Practice vs talent

Was I really talented when I started?
Could be that my perceived early talent was just mind practice, because I paid so much attention to the drum sounds and patterns that once I got behind them it was easy to recreate what I'd listened to for 20 years without actually playing.

Today as an intermediate player nothing comes easy.
 
A couple of resources on this interesting topic.

- Talent is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else by Geoff Colvin (Author)

- The Talent Code: Greatness Isn't Born. It's Grown. Here's How by Coyle, Daniel (Author)
 
Bozozoid said:
For ME you hit a 🎯 bullseye right there. It's one of the reasons I procrastinate. Start where? I say to myself..i don't want to spend years on faulty practice routines so I don't even start.
Click to expand...

Thanks Boz.......I don't know if that is what I was trying to say.....I THINK so 🤔.

But IF I had a definitive goal of what drumming I wanted to do when I first started, then I'd know exactly what to practice in order to achieve that goal...... yeah?

So then I'd develop a talent through practice.

But having absolutely no idea what I want to be proficient at regarding drumming.......I have absolutely no clue as to what to practice.

I think I'm getting myself all confused.
 
Benthedrummer said:
Thanks Boz.......I don't know if that is what I was trying to say.....I THINK so 🤔.

But IF I had a definitive goal of what drumming I wanted to do when I first started, then I'd know exactly what to practice in order to achieve that goal...... yeah?

So then I'd develop a talent through practice.

But having absolutely no idea what I want to be proficient at regarding drumming.......I have absolutely no clue as to what to practice.

I think I'm getting myself all confused.
Click to expand...

I do think that targeting specific things help focus practice tht then breeds and shqpes talent...

for me, I always have to remind my self that I am not going to be good at every aspect of drumming becasdue there are just too many. Percussion is still probably the family that is still evolving and gaining new ground.

But I do focus on what I feel are the two main kernels that ALL drumming require
1. the control of space determined by pulse
2. how to move within, and related to the space that is determined by pulse via ergonomically efficient technique

these will always be a work in progress, but I feel if i understand these kernels, the rest is just application of physical motion via good technique

then I think of areas that i need to learn using application of physical motion via good technique. Right now, those are:
1. double bass drumming
2. Afro-Cuban hand drumming
3. 4 mallet marimba playing
4. rudimental speed

the list of what I will probably never get to is waaayyy bigger than my little list here, but making this list helps me NOT focus on everythign else
 
Learning is so much more than practice and talent - though they are pretty key.

The place to start understanding learning, imho, is acknowledging that what constitutes a skill change is subjective as we tend to assign a broad range of 'things' to 'a skill'. For example, saying 'I am a better drummer today than yesterday' is not an objective measure....it is subjective.

Perception of drumming skill is filled with human assumption and prejudice. Control that perception by using an amalgam of small objective measures(far harder than it seems - and begs the question...why are we comparing outside of 'I like it' or 'I don't like it'?).

This might seem obvious, but just listen to average conversations about learning sometime and you will notice its more about relative worth than the subject being spoken.

Once we are able to recognize our own intention we gain an insight that can leverage skill progression.(Dropping relative worth/dominance games and concentrating on the music greatly increases the time spent listening.)
 
Last edited:
Caz said:
There are a lot of experienced drummers and teachers here... How important do you think talent vs hard work/practice is to make a good drummer great?
Click to expand...
im a believer in talent first, then the hard work. Musicians , and drummers especially , are born with artistic talent. Keith Moon said Drummers are Born, not made. I am an example of this. I was in Garage bands during my High School years, then stopped for 25 years. Started playing again and Literally walked into a practice and played 5 songs pretty decently. Within a month i was very very Good and Gigging.
 
Xstr8edgtnrdrmrX said:
then I think of areas that i need to learn using application of physical motion via good technique. Right now, those are:
1. double bass drumming
2. Afro-Cuban hand drumming
3. 4 mallet marimba playing
4. rudimental speed
Click to expand...

When it's possible to "go deep" forever, how do you decide to move on to new things in the list?

I'm going much deeper than I used to, but there's so much I want to get expertly proficient at.
 
I had the moves on the dance floor waaay back in early high school . Me and my sister and good friend Louie would practice before heading out for a night of romance and adventure . James Brown, Jackson Five , Sly .... this was years before I acquired my first kit , when I did it was a natural fit . Still do . I hooked up with a Congolese Rhumba/Soukous band in the early two thousands . " where'd you learn to drum like that ? " I told the truth , I learned in the delta - where the Mississippi river empties into the Ottawa River . Ontario, Canada .

My dad was Polish, my mum, Latvian . Go figure . I showed up alone and the brothers and sisters respected that .... and my drumming too .

Stuff like that I don't practice , though I may cop something here and there . Practice to me is organizing and understanding arrangements and the way their phrases lock together .
 
  • Like
Reactions: OHD
There is no such thing as natural talent. You can be put in an environment that fosters certain skills from a young age, giving the illusion of natural talent, or you can be genetically advantaged (say, a person with longer legs is going to be faster at running than someone with equal fitness and shorter legs) but the rest comes down to education and practise.

Outliers and this book:


talk about exactly this. They're great reads.
 
ottog1979 said:
When it's possible to "go deep" forever, how do you decide to move on to new things in the list?

I'm going much deeper than I used to, but there's so much I want to get expertly proficient at.
Click to expand...

I decide to go on when I can do things without thinking about them, or when I get to a plateau point. Meaning, I will work on double bass for a week or 2, and then when I get "bored" with it, I dive into marimba etc... Most often all of these things are running alongside each other really.

but the biggest thing that keeps me going is knowing that whatever i am working on is always evolving. I will never be "done" with rudiments, or double bass, or groove or anything really. once I understood that, my "frustration" with practicing went away
 
Trigger said:
There is no such thing as natural talent. You can be put in an environment that fosters certain skills from a young age, giving the illusion of natural talent, or you can be genetically advantaged (say, a person with longer legs is going to be faster at running than someone with equal fitness and shorter legs) but the rest comes down to education and practise.
Click to expand...
I agree.
At 6 years old I was tapping along to The Beatles with two forks on a biscuit tin. I had no idea what I was doing or why.
Another 6 year old was probably throwing a ball against a wall and catching it. Most of the best drummers I've met had musical parents that played them good music from an early age, bought them a pair of sticks and a practice pad, took them to concerts from an early age.
 
There is also crony elitism.

I took my daughter to swim tryouts. She has good times a good tall build for swimming, and has been working hard taking lessons, despite Covid and not having access to a pool for a while she has gotten times that are competitive with year round swimmers. At the tryout they asked her to do a racing dive off the raised blocks. None of the age group eligible classes or any of the prerequisites taught that and none of the lifeguards will let us use the blocks during open swims.

We were at an open swim and we saw kids (kids that my daughter was beating at her summer swim leaugue) going off the blocks, so we tried, and the lady giving the other lessons went over and got a lifeguard to make us stop. It turns out she was one of the head coaches.

I figure this is what people call talent and practice in most social circles.
 
classikdrummr said:
im a believer in talent first, then the hard work. Musicians , and drummers especially , are born with artistic talent. Keith Moon said Drummers are Born, not made. I am an example of this. I was in Garage bands during my High School years, then stopped for 25 years. Started playing again and Literally walked into a practice and played 5 songs pretty decently. Within a month i was very very Good and Gigging.
Click to expand...
Some say that people who can play drums (or other instruments but particularly drums because of having to involve all limbs) think differently than most other folks, that we have the ability to troubleshoot and solve things better than others. Not sure how true that is but I do feel that being able to coordinate to that level separates me from others.
I do have a hard time playing a guitar part that goes completely against what is being sang. (Dave Mustaine does that for example in the song Angry Again).



or playing two different guitar parts (on the piano) at the same time like this girl:

 
What motivates somebody to research and then compose a thesis disputing the existence of natural talent ? T hat some are born more equal than others must be an existential threat .
 
Last edited:
ravenson said:
What motivates somebody to research and then compose a thesis disputing the existence of natural talent ? T hat some are born more equal than others must be an existential threat .
Click to expand...
Nope.
We always need to research how the mind and body works.
As I don't believe in raw talent I'm not 'threatened' by it. There are literally thousands of drummers better than me, but I believe they got there by working harder than me, maybe working more intelligently than me. They didn't become better than me by having some magic voodoo called 'talent'.
Oft repeated story - I went to music college when I was 16. Someone said they knew an amazing drummer was rehearsing nearby, so we went to check it out. It was a 14 or 15 yr old Gary Husband, already nailing a bunch of Billy Cobham/Mahavishnu tunes.
Gary's father was a well known local musician, and it's no surprise that Gary is also an amazing pianist/keyboardist......none of which happened without a lot of hard work and dedication. Which is why I hate people labelling such hard workers as 'talented'.
 
Trigger said:
If you read the book that i posted in the link above, it takes someone becoming a table tennis world champ, then being told he only go there because of natural talent.
Click to expand...
Just because a talent has to be developed doesn’t mean that there’s no natural aptitude. When I was about 2 I woke up every morning and banged on the box of oats with wooden spoons. I then graduated to a set of blocks that I arranged like a drum set and I could do beats. At age 10 I started playing other instruments and got quite good at a couple. Didn’t start out that way, but I understood the concepts and gradually learned how it all works together. Also used to have perfect pitch, but the older I get, the shakier it gets. So I had to put a lot of effort into it, but I don’t think I could have done it without some innate aptitude that made me be able to sort it out and apply what I learned from teachers and other musicians.

On the other hand, being a doctor was right out because I don’t have the aptitude.
 
I didn't bang on things anymore than other people that never played drums and I didn't play until 26. It came way easier to me than the roommate that bought the drumset. He never caught up.

There are degrees of talent/natural aptitude just as there are clumsy and coordinated people.

Maybe it was because I focused on drums even though I didnt play? I can't jump like Spud Webb, who is shorter than me and he could dunk all day. I tried and tried to shoot baskets and always failed.
 
Chris Whitten said:
Nope.
We always need to research how the mind and body works.
As I don't believe in raw talent I'm not 'threatened' by it. There are literally thousands of drummers better than me, but I believe they got there by working harder than me, maybe working more intelligently than me. They didn't become better than me by having some magic voodoo called 'talent'.
Oft repeated story - I went to music college when I was 16. Someone said they knew an amazing drummer was rehearsing nearby, so we went to check it out. It was a 14 or 15 yr old Gary Husband, already nailing a bunch of Billy Cobham/Mahavishnu tunes.
Gary's father was a well known local musician, and it's no surprise that Gary is also an amazing pianist/keyboardist......none of which happened without a lot of hard work and dedication. Which is why I hate people labelling such hard workers as 'talented'.
Click to expand...
I asked about the motivation to do the research .
 
Last edited:
Practice is necessary, but if your practicing bad habits, its not helping. From my perspective, one should get a good foundation, and practice using the foundation but using your expression, this is where the talent comes in. Just doing the black and white of it, is just rudimentary, robotic, not lending much too the music your playing.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top