8 year old playing gothrie govan's fives.

frankus

I think it was Kenwa Mabuni who said "a teacher can only show a student 15% - the rest has to come from the student". So if you've got the best teachers in the world but are incapable of listening without ego and practicing consciously it won't amount to anything.

Next I think it's worth exploring motivational drivers: "be perfect" and "try hard" are loser drivers. People will burn out trying to achieve perfection, lose motivation and stagnate being "perfect" ... also people will spend their entire lives not succeeding because they've been told it's just as good to "try hard"... so they'll find the hardest way of doing things. Those drivers are instilled in kids by their parents.

Equally a love of a sport can be instilled by parents: check out the Polgar sisters their Dad undertook a scientific experiment to see if he could train chess masters, despite not knowing the game himself... Judit was a chessmaster in her teens... it was not innate, she loved what she did because it was presented to her in a way she engage with... no guilt, no coerssion.

For instance, aged 6 I was told I should try to be the next Segovia - that's a tall order, is there a place for such a person, what would the next Segovia be? People who fail to reach there goals have vague goals, no success criteria, no incentives to keep them ticking over.

So if you use Mabuni's idea, that we're all by and large self-taught - we can't do that if we lack the tools... so all a child prodigy has is the right tools.

The "Daily Mail" 10,000 hours study (and lets be honest you just wanted to level a Daily Mail accusation against me for once ;^) is based on Anders Ericson's research and was picked up ansd played with by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers and also by the Olympic table tennis player Matthew Syed in his book Bounce: The Myth of Talent. There are several eloquent dismissals of the concept - but the take home I perfer to keep is this: a lof of this idea of gifted people is a discounting behaviour "that person is awesome, I don't feel awesome, therefore I can't be like them, so I don't need to strive at all."

There's the old joke - women on pedestals rarely get knocked off... the message is really simple if you want to get close to her, stop mythologizing about her. Same for everything in life - stop fantasizing and experience the reality - warts and all.

The same is true of the guitar - what my Dad called the fan-trap "oh I can never be as good as Joe Satriani" ... you will never know because you've just cursed yourself with a self-fulfilling prophesy. The reality is you'll never learn to celebrate your unique contribution to the guitar as long as you're beholden to others.

Very very few child prodigies reach their potential as adults. That's well documented, there are edge cases and if you read their biographies you'll see they consciensiously eschew the triggers of failure and inaction, namely reputation. Reputation kills most drive because the urge not to undo past glories, risk loss of face stifles future creativity.

racefaceec90

like what you said there frankus :-)

i wish i knew what i could bring to the guitar though that was me (as i don't see anything original in my playing/just try and do covers)

i do try and mess about just noodling,but it's just noise tbh.

i also cannot grasp music theory either (i seriously just switch off whenever i have tried).

i just want it to be fun (but it does seem like a chore a lot of the time (as kicking myself,why am i so crap,when there are 8 year old's who can play guthrie stuff).

at the end of the day i picked up the guitar because i liked it,should think about that more.stuff it if i cannot play steve vai at 39.i need to put the fun back into my guitar playing (and not give a stuff how bad i am :-)  .

frankus

racefaceec90 said:

like what you said there frankus :-)

Thank you, it's pretty rare for someone to actively support comments I make - so it means a lot to me

i wish i knew what i could bring to the guitar though that was me (as i don't see anything original in my playing/just try and do covers)

If you watch Victor Wooten's Masterclass he listens to someone's lines and says "they groove!" the guy says "they should they're yours!" and he replies they aren't, the inflections and emphasis is entirely different and he heard them as new things. As fans we only see that emulation as "not quite" or nailed.. to the originator the novelty is absolute. So it's kinda all original.

The next trick is imagining you're sat opposite a hero and list all the feelings you feel toward that person, now look again and have that hero turn into you... what are the new feelings, what are the differences?

All heroes are is exemplars of attributes we value - some people might like Superman because he's kind to dogs others because he has a secret identity and endures humiliation ... the thing is what makes this hero a hero is personal - and if you can percieve it, why can't you embody it?

i do try and mess about just noodling,but it's just noise tbh.

Few artists really enjoy their own output. If you're a successful performer you'd soon lose the enjoyment of a piece of music if you listened to it played back again and again.. Noodling is fun, messing about is fun.

When I find it not fun is when there's judging behaviour and some notion of wrongness... tradition etc. That just gives insecure people a framework to infect other people with insecurity (mistakenly believing it'll lessen their own).

That kid is not playing Fives to blow away people on Youtube, they're playing it because it's fun... Mum or Dad is recording it to blow away people on Youtube because they're proud of their (maybe their child's) achievement.

i also cannot grasp music theory either (i seriously just switch off whenever i have tried).

You aren't missing much, I didn't believe Justin Sandercoe when he said most theory in modern music boils down to two or three scales.

People boiling their brains with that stuff would be better suited to being champion Sudoku players, theory starts with the ears and ends at the fingers.

The importance of theory is no greater than saying "this is the colour blue", "here it is on the colour wheel"... Jimmy Bruno is by and large dismissive of scales... Joe Pass was largely dismissive of naming chords.. as was Ted Greene (the master of chords).

In Karate, it was introduced to mainland Japan to be taught alongside Judo in schools.. they added the belt system and they took out the chokes, throws and locks - as such people trying to interpret the traditional kata were perplexed by some moves.. so interpretted it as "knock the gun out of assailant A's hand and without turning around punch assailant B (stood behind you) in the face.." - it's ludicrous and impossible and rather than rethink the moves... they mythologize about the inscrutable masters.. ignoring the fact that Motubu (one of those masters) was reknowned for brawling and teachers were reluctant to associate with him.

The reality is theory is massively distorted by self-taught people who fail to put it in context.. it's not as important as having fun, and other people having fun.. which means keeping time.

i just want it to be fun (but it does seem like a chore a lot of the time (as kicking myself,why am i so crap,when there are 8 year old's who can play guthrie stuff).

It's an achievement - now doubt... but it's not easy to dance to, also there's noone to interact with there, playing along with a tape.

There are tonnes of 8 year olds learning Little Brown Jug too..

My approach to running is not to improve my best time, but to improve my worst time, that's the proper mark of progress... when your worst gets better... I know two many people busting a nut to play a solo faster but can't keep steady 4/4 time for a 6 minute tune.

at the end of the day i picked up the guitar because i liked it,should think about that more.stuff it if i cannot play steve vai at 39.i need to put the fun back into my guitar playing (and not give a stuff how bad i am :-)  .

How much better an answer is that than the Conan-like answer "be able to play at 200bpm, crush your competitors and hear the lamentation of their girlfriends"...

I don't rate Vai... I rate Keneally though...

I get where you're coming from... lets Jam!

relic245

Thank you, it's pretty rare for someone to actively support comments I make - so it means a lot to me

 Well I've just given you a wisdom as I totally agreed too.

Not quite along the same line but it reminded me of the story of the young Ninja student who asked his teacher:

"Master, how long will it take me to become the best swordsman in Japan?"

"About 5 years" replied the teacher.

"And if I try really hard?"

"About 10 years" came the reply.

Fretwired

frankus said:

The "Daily Mail" 10,000 hours study (and lets be honest you just wanted to level a Daily Mail accusation against me for once ;^) is based on Anders Ericson's research and was picked up ansd played with by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers and also by the Olympic table tennis player Matthew Syed in his book Bounce: The Myth of Talent. There are several eloquent dismissals of the concept - but the take home I perfer to keep is this: a lof of this idea of gifted people is a discounting behaviour "that person is awesome, I don't feel awesome, therefore I can't be like them, so I don't need to strive at all."

The Daily Mail comment isn't levelled at you. The Daily Mail loves to put everything from happiness to weight loss into nice pre-packaged boxes for people - it struck me that the 10,000 hours is just like that. If you believe Steve Vai then he well and truly exceeded 10,000 hours practice. He didn't have a life.

The point you make about enjoyment is spot on for me - my friends son always enjoyed playing and practising and for me that's what counts. I could never be Joe Satriani as I don't have the focus or the stamina to do what would be required to attain that level of skill. I could spend 10,000 hours going over and over the same stuff. In fact I probably have over the last ten years .. :-)

Dave_Mc

Fretwired said:

The Daily Mail comment isn't levelled at you. The Daily Mail loves to put everything from happiness to weight loss into nice pre-packaged packages for people - it struck me that the 10,000 hours is just like that.

Agreed- I don't like it when people oversimplify things.

IIRC the claim in the original book (which I got second-hand from newspaper articles and the wikipedia article ) ) wasn't trying to say there was no such thing as talent, it investigated people at the top of their game and claimed that this eliminated the talent thing, as you could reasonably claim that anyone who had made it that far had some talent already. I thought that was a little bit of a stretch (even if so, it's still entirely possible that some people have more than others), but I at least appreciated that they weren't claiming there was none.

Personally I just think it's complicated and everyone is a bit different, and I don't really appreciate when people make sweeping claims which they probably shouldn't be making. Most people at the top of their games have put in at least some work (not always, though, there's an odd documented case of people who haven't); conversely I'm not sure there are any pro musicians who were tone deaf at the start, either.

racefaceec90

conversely I'm not sure there are any pro musicians who were tone deaf at the start, either.

robert fripp was    from wikipedia  

Fripp began playing guitar at the age of eleven.^[28] When he started, he was tone deaf and had no rhythmical sense, weaknesses which led him later to comment "Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice    

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fripp  and scroll down to guitar technique 

Fretwired

racefaceec90 said:

conversely I'm not sure there are any pro musicians who were tone deaf at the start, either.

robert fripp was    from wikipedia  

Fripp began playing guitar at the age of eleven.^[28] When he started, he was tone deaf and had no rhythmical sense, weaknesses which led him later to comment "Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice    

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fripp  and scroll down to guitar technique

I like that. Fripp's an interesting case as he has a unique style and approach to the instrument. Talent won't get you too far without hard work and hours of dedication so you do need to put the work in to master the key techniques. I was impressed reading a recent article with John McLaughlin who is now in his 70s. He still practices every day and tries to master new techniques and having just got his latest CD which is a live recording you can see it pays off big time.

jpfamps

Am I the only member of this forum who doesn't like instrumental rock guitar music?

Dave_Mc

racefaceec90 said:

conversely I'm not sure there are any pro musicians who were tone deaf at the start, either.

robert fripp was    from wikipedia  

Fripp began playing guitar at the age of eleven.^[28] When he started, he was tone deaf and had no rhythmical sense, weaknesses which led him later to comment "Music so wishes to be heard that it sometimes calls on unlikely characters to give it voice    

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fripp  and scroll down to guitar technique 

Touché

I'm guessing he's the exception, though?

frankus

jpfamps said:

Am I the only member of this forum who doesn't like instrumental rock guitar music?

No, it bores me to tears now. There was a time when I thought "wow how does he do that?!" but these days I like music to be about living and not cerebral.

I find the absence of words means the music has to get a pretensious name and overblown sentiment wailed out to make up for there being no words to explain the finer points, which is crude and a little patronising... like a song called "the endless tears or africa" ... which then sounds like Carlos Santana on a cocktail of downers ... and people get blown away by it..

I don't think there's an instrumental tune that does irony or stoicism ... but there are songs that to.

jonnyburgo

Aah, but can she play Apache though?

Dave_Mc

jpfamps said:

Am I the only member of this forum who doesn't like instrumental rock guitar music?

Are you kidding? Any time I see any shreddy type videos there are normally tons of snide comments about them. Far more people (from my complete unscientific anecdotal evidence ) seem to dislike it than like it.

frankus

Not  sure if the snide comments are evidence of indifference, I always attribute that kinda thing to jealousy... I mean if it's nto your thing why bother raining on someone elses parade?

oddball

Its the same in any sort of activity be it guitar, football, maths or making money, some can't do it at all, some with serious application can become pretty decent and a small number are born to do it.

Usain Bolt is superhuman fast whether he trains or not, Give Richard Branson £100 and he'll turn into £50,000 by tea time and this little girl is shit hot on the guitar. It's no point being jealous, you've just got to accept the people s brains have a few extra connections than yours or they have super fast twitch muscles in their legs etc etc

frankus

Apart from handicapped people most people's brains are identicle to begin with. Environmental factors explain most anomalies.

I get brassed off with the fatalistic invitation to inactivity "some people were born to it" ... I disagree, it's anecdotal evidence at best and demotivating.. so not for me.

oddball

I fail to see how it's demotivating that some people naturally excel at some activities - they generally make the world a more interesting and exciting place - not sure how it's anecdotal evidence that some people have natural abilities better than others, elite sportsman such as John McEnroe (who famously rarely practised), the Leonardo Da Vinci's etc seem to clearly show some people have a bit more of the 'right stuff'

Dave_Mc

frankus said:

Not  sure if the snide comments are evidence of indifference, I always attribute that kinda thing to jealousy... I mean if it's nto your thing why bother raining on someone elses parade?

I'll do my usual bet hedging thing and say that I didn't necessarily mean it was jealousy- it's entirely fair enough if you genuinely don't like something (I'm not saying some people aren't jealous, I'm just saying it's not necessarily the case). I merely was saying that, in my experience of this forum at least, I'd guess that the shred haters outnumber the shred fans. On a forum like ultimate guitar or somewhere like that there may well be more shred fans than haters, I dunno.

frankus said:

Apart from handicapped people most people's brains are identicle to begin with. Environmental factors explain most anomalies.

I get brassed off with the fatalistic invitation to inactivity "some people were born to it" ... I disagree, it's anecdotal evidence at best and demotivating.. so not for me.

I'm not sure that is true, but even if it is, I'm not sure it really affects things that much. I mean if someone picks up something super-quickly because his/her parents gave him/her the perfect opportunities from the get-go, that's still a massive advantage over someone who didn't have those opportunities.

And there's a fine line between fatalistic and realistic... I'm not fatalistic either, I agree it's BS, but at the same time if you're banging your head against a wall it might make more sense to accept it and try to find something which you can get good at more easily.

Mainly though I think the whole thing is pretty complicated. Far as I'm aware the current thinking is "it's a bit of both" (both nature and nurture, in other words) and I'm happy enough with that.