Beauty

Sorry if there's already a thread on this, I searched.

This is something I think about often, and I'd be interested to hear some opinions. Do you think that someone who is not naturally gifted in a given area can become just as good in that field as someone who is? I mainly relate different art forms with this topic, but I suppose it can pretty much apply to anything and everything.

In my opinion, anyone can accomplish whatever they put their minds to. If you want to be a great painter, a lack of initial talent shouldn't stop you one bit. Drive is everything. All of the "greats" in their field worked painstakingly to get where they are today.

However, I'm undecided as to where the line is here. Obviously, someone who is naturally gifted, yet never develops their skill will never be as good as someone who is not "talented", yet chose to learn a skill to its fullest. The question is...if you took two "driven" people, one gifted, one not, and gave them each the best of the best training and practice in their field...would the person to whom the trade did not come naturally ever be quite as good as the other? In other words, is talent (or lack there of) really a limitation in certain instances? Or is it irrelevant when extreme drive is involved?

There are other variables to this debate, but I'll just let those pop up if anybody's really interested.

Vale

I think a person who is not naturally giften could be very good if he undertakes on it, but someone who is talented probabily will be better.
A not given person will be very good after a lot of time but never like a person who trained himselfes and is given.

Enemy

Well, obiviously they'd both be good, but I believe that the gifted person's art will standout more.

The trained person can draw, but the gifted person has more imagination.

afool4u

Well since I have been called gifted in the past (no idea why ) I can share some insight. One thing I'm a "natural" at is guitar. I go to this competition every April (A.T.A.M) and since my first year of playing I've placed everytime. The compition is done by age and often times I play against people who haved played a lot longer then I have. Do I think I'm better then everyone, No of course not. What I do think is that it just comes easier to me. It may take someone longer to get where I am, but I think they can still get there. With singing though you have to be born with the talent. Sure you can learn scales and all the training and everything, but if you don't have the voice and the stage presence then you probably won't make it very far. Just my thoughts.

Sandra

Sophia

Here are my thoughts on the matter.

"IQ" persay, is simply a number, it's potential, not how good you are at anything. Having a higher IQ means you have a bigger battery in your head and that things come more easily to you. Just becaue you have a high IQ doesn't mean you do well at school. Size doesn't matter, it's what you do with it. It doesn't mean you wil be naturally more able to get farther than someone else with a lesser IQ, it simply means you will get there faster.

Afool4u, I completely agree with you on the singing part. I think that you can train someone to be a better singer, but they will never be an amazing opera singer like someone born with a good voice.

xalexx

Jonny Wilkinson (for those of you among you who don't know who he is, he's a national hero pointscoring rugby uber-man) went to my college, and so whenever we get the old "try hard" assembly, we always here how Jonny's brother Mark was far more talented, but didn't want it as hard as Jonny. As a result, Jonny trained and trained and trained until he was better that big bro. I don't know how much is true, but its the story that is always peddled.

Talent is genetic. Many (including me) believe genetics determine the peak you could reach, however, they don't mean you are there to begin with (although you may have a head start). One then has to work to achieve one's potential, however, you can never conquer you genetic deficiencies. You can only be as good at something as your genes let you.

CooKIeS4LiFe

I agree with you on that. That's a good point. The person who was trained to draw can just draw, but the gifted person can draw and have more of an imagination like you said.

However, some that are trained have great imaginations on art also, not only gifted people. It's kind of a little bit of both really.

Biff

I'll sum up the answer to the topic in question with one line:

Practice Makes Perfect.

That is all.

Katya

Hmm, interesting question.

If you gave someone with a natural gift and someone who didn't have it the exact same training, and both worked hard, the gifted person would most likely turn out better. However, the other person could rise to match the gifted's skill.

Allow me an example...I'm in two choirs in the College of Fine Arts. I had to audition to get into them, and when I sang at the first rehearsal, I thought '...how the CRAP did I get into this?' because most of the people in it are voice majors or music majors and they're all fantastic singers and they can all sight-read music ridiculously well.

Over time, I myself have learned a lot and gotten tons better in both singing and sight-reading...however, I still see a massive gap. Why? Because I don't have access to a vocal teacher...and my CFA Voice major friends sing for multiple hours every day and have voice lessons. So while I can get better on my own, and possibly with my old teacher during the summer, they are inevitably going to outshine me in absolutely everything because it's what they do all the time.

Another example is when I struggled to keep our tiny choir together in high school...two of my best friends were in it and they really wanted to be there...but one had absolutely no sense of pitch. So when there's six of us, off-pitch notes are extremely noticeable. I tried working with her to help her hear the notes better (and she was for it at first), but she didn't bother trying and just walked out because she didn't want to put the work in.

So, not only did she not have a gift for it, she also didn't want to work at it to get better. As opposed to a friend of mine in my theatre group who also was tone-deaf when she started but worked hard for two years with my voice teacher and now can sing on-pitch wonderfully. She's not a shining star, but she's good because she worked at it.

In conclusion, I agree with Biff that practice makes perfect, but you have to want to do it, and also have at least SOME talent as well. Practicing mechanically doesn't get you anywhere. Practicing with drive and passion gets you to the finish line.

Biff

Without drive and passion, you wouldn't be practicing endlessly in the first place. That goes without saying.