Posts Related to: Talent

Note from LRG: Derek Sivers, who founded CD Baby, asked 15 musicians to comment on the book “Ignore Everybody and 39 Other Keys to Creativity” by Hugh MacLeod. Chuck was among them. Here is a condensed version of his response, which he posted to his site last month.
The book links together creativity and worldly success and …

The guitar world has always been obsessed with who is faster or better. The reality is that all good players are fast and knowledgeable about chords, improvisation, and harmony. So speed and knowledge, are, in themselves, not that meaningful.
What makes one player different from another is not the external factors of technique but the unique …

I saw a wonderful little documentary last week called “Herb and Dorothy” at a local theater. The film was about the lives of a long-married couple who built one of the most important contemporary art collections in history. And they did it on a librarian’s salary. Starting in the 1960s, Herbert Vogel, a postal clerk, and Dorothy …

This past Christmas I received a gift of a James Taylor DVD called “One Man Band.” This recent recording was filmed at the Colonial Theater in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in July 2007. In this performance, JT goes back to his roots – a guitar, a voice, and an audience. Watch a portion of the DVD here (this contains …

Anyone who plays music at an amateur level has likely had the experience of being asked: ”Are you good?” I’ve been asked it a couple of times, and I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Good” in music is so subjective, there really is no way to answer the question.
Some extraordinarily famous artists have made entire careers playing …

When cellist Biana Kovic taught at a summer music workshop in northern Maine in her 20s, she encountered a man in his 80s who had traveled from Boston to study the cello with her. He had made the drive alone. She asked him what motivated him to get in a car by himself and drive more than …

Music instruction books are most effective as supplements. Private music study is more effective in helping to organize and develop your talent.
The most obvious problem with a book is that it cannot be adapted to the individual. There is no way to get answers to questions that come up as you go through a book. …

Since musical talent is so difficult to define or even recognize – talent - or the lack of it, has created more than its share of anxiety in adult learners. Perhaps the greatest problem centers around the fact that talent is a fact in retrospect. Only after it has been developed does it become obvious that …

Say you’ve always dreamed of playing in an orchestra – but you’re 55 and don’t play a musical instrument? Well, this is one dream that can come true. If you were to start violin lessons today, you’d be accepted into the New York Late Starters String Orchestra in one year  – with no audition.
The New …

For the past six years, the article Going Under Happily, about a former finance executive who plays his keyboard in the New York City subway, has hung on my refrigerator.
I have moved twice since the article was first published, and it has made it intact through both inter- and intra-state moves.
I reached for the scissors to …