Posts Related to: Talent

The book Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin helped me get over a misguided obsession with age and temporal starting points. Developing musical skill is about how effectively you practice and how much time you put in. Neither of those factors is obstructed by age. Focus and time. That’s …

Imagine this: you prepare a recipe from Emeril’s cook book only to have him appear and tell you, “it’s dreadful and you should never cook again.” Or you play guitar on the beach for your friends, only to find out that someone brought Simon and he makes “a face” about the way you play and …

Progress in music is best described as an upward spiral. The initial stages are easy to trace. The beginner knows very little and can do very little, so every new technique and every bit of knowledge feels like a giant stride forward. When these quick and easy strides end, problems typically set in. New information and …

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 …

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 …

I saw a wonderful little documentary last week called “Herb and Dorothy” at a the Bryn Mawr Film Institute, 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, …

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 …

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 …