be in the foreground. I remember being very young – 4 or 5 years old – and listening to the music my grandparents always had playing around the house; trying to figure out what was making that whiny sound in so many of the country and western music songs. Later I realized it was a pedal steel and even now when I hear an old George Jones or Randy Travis song, it takes me right back to my pre-school days at my grandparents place eating toasted cheese sandwiches and chicken noodle soup on an apple box while they cut the meat their customers had brought in. Those were good days… but I digress.

If you ever have a conversation with me and I seem like I’m not totally there, I may be writing a song in my head or trying to figure out what the tablature to a Slash guitar solo looks like. No offense, my obsession runs deep.

The people that I’ve seen who have what many would refer to as natural talent are people who seem to generally share some of the same traits as me; an obsession with how music is made, a need to express themselves through art rather than words, and the time to play.

You know, I wish things were turned around. I wish that my students would realize that I’m good because I’ve always loved playing and that I’ve done it for decades and that people in the audience at whatever gig I’m playing would think that I have natural talent. I think my students would benefit by having the knowledge of how much time it really takes to get good. Then they could adjust their own goals accordingly. And if only an audience thought I were naturally gifted and were therefore impressed by my playing, that would be nice too.

And another thing. Doesn’t telling someone that they have natural talent actually negate all the hard work that person has put into it? Isn’t the act of accusing someone of being naturally gifted, in fact, a derogatory comment?