Malcolm agrees with Grumpy.

http://dkmmc.files.wordpress.com/200...-gladwell1.jpg

Café del Mar volumen Cinco. Salt Tank / Angels Landing

But you are looking for magic...I used to not believe in talent until I witnessed the off spring of the best non-professional cyclist I've ever known (who is also a phenomenal athlete in several other sports) also become great athletes..talent exists my friend...more so than magic and unicorns.

I have a playlist on my iPod that I call graphix...it's the playlist I like to use when working in Photoshop or After Effects..it includes this Cafe del Mar and two others, along with Morcheba, Moby, Tricky and some others.

Today I was giving a "double quiz" to my dynamics class (so it took the whole lecture period) and I listened to selected cuts from "Nevermind" and "Quadrophenia". I like them both, but "Quadrophenia" is pure genius.

Listening to "5:15" I thought of botto on the Spanish train amped up like Cornholio.

Talent does exist.

But I do have to say that the willingness to work hard is a far bigger component to success than talent. Talent is a necessary condition but FAR from a sufficient condition.

And being at the right place at the right time (the 3rd ingredient to success and the key point in the book that kensuf mentions) is also important. I think that Woody Allen had the right take on that: "80% of success is showing up."

Hard work is the component that exploits talent. Racer Ex and I have the same coach. We are on almost identical schedules, nearly mirror image workouts...I could elaborate but I think you know where this is going.

Yep, I know. I have no real bike racing talent. I just love the sport and love to train.

What kills me is that I had a great sports talent that I developed as a youth (throwing a baseball) and I didn't follow through. My genetics experiment (2 outcomes) tells me that this talent is highly recessive. Neither "outcome" had the gift.

LOL..my oldest is the most determined human I've ever seen..unfortunately she is stupidly uncoordinated. My youngest is the polar opposite..zero motivation.

On a completely unrelated note but on topic of this thread...Neil Pert is God.

I never said I didn't believe in athletic gifts. I see evidence of that all the time. Especially new cat 5s with 1500w sprints.

Music is different. I have over 30 years experience doing this and have yet to see real evidence of it. Most of the better players that I know started out mediocre.

So what you are saying is that given equal access to training and equal practice time everyone will develop the same musically?

No, however I would agree if you added "given the same kind of thinking". Music cannot really be quantified though. You can have high-note contests on trumpet, but that is more sport than anything else. Music, being an art, has to include a certain amount of "honest presentation of the artist's psyche" in it.

You would also have to take into account exposure to music. The Marsalis family is an excellent example of a family who are exposed to the highest levels of music from infancy.

will "exposure to sprinting" give me a 1500w sprint?

from a young age? it will certainly help.

In the same way that there are towns in the dominican republic that turn out an unreal amount of major league short stops.

ok I can see that. Lots of use would cause more type 2b fibers to be recruited early on and would affect development.

I was exposed to a lot of baseball growing up, but my fastball was never much more than 70ish. I know a trumpet player who made it to spring with the majors before he got injured and switched to music. He could probably throw faster than me on his first day. His body was picture-perfect for a pitcher. I could never get the ball home from the outfield on a big league ballpark (tried that).

I don't see how anyone can argue against musical gifts.

Explain away those 5 year old violin masters, certainly that doesn't come from decades of practice. Sure you can use early exposure in an attempt to explain it but I'm not buying that it's all nurture and no nature when it come to music. Heck even if you stick to the exposure route it's not like everyone has the same quality of hearing. Maybe you hear stuff that I physically can't.

I vaguely remember some brain imaging work that showed various people listening to music. Those who were deemed "talented" showed not only more brain activity but the activity spread to other areas of the brain not directly involved in auditory processing.

Lastly how do explain "weird" people who experience sound-visual synesthesia... they can literally see the music!

I've never met a 5 year old who could make music. At best they play like robots.

I might as well just say this right now: Nothing you say is going to change my view on this. I have a somewhat biased perspective coming from the inside (and knowing what happens behind the scenes in those "prodigy families"). I am aware that I have an unpopular viewpoint (and have done this very argument to death in real life with other players/teachers.

We should go back to "music status".

There was this Futurama episode when Fry got the Robot hands ...

And I hear that Mozart was pretty good at age 5.

OK, lets all agree to disagree on this. Please don't feel insulted if I think that you have talent and have worked hard at it as well.

not at all insulted. I just think this has the potential to go around in endless circles.

Back on topic:

James Brown -- Funky Drummer

This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because...This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because...This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because...This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because...This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because...This is the song that never ends, yes it goes on and on my friend. Some people started singing it, not knowing what it was, and they'll continue singing it forever just because...

Forgot my iPod today...thank god for Pandora...

I'm going to beat this dead horse one last time...Grumpy I played bass for about 15 years in several club bands...I always called myself a "bass player' not a 'musician' because I can play just about anything but couldn't create a note of original music. In all of our original music our guitar player wrote my bass lines. Wouldn't you call the ability to create music a talent?

Malcolm is a good writer, but he merely rewrites what people already think.

Most music is overrated, and your band sucks.

(need to make a t-shirt with that on it, hipsters around here would dig it)