"Talent" is just a collection of practice-able skills
Talent isn't only for the talented. It's for you.
When I was in fourth grade, I joined the school band program. Despite having no example of musicality in my family, I raised my hand. I had all the traditional options: trumpet, saxophone, clarinet.
And yet, for reasons still unknown, I chose the trombone. I stood 4-foot-nothing, with the arm strength of a small, flightless bird, and I chose the one instrument that requires Schwarzenegger-level shoulder muscles. Even if I could hold up the big brass beast, I couldn't play all the notes. My arms were too short. It was my first and last year playing a musical instrument.
I've since learned that instruments don't have to be musical, but they do need to be practiced.
My former acting teacher Paul Gleason would say, "What my colleagues consider 'talent,' I see as a collection of learnable and practice-able skills." No one just "has it." Talent is not exclusive to the Naturals. The Prodigies. If someone works at a series of small techniques, they can add up to a sum larger than its parts. This is the craft. This is the deep desire to elevate your work - whatever it is - to artistry.
Writer and entrepreneur Sam Parr recently talked about instruments on David Perell's "How I Write" podcast:
"If I want to teach you how to play the piano, I would say, look, copy me, do exactly this. And then you play Jingle Bells. And then, Happy Birthday, and then you play a more complicated song, but you're copying other people's work.
That's the best way to learn how to play an instrument: copy work.
This is typically how we taught children how to write until the 1930s. It's the best way to learn how to write, but we don't do that."
I love that. Copy work. Literally copying the greats.
I spent one summer studying Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. We did one exercise to discover and grow our performance energy:
Perform a monologue (it was Shakespeare for us, but could be anything)
Perform it again, imitating a famous actor. For us, it was Ian McKellen or Patrick Stewart, but could be any person capable of outlandish bravado. Could be Robin Williams or Jim Carrey or Amy Poehler. The more over the top, the better.
Do your monologue a third time, but find the half-way point between yourself and the actor.
This wasn't writing. It wasn't memorization of the words. It was growing the expanse of our persona beyond our existing levels of comfort.
But this isn't just for acting. Practicing “small” techniques applies to anything worth doing well. Public speaking, sure. Writing online. Building presentations. Developing business strategy. Working out or eating better. Personal finances.
These activities require your “instruments”—your body, your confidence, your voice, your psyche—to be practiced. Whatever it is you're working on, you can practice it. You can improve. You can grow.
Talent isn't limited to "the talented." It's for you. It's for me. It's for us all.
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When I first started teaching writing at an art college, I would see the sketches of incoming freshmen and think, "Ooh, what a waste of time." Four years laters I would see their senior portfolio projects and think, "Ooh, thinking this was a waste of time was wildly shortsighted." A lot of the curriculum was about copying the masters. It definitely works. It's better to think of talent as an acquired skill, and if someone has a natural inclination, great. It's a head start, but mastery--or even competence--requires consistency. It's not much more complicated than that.
TROMBONE TWIN!!!! Mine also lasted one whole year-- 6th grade to be exact. Picture of popularity--hehe.