Natural Ability vs Practice
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- Опубликовано: 16 дек 2023
- Which is more important? Do you think your favorite musicians have an innate, natural ability that the rest of us mere mortals simply don't possess, or is it just that they have spent countless hours advancing in tiny increments over a long period of time. I know which one it is for me!
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I appreciate your comments about the hard work required (versus talent). It gives me hope and encourages me to trust the process. Thanks.
After playing for over 50 years it's still good to hear this .
The eternal battle- Nature vs nurture, natural talent vs hard work.
I appreciate your perspective but I gotta say in my own observations, to get to the top rung and achieve excellence, it really requires both. On the one hand, no one with pure natural talent that picks up an instrument or sings will ever make it without really digging deep and putting in a ton of hard work, sweat, determination, and thousands of hours practicing their craft. On the other hand, we are all given a mix of natural gifts and abilities and they are all a very different mix. Whether we realize it or not, these gifts are a significant piece of who we are and what we tend to excel at. By following our gifts and talents, consciously or unconsciously we have the best chance to achieve excellence in our lives.
As a kid I knew that I had some natural musical gifts. I was attracted to music and could sing and whistle in tune at a young age. Like a mockingbird I had some natural musical ability. As I put in those thousands and thousands of hours developing these gifts I came to see vast differences between people around me with similar training and practice levels in terms of natural ear, ability to hear a complex melody once and repeat it verbatim, spelling out complex chords, perfect pitch etc..
A few examples:
-A gal I know who loves music but simply is unable to sing Do Re Mi or the birthday song in tune. She cannot hear it and she is not alone.
-My grandson who could sing all of the Disney songs in tune, in the original key and correct tempo, A cappella at age 4. Two years ago at age 7 he sang Beethoven's "Ode To Joy" at a recital and brought the house down. He practiced it maybe 10 times in total.
-EVH who during piano lessons at age 8 ignored learning to read music. He fooled his teacher and memorized entire pieces completely by ear after hearing them a few times. He went on to change the guitar world forever.
-Mozart who was composing his first musical score at age 5.
-Rick Beato's son Dylan who demonstrated perfect pitch and could spell out complex chords and intervals at a very young age. (4?)
Yes there are musicians who developed a boatload of musical ability long before they had ever engaged in serious focused practice and it is as dangerous to ignore this as it is to ignore the hard work required to fully develop these gifts and become a highly exceptional musician or any endeavor. It really does require a boatload of both talent AND serious focused practice to become exceptional at music, sports, mathematics, language, visual arts, and many other things.
My own unscientific observation over a lifetime of both music and sports is that "nature vs nurture" is probably around 50/50. You GOTTA bring something very significant to the game and you GOTTA spend thousands hours to fully develop it and truly achieve excellence. Studies on perfect pitch traits among families and identical twins who were separated at birth yet displayed strikingly similar skills and abilities support this view.
Appreciate the genuine gifts you were given and develop them to your greatest ability.
Cheers!
perfect.
My brother and I were just talking about this subject. We both play in cover bands and people will say I wish I was naturally talented like you. We’re both like, it’s the countless hours of work that goes into it. I completely get what you’re saying.
Natural talent is like overnight success… powerful illusions.
Good stuff! Those neural pathways don't wire themselves, those ears don't train themselves.
Appreciate ya Justin.
100% agree. You don’t become great at anything without substantial practice even if you have “natural ability”. Set goals, embrace the practice journey, play the long game, and don’t compare yourself to others and you’ll find consistent success in whatever you want to accomplish.
I'm 62 and 4 years into my guitar journey. I thought at the beginning that I would be good after 4 years. I now see how much work it takes and am trying to do more focused practice, not just learn another song. I'll now put my computer down and pick up my guitar! Thanks for the motivation. I just stumbled on to your site thanks to the youtube algorithm. You have a new subscriber.
I have sometimes pondered the question as to why I am not a professional grade player and I think the key here is the focused practice, focusing on improving. I can speak as someone who practiced a lot and got nowhere. I was lazy, I lied to myself that I was doing really well and getting better and better. All of it was rubbish. It wasn’t until I was honest with myself (and that took a long time) that I was able to change my mindset and really make some solid progress. I think it’s easy to blame a lack of talent, for me and I suspect many others, it’s a lack of application and the ability to convince yourself that you are a better player than you really are. I just wish I had realised my own faults earlier.
Great comment. I was the same way for so many years.
Practice wins. When you've practiced enough that people start saying you have natural talent then the real work begins. Cheers Justin!
Well said.
How could someone be born knowing how to play guitar? It's a hard instrument to play.
Exactly. Passion drives but practice is critical for us mortals.
All depends on what you mean by “practice”.
perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's proficiency.@@geoffblack9655
Thanks, Justin. Sometimes I feel like I missed the opportunity to put in the hours, not converting any little talent I had into great playing and writing. But there are still some hours and you’re wisdom is an encouragement
I find your message liberating. Student guitarists are bombarded by lots of different "systems" and approaches to the instrument and I find it overwhelming. Thanks for emphasizing what's most important...learning to be musical and using one's ears. I've read that Charlie Parker said not to approach practice as a series of drills but to think of it as spending time with your instrument.
Thank you for the insightful video. As a beginner southpaw playing right-handed I get so frustrated. It’s so hard to coordinate my right hand . Your words are so helpful!
I am so glad you addressed this natural ability comment. My wife tells me this all the time because I don't know any music theory, and never had any lessons, but what she doesn't understand is the countless amount of hours I have put into this over the past 35 years.
Martin Scorsese is widely acknowledged as one of the all-time great filmmakers. He is 81 years old now and is often asked if he has any regrets. His answer is that he believes he has just begun to really understand filmmaking but is aware that time will not allow him to do his best work. and that's his regret. We may think he's great, but he knows how much better he can be and how learning is a never-ending process.
People always talk about Jimi Hendrix as being born to play guitar. He was a little under 6 feet tall but had these huge hands that allowed him to use his thumb in ways other players couldn't. People point out how the guitar was like an extension of his body; how "natural" his command was. They don't stop to think how being left-handed at the time he started playing was a huge hurdle. Teaching himself he had to reverse what he saw other people doing. He couldn't just pick up someone else guitar and play a riff he saw them play which is one of the ways we learn. He had to work extra hard from the beginning to get over the obstacle being left-handed put in his way. His desire to learn made his work ethic phenomenal. He never put the guitar down or completely away. It was always in his hands or by his side.
Ernie Isley tells a story about Hendrix when he was playing in the Isley Brothers band. At the time Ernie was just a kid and Hendrix was living at the Isley home. He would watch Jimi on a couch all day playing an unplugged guitar. He would take one lick and play it over and over. Then he would play it backwards over and over, then he would break it into pieces and reassemble it in different orders and configurations, again playing them over and over. He would do this for hours until someone would stop him to eat or something. When he died, he was considered to be the best on the planet. Yet he continued to work as he always had, a guitar constantly in his hands. At his death he had just started to move on to the next phase in his musical development. He had his own studio and was looking forward to collaborating with musicians from all kinds of styles of music because he wanted to learn from them. Talent and aptitude are always trumped by desire and work.
Focus, dedication, endurance, etc are talents.
This debate kept me from playing for 30 years. I was convinced that great players were just born that way. Now that I have picked it back up, and because of the internet, I have found that a lot of the classics were not all that hard to play after all. It just took months of practice and getting to know the fretboard.
The fact that there is now an "Outlaw Country" format tells you all you need to know...as the great Waylon Jennings (who probably would have laughed at a format called "Outlaw Country") said "I don't think Hank done it this way..."
I've never heard modern country described so succinctly. I had always been at a loss for how to talk about it. Especially considering how much I love 'outlaw', as you said, country
Modes are scaffolding, triads are scaffolding. Chord tones are the safest notes to land on. I do agree you get deeper into the changes with a triad or harmonic approach.
1. Steve Morse, an amazing guitar player, used to have roadies drive him around so he could practice in the car. 2. When I was young, two friends were housebound (one from injury, another from moving to a small town where he didn't know anyone and there was nothing to do) improved very quickly because they practiced all the time. 3. I'm a keyboardist with chronic tendonitis, so constant practice is not an option. I compensate by ear training, transcribing, focusing my rare practice sessions on difficult passages, learning theory, and practicing in my head (which strangely makes my hands hurt). Not ideal, but it keeps my musical brain, my most important body part, active and growing. People think I'm talented because I don't practice my instrument, but I work very hard in other ways to be able to do what I do.
bro...this was incredible for me...your thinking on playing and music is exactly the way i see it. The guitar is a wooden box with six wires on it and you will never fully figure it out....how grand is that? You only get out what you put in brother......I wish i knew you in person because we would have lots to talk about and lots of laughs......
Hi Justin, I just wanted to say how much I enjoyed your show and today was particularly rewarding.
As always you provide honest, complete and heartfelt advice and information with care and humility.
Thank you. It is sincerely appreciated.
I would also like to highlight the thoughtfulness, care and consideration you provide to those comments that are ill-informed and, at best, poorly made.
Your positive and generous response is a wonderful quality and should hopefully provide inspiration and a helpful way forward to those particular individuals.
To state what should be clearly obvious to most people, Music is a joy. And whatever genre you select, the musicians within it have spent a lifetime of dedication, practice and commitment.
There is a wealth of quality music coming out of Nashville (and elsewhere!) currently and if the heart, passion and emotion within it is not immediately apparent to some commenters, their questioning of the use of the Nashville numbering system, modes, current styles etc reveals they're clearly missing the essential point - it's about creating GREAT MUSiC!.🙂
Best wishes, Ky
I find that what I play is because I’ve practiced it before or it’s so close I can hear internally where to turn. It’ll cost you to get good. Find someone who knows and is willing to teach you! Great video, Justin!
I so needed to hear this. Thank you!
Nice shirt Justin!
It’s a good’n!
Great stuff man! I like your style and advice! Happy holidays!
Once again, I totally agree with your philosophy. People talk about the “10,000 Hour Rule” (what it takes to become an “expert” in anything). So, if that rule holds any weight then, with guitar, somewhere in those 10K hours the guitarist was learning and developing “modes” whether they were taught the theory or not. I say, like you said, focus on the music. Create something that is compelling. If that means you’re using “modes” … well, great! If not, and it is compelling, well then … great! I feel it’s always best to focus on the song. Is the part I played make the song better or worse? I dunno. I really appreciate you Justin, as well as this community you are gathering. Great conversations in the comments. I’m glad to be among them. Happy Holidays Justin and JO Community. 🙏
Needed to hear this. Thank you Justin!
Tom Bukovac echos playing to chords over the changes with focus on developing a melody. He's done allright with that approach.
I enjoy you showing off the mug while also wearing the Five Watt World shirt!
I guess I have to buy something- you put my wife’s name all over your merch! Your videos inspire me and im excited for whatever comes next.
Your comment about taking small steps through continued practice is really encouraging to me. You just dont hear many people at your level talking about this. Can't wait for your course!
Thank you so much for what you say about the effect of talent and hard work. I think this is so 150% true.
I mean, believing things like “You either have it or you don’t” is such a great excuse not to even try! For much too long I believed in that and I'm so grateful that I found out about the opposite early enough.
I'm not sure but maybe the most important part of what we call talent is just that one can enjoy the process of learning because you just believe in that you are going to master the thing you are working on.
Very encouraging! Thank you
I enjoyed the video, thank you.
Great video. Thanks.
Outstanding
If you are passionate enough about something, practice will get you to be good at almost anything you put your mind too.
Thank you for explaining the need for hard work!!! It is apparent that you have a great work ethic, and it has paid off!!! Much appreciated.
Love your thought process! Super inspiring.
Great advice not just for music but life in general. Thanks Justin!
Thanks Justin. Brilliant thoughts that I find extremely supportive. Great video!
That tone a t the beginning was awesome. The playing was as well. Thanks.
Awesome video, thanks. And comes at the exact right time for me as I'm currently at one of those "frustration" stages where I think "nah, I'm just no good, I'll never get better". You've just given me inspiration to continue practicing.
Words of wisdom !!!
Thanks!
dude you are as inspirational as anyone on you tube and im so glad to watch your channel....im so happy to have so many pros guiding my path to be the best I can be
no shit!! ive spent two decades developing my ear!! so can hear .. without need for theory.. theory is helpful! but hearing is everything!!
Man that Novo sounds amazing 😮 Cheers man, I love your channel! I think natural talent may get you to a starting point faster but there is still loads of work to do.
Your approach is helpful to me like no other's.
Perfectly put. I totally connected with what Justin said in the episode on modes. I only found the channel very recently and I really like Justin’s approach to teaching. Looking forward to future episodes. Great work 👍
Thank You so much, Agree to 100% 👍
I'm learning a lot from this perspective of playing chord tones, another tool for the toolbox that I haven't explored fully yet. Looking forward to the course!
You were right on bruv, thanks for starting this channel, and opening up your lived experience, some of these keyboard warrior garage guitarists don’t just want to listen and learn from a different perspective… much love
Great call and response to the tube.
Great stuff as always. For Christmas all I want is to see how you get around the fretboard.
I started enjoying practicing when I saw the Brett Papa video that explained timing and practicing with a backing track, first with a single cord just having fun with it then improvising in a key man I sounded better then I thought I was LOL! Great video by the way Justin always like your down to earth discussions.
Great video! I learn a lot from you and your peers. I especially liked the part about hard work beating talent. I had a very successful career as a pilot. Nothing about that came naturally, it was the result of lots of work and practice. Guitar and music is a hobby for me. I have been putting in a bunch of work and am realizing the breakthroughs and progress. Sometimes I get frustrated yet I keep pushing and when the next breakthrough occurs it is worth it. I think this concept applies to about any pursuit. Keep the content coming!
The thing with modes that I think helped me when I was younger was sort of simplifying stuff…like it I saw a progression that was say an A major to B major I would just say the song was in E, because the only time you see two major chords a full step apart is between a 4 and 5 chord, so I would lazily play an A Lydian (or B Mixo) mode over it, which is just an E Ionian scale. But when you start REALLY playing music, you have to outline those two triads individually instead of just playing a scale. Really the only thing I use modes for is to sort of describe how something might sound to myself now, like Lydian would be dreamy, Mixolydian sort of middle easternish? I don’t know, but I fully agree with Justin on this, it’s really not something that’s just used much in practical applications
bad-ass logo, kudos.
JUST FOUND YOUR CHANNEL...EXCELLENT ADVICE AND WORDS OF WISDOM!!!
Nice shirt, man ❤
Thanks. Excellent wisdom, bro. I'm 70 and have been working at guitar for decades but got so much to learn. Learning from you each time. Blessings.
Thanks Justin. A video full of insights. I’ve dabbled in music, playing keyboard and then guitar, attempting to compose, etc. From the first time I tapped the keys on an old out of tune upright piano I was always drawn to making music. However, I never had the drive or the confidence to believe I could actually be good at, that I lacked the natural talent or something. Eventually I was lucky enough to get to know some ‘real’ musicians who encouraged me, so I began to play more and attempted to write songs, but still I saw them as having some innate abilities I lacked. Only in recent years have I allowed myself to spend more time learning and practicing guitar, and for whatever reason I’ve kept at it (people like yourself offering so much on RUclips has certainly been a big part of it) and much to my surprise I’ve made good progress. I will admit I don’t follow strict practice routines but I do spend a lot of time playing and, most importantly I think, I pay attention to how I’m playing, and I do push myself to work on things I find difficult. There is so much to learn and I know I’ll never learn or master everything but getting a little better over time is enough. Above all, I’m enjoying the journey.
Great talk on how to approach practising and the mindset that's involved with it (long term and short term).
What you said about wiring the brain by practising has a lot of scientific research backing that up.
Looking forward to your courses. :)
Enjoyed the conversation Justin! Thanks for sharing about your journey. Please continue to share your story. Would be interested in hearing how you got started! 🙏
Great follow up to the modes discussion, and so happy to see the love for @5wattworld !
Hi Justin and all the Ostrander-Landers out there. I have really come to value your videos this year, thanks for all the work that goes in.
Your views here MUST be correct. Otherwise none of us would ever improve and we'd all give up. I have little natural ability other than a life- long love of music. But REALLY practicing in last few years I can ferl I have improved and watching your ideas has helped that, too.
People, never give up. It takes time and a bit of structured devotion, but so does everything we want to succeed in.
Mery Christmas Justin
Excellent Justin, it’s about putting in the reps.
This is so spot on! That’s what I always say about people who want to be “professional musicians.” You CAN NOT fail if you don’t stop! There’s no magic. Honestly it comforts me to think the way Justin described. On one hand, it gives me the answer (I know exactly what it takes to get to those heights - time), and on the other hand, I’m okay with the fact that I don’t practice 20 hours a day, and I know that’s what my favorites did to get to where they are 😂😂
I think a finer line is where talented people may not be able to even define the exact techniques or modes they use and we get caught up with putting labels on everything in order to impress others….and snobs expect labels & technical chatter, that’s what impresses them and that’s cool…they have their circles and clicks to exhaust their passion with others of their kind and that’s where they fit best socially.
Some of the most intelligent guitar people may not play as good as others who have no idea what they are technically doing….
This just comes to mind while listening to your video, maybe as a side car topic of interest…
Nice videos! 🎶
Reppin' the 5 WATT World!! Great channel.
What a fantastic video have a wonderful day Justin also happy holiday season also i had a cold this past weekend ❤😊🎸🌲🇨🇦🧡
Your channel is great, mate. Please keep going :D
Much appreciated. Cheers!
Great advice JO
I’m 54, I focused again when covid hit , can’t find a band yet but I love trying to find time amidst lifes demands and seeing my progress from doing an hour of guitar at 5 am, not plugged in to an amp, black coffees and seeing progress but also not being too hard on your progress.
You can wire your brain slowly to how you want it to allow you to do the things you like.
You have to enjoy patience and effort and the fact that the guys like you and Tom an Guthrie and Jason Lachlan? give so much info you could never get anywhere else .
Praise be to the Nashville guitar dudes for they shall inherit the eternal Green room.😊
Hey Justin just wanted to say I was watching CMT Crossroads with Bret Michaels and Chris Janson and noticed you were on stage. HOLY SHIT MAN THAT WAS AWESOME!!!!!! I’ve been a Bret Michaels / Chris Janson fan for YEARS. SO AWESOME YOU WERE JAMMING WITH THEM BROTHER. ONE HELL OF A SHOW!!!!!
Cheers Justin
I think the basis of having a naturally good ear, good feel and vibrato makes everything so much better. Without those components you can practice till the cows come home and your growth will be limited. So it’s probably a delicate balance of natural ability and practice with a healthy dose of self awareness of where to set your goals. Great video and subject Justin!
My ear was horrible until I practiced it. Rewinding tapes of songs I made off the radio over and over and over again until a part I was trying to learn sounded exact. Developing your ear is crucial.
Great point Justin! Just put the hard work in- the one seemingly apparent common thread amongst you and your Nashville brothers- Tommy, Jedd, Guthrie to name a few, is the no nonsense work ethic and dogged persistence to excel in your craft. Thanks for all the great content and response to my comment!
Naturally good ear like perfect pitch? Few are born with it and few of those play music.
So practice has to be put into archiving relative pitch from everyone else.
As for feel, vibrato etc., no one is born with a natural talent for it, nor is there a formula for bad or good, the hard part is to develop it to stand out from the masses, if the goal is to have an unique style.
Regardless, what ever one want’s to be a session player, guitar hero or earn a dime, a lot of effort and practice has to be put into both playing as performing.
@@JoeBaermann true, the God given perfect pitch or Mote ear is rare. But having a naturally good ear and musical inclination and passion will definitely move you closer to your goals when paired with practice.
I appreciate the good honest feedback that was an interesting and insightful learning guitar. #cheers to the neverending struggle 🎸 ✌️
Happy Holidays Justin, I always look forward to learning new licks from you ;) Thankful for rewind and slo-mo features
Thanks a ton!
Awesome video, Justin. Focused practice, as you say, is the key. As for modes vs. etc. I have to say that studying triads and chords works better for me than modes. I visualize better the fretboard thinking chords. With modes I feel that I focus more on the shapes; with chord tones I feel that what I play is more musical...
I really enjoy your content, Justin. It feeds me. I get what the 'offensive' commenter was saying, and I can relate. However, it sounds like he may have misjudged you a bit, because no one can really presume to know how it feels under someone else's fingers. You make it look easy and natural because of experience, but that says nothing about the painful mistakes it took to get there. There are some who catch on much earlier than those of us who have to work a little harder. But I kind of bristle inside at the old cliche' about natural talent that says, "you either have it or you don't." My younger self worked hard to disprove it and now I have some chops to enjoy what I play. It's great to surprise myself with nice playing and still not as fun when I don't. So using scales, CAGED positions, modes, chord tones, and tasteful sensibility are all very useful. But at the end of the day it doesn't matter which of those approaches I choose because the fact is, that it got me there. I don't think I have much natural talent and I had to work hard to seem like I do. I just haven't given up in 53 years is all.
Muscle memory is only developed through practice. It took me along time to realize that was the key to play what you hear in your head or on the radio, You need to develop patterns to practice and over a wide range, the more muscle memory you develop the easy guitar get and the more natural you sound playing. it all comes down to practice. The more you practice the easy it gets. Some people may have a little better work ethics but we all have to go through he same process.
Being able to play what you can hear in your head, without limitations is the goal. Assuming you have anything in your head? 😉
Developing that voice, learning to listen to that voice is the biggest hurdle. Practicing patterns will yield happy accidents, but it will not reveal the musical soul by itself.
That said, it’s been very helpful to study harmony and have some shapes that will generally help one guess correctly where that next note is. Some way of mapping out the fingerboard. It’s also helpful to have practice certain sequences (lines), for when the shit is coming fast and furious!
Nice, Justin. As a 65 year old lifelong pro, both as a performer and educator, I can corroborate your comments about talent vs hard work. As a veteran of thousands of gigs, and having taught tens of thousands of lessons, I have seen this from both sides of the music stand. At this point in my development, I am still just as excited about learning, and feel like I'm starting to get a handle on things! Keep the videos coming!
I agree about the focused practice thing. I’ve been teaching guitar since the late ‘80’s (and gigging as well) and I often try to teach my students how to practice properly. You’ll never grow unless you’re challenged. Time on task is important as is passion.
Great insights here. Thanks
Dang...I got to keep practicing? My plan to learn guitar from watching RUclips videos and osmosis comes crashing down...😅 great video Justin
Thanks Justin, appreciate the response to my ramblings. I certainly wasn’t knocking anybody, you session guys are the best of the best and some of the most creative players on the planet. I came up with my own mnemonic to learn the mode names
‘I don’t play licks my amp likes’, which was almost certainly true whilst I was learning how to apply them
Haha!
Justin, thanks so much for this video! Great advice, as always. You're an inspiration to me and I'm an old fart who ought to play way better than he does for the number of years I've been playing. What you practice is just as important as how much you practice. I agree about thinking and playing melodically/musically as opposed to just thinking in modes. It's good to understand the theory, but just hitting random notes in a particular scale isn't making music.
You are much more wise and mature than I was when I was your age, and you are right to prioritize your family over music. May God richly bless you and yours this Christmas season!
Thanks so much, Gary! Merry Christmas to you and yours!
So true!
I started to play the guitar when I was 13 and I was addicted to it. I couldn’t stop. I played for 7 hours every day. My goal was to write songs. That was more important to me than anything. But it meant that I heard melodies in my head that I couldn’t play yet. And so I just kept playing until I could play it flawlessly.
And I learned fast! Being young helps.
But when I learned enough to do most of what I wanted at ease, I’d still learn, but by no means as fast as it used to be when I was still a teenager. I didn’t learn this fast anymore for the sole reason that I didn’t put in the hours I needed to grow as a guitarist.
And I’ve always hated myself for it, because I know I could’ve been much better, but I just didn’t play enough. And when I played I was basically just keeping up with what I could already do.
Every once in a while I learned something cool that inspired me to play more and the steps I made within these weeks of practicing intensely were amazing.
It’s like any form of art, any type of sports, craftsmanship in any field…, if you want to be good at it, you need to put in the hours. If you want to be among the best, you need to put in even more hours and use these hours wisely!!! 😊
I was doing a Beato Lydian thing and (while it was dreamy and psychedelic), I took your lesson more to heart cause it's definitely more practical and better for myself for my own personal ear training. You're doing a good job teaching and be careful which battle you choose to fight on this RUclips beast. Ignore those haters. You are a Nashville session man cause you do really good work.
I don’t think of the guy as a hater. The comment just raised a point I wanted to make about our mindset. Cheers!
@@JustinOstranderI’m glad you don’t think of me as a “hater” Justin. I am far from being a hater. I wrote a reply to the points you made in this video (about my comment on the last video). It’s here in the comments section somewhere.
When I talk about innate ability, here is what I mean: you play a few chords, and someone can improvise a great little melody over it…somebody with little to no musical experience. No practice. She’s a health care worker or whatever, never played an instrument in her life. But when you played some chords, you asked her: “can you sing something over that? Doesn’t matter what the words are, can you just hum something over it?” And when she does, it just sounds great, like it goes right along with what you played, and it threw you off a little, because it’s not something you yourself may have come up with. That’s innate ability.
You can hear it in beginner players if they have “it”. They may not know the chords, the scale, the notes, but an innate ability to just play 5 or 6 notes and phrase them in a way that sounds musical, comes out. Or give them just 2 chords and tell them to come up with something, and they play those chords in a rhythmic way that just sounds…well…you can just tell! You can tell that they are musical. This “ability” might be hard for someone who has it to see it, to be able recognize it. Do your fingers automatically go to and play the right notes? No, they don’t. But your musical brain leads them to play notes in a melodic and rhythmic way that sounds good. It’s hard to explain to somebody who has this ability what it is like to not have it.
Thats what I’m talking about.
And people who have that ability can then develop it, through hard work, to an elite level.
If you didn’t have that ability Justin, you wouldn’t be a top session player, even if you practiced for 500,000 hours. (Unless you were just hired to read and play sheet music, but that’s not what we are talking about here.)
To be clear, I think everybody, no matter if they have ability or not, should do what they enjoy, and do it as intensely as they want to.
I don’t have innate “musicality” in me, but I still play and practice every day, for hours, and I enjoy it immensely.
I just think I would enjoy it a little more if I had natural ability.
Later, gator.
It was a helpful reminder for me to hear you say “I’m tempering my expectations at this point,” due to your place in life. Many of us, to some degree, are “all or nothing” creatures - bumming out over not meeting our every creative impulse with wild, romanticized abandon, perhaps like we were more able to do at another point along the way. It’s ok, even good, to find a balance that honors all that you value (family, friends, music, etc), given who you are and your capacity and limitations. You are worthy and if you’re aiming up, so is that.
As always, brother, tellin it like it is. Learning on this machine is never endingly gratifying. And making this machine sing is a godlike experience. I did a great intensive coarse on “Modal Mastery” with Chris Sherland and I came out of that month with a deeply enriched sense of the topography of the fretboard. It’s knowledge, it’s power. And then you put that in your tool chest with all the other goodies and just concentrate on making some damn fine music. Modes are simply moods and knowing how to get at the story you want to tell, in any medium, is enhanced by knowing your craft. But you’ve got to follow your guts and find your own voice, explore your own language. Writers read and know grammer. Musicians listen and know theory. And then, as an artist you get busy bleeding for your Work.
We are born with musical intent and ability, learning to talk would be impossible otherwise...music is easy, people are challenging....
Great vid, thanks Justin
“If you weren’t thinking you wouldn’t have thought that” quote from the sandlot when Benny is teaching smalls how to catch- great advice for music to lol
Thanks Justin. One of the biggest things I've taken away from Tom (been a grateful follower pretty much from the Skoolin start) and Bryan Sutton (I do his course) is their work ethic.
They're both obsessed. We all are to some extent.
Completely agree. I wish I knew how to practice when I was in my teens. Bunch of wasted years. Now that I’m old I do practice better and I can see how good I could of been with focus. I love those little breakthroughs.
Very interesting videos you do. I agree with you that all great players put in the hard work to make themselves be the best they can be. In the end it is all about being musical no matter which way one gets there. The same goes with elite chess players as they spend hours and hours fine tuning their art. Raw talent can only take you so far.
I'm with you, man.