How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Talent (2014)
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
In the music world, this is a well known punchline to the "how do you get to Carnegie Hall" joke. Lots of people get in that way, such as the Tiger Mom's daughter, as one famous example. (And let me tell you... as a classical music lover duped into attending these performances because of the Carnegie Hall brand - they suck).
There is an interesting parallel to another front-page post on HN today, Entrepreneurs don't have a gene for risk – they come from families with money (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10151566). This quote fits especially nicely: "So while yes, there's certainly a lot of hard work that goes into building something, there's also a lot of privilege involved - a factor that is often underestimated."
She is famous for saying "people may say I can't sing but no one can ever say I didn't sing".
Warning: anyone who values their ears https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtf2Q4yyuJ0
You see this all the time with rich people. They're the kids of even richer people but yet still are "self-made" who "started out with nothing" and did it through "hard work."
You also see plenty of success stories of people with much humbler beginnings say that.
Which you choose to focus on is either going to motivate you to work hard or be an excuse to not.
I think there are basically 3 categories of talent.
Top level: I had a friend who practiced about 1 hour a day and now plays professionally in the Boston Symphony. Obviously she had bucketloads of talent. These folks are quite rare.
Middle Tier (this is where I was): Folks who worked quite hard for a decade or more squashing all of their performance weaknesses to get to the level where they could perform professionally. There are a fair number of these people.
Quixotic: Even when these folks practice 6 hours a day, they never progress beyond a certain ability level. They will never be professionals. Sometimes it takes a couple of decades before they give up. I have a lot of friends that fall into this category of talent.
Of course there are people who have top level talent and pour on bucket loads of work. The one guy I knew in college who was like this is now in the Canadian Brass.
I spent a couple of decades playing my instrument before quitting and I can say without a doubt that the idea that talent is actually hard work is complete nonsense.
There are many technical "sticking points" that most people need to overcome before they can perform at a professional level. The most talented performers breeze through most or all of the sticking points that everyone else has.
The non-obvious side effect of this is that the most talented players are often the worst teachers - because they have no idea how to help anyone else get through their "sticking points". But that's another discussion entirely.....
At least for classical music. As a general rule, the people that get steady orchestra jobs that pay around 100k have a lot of natural talent, practice a lot, use practice time well, and have great teachers.
It takes all of these in US because of supply and demand. There are a lot of very good players and relatively very few jobs.
An analogy might be if the only 100k+ programming jobs in US were at Google, and almost all other programmers had to freelance because no other jobs were available.
But what's not debatable is his overarching love of the guitar and obsession with learning everything he could to play it better.
While I agree that innate talent exists I disagree that it cannot be made up for.
[0] - http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Overrated-Separates-World-Class...
The bar for being a Doctor, Programmer, Quant, or most other fields is actually fairly low. What confounds the issue is many things have a random selection process. The number of girls physically capable of becoming an Olympic gymnast is restricted not just by talent but also by family situations. Getting the right trainer early is less about talent than luck.
So, it’s a question of the talent pool making a serious effort plus how fair the selection process is. Which is why getting into the NFL in 2015 is vastly harder than it was in 1970. Superstars in 1970 might not even make it into the modern NFL because the talent pool is vastly larger and the number of slots have not increased much. It's not really a question of size, it's speed that's really changed the game.
That (determination, persistence etc for a particular task) might be something people are born with, or something people develop young and can't much change it.
So, is the theory that I work hard than me? Or, maybe I work less hard than me?
Doesn't make sense. There are talent differences independent of levels of work. This is trivially true.
Looks like you missed the whole (emphasis mine):
"That (determination, persistence etc FOR A PARTICULAR TASK)"
You might have worked more hours, but with less effectiveness (because guitar doesn't inspire you etc).
And maybe part of putting in the hard work is coming to realize that its not all about talent..
As much as the genetically blessed people like to say that there is no such thing as luck or talent, in the end we are not all born equal, and some people have something that others don't and can use it to reach levels that others can't, and some people that have it don't have the luck to have had the right parents and environment to be able to develop it fully.
Now this is not saying that one can't usually become reasonably competent at something via hard work, that is definitely possible, it's how we're all making a living after all, we are reasonably competent at our jobs. However for fields where the only paying jobs go to the absolute best, being reasonably competent is not enough.
According to wikipedia in 2007 there were only 117 US orchestras with a bugdget of 2.5 million US dollars (which to me implies being able to offer a reasonable yearly salary to their members, and even then I am sure most players still have to hustle for lessons and so on to make rent), now assume you are a harp player, that means that there are only about 250 full time professional positions for your instrument in the whole country, or a bassoon player, that would be maybe 400.
Now imagine that there were only 400 software jobs available in the US, do you think that being 'reasonable competent' at programming would be enough to get that job?
That's where talent comes in, talent alone is not enough, you also need hard work, but hard work alone will never get you there, just like hard work alone will never get you running a sub 10 second 100m or a 4 minute mile.
This does not fit well in the "everybody can do it, if you work hard enough" narrative (which has the unfortunate flip side of "you didn't make it, therefore it's your fault"), but in the end unfortunately that's how it is, we are not all born equal or with equal chances, we can do our best, but we all have to accept that sometimes our best is not just going to be as good as somebody else's for reasons not under anybody's control.
If you're defining talent as some type of natural ability to be good at a learned skill, like playing an instrument, then I think there are many examples of people who weren't especially good at first but became great.
For example, Michael Jordan was good but not outstanding at basketball in high school. He wasn't actually "cut" from his high school team, as the urban legend is told, but as a sophomore, he was put on the JV team when at least one other sophomore was put on varsity. He worked harder and practiced more than others to get better. There are many anecdotes of other players, team trainers, etc., describing him as the "hardest working" and "most competitive" player they've ever met. Did he have some natural ability at basketball? Probably. But people who are close to him attribute his talent to his drive to be better than absolutely everyone else.
Another example is Jimi Hendrix. As a young boy, he carried around a broom and would pretend to play it as a guitar. When he finally got a guitar, he did not immediately belt out Purple Haze. He initially struggled with it as all new players do. Supposedly, he'd practice for several hours every day, often repeating a single note until he could make it sound exactly like a song on the radio. He slept with his guitar. He took it with him everywhere, practicing scales in any spare moments. He'd often go see blues musicians and pepper them with questions about technique. So, did he have some natural ability for the guitar? Probably. But stories from his early life point to his talent being a love of the guitar and a strong desire to master it, in part to escape poverty.
I think the point of all of this is that learned skills take time to master. There are obviously people for whom learning it is easier or harder, and there are physical and intellectual traits that can limit or promote mastery. But for most people, the key differentiator is practice and hard work.
Not everyone can become a concert pianist, but every concert pianist has worked extremely hard to achieve mastery. And most people who practice for hours every day can become very, very good – good enough to play in a band, learn (almost) any song they want, enjoy the experience of entertaining friends and family, good enough for the average person to watch them play and think, "She's so talented at the piano."
I can't help but feel like NYT is just baiting with this headline. The headline talks about talent, but the article meanders through a couple of thoughts and quotes and never arrives at talent. Or anywhere. There's no substance here, just a headline that makes it seem like they're going to make a point they never do.
This is clearly possible to do well. And easily compared with any other technique. No need to call it stupid.
So when you see the headline you're supposed to read the first bit, expect the ending "practice", see "talent" instead, and understand that the article is likewise going to replace "practice" with "talent" somehow. (Or to look back at it after reading the article, see what they were playing at, and be impressed by their wit.)