More "Studies" on Practice vs Innate Ability

[Ellen T]

I have done an extensive study on recent forum posts on Mandolin Cafe, and the indisputable results are that 45% of people think talent is more important than practice, 45% think practice is more important than talent, 37% think they are equally important, 32% don't care, and 26% did not express an opinion. Alas, I did not receive a government grant for this study. Back to math class...

[BJ O'Day]

This is purely anecdotal.
My Dad and his younger sister both played piano. My dad's playing was kind of thumpy. He would read the music but I think he had the songs in memory and was just following the notation so he wouldn't miss anything.
My Aunt played for fun. she would improvise and add boogie woogie beats to kids songs for me and my siblings.
I always assumed she had more natural talent than my Dad. Maybe so, or maybe she just enjoyed making music and having fun with it.

BJ

[PseudoCelt]

Here are three statements from the paper that summarise the results quite well:

“In line with past literature, the results confirmed that more music practice is significantly associated with better music ability.”

The authors of the study are not arguing that practice isn’t important and in fact show that more practice is generally associated with greater skill. In the article linked to in the first post, Mosing is quoted as saying, “The association between practice and skill was largely due to the same genes, suggesting that practice will not necessarily make you perfect, but it certainly will enhance your skills... Clearly, practice will increase many skills necessary for playing an instrument (e.g. handling of the instrument, fine motor skills etc.), and is necessary to become a good player."

As another example of this, it has been demonstrated that IQ is extremely heritable, but few would argue that education isn't important for people with a high IQ.

“Classical twin modeling showed that the amount of music practice was surprisingly heritable (40%-70%), with estimates similar to those previously reported for music abilities.”

This suggests that genetic factors contribute significantly to the amount of practice you are likely to do. Maybe this is the "internally imposed practice regime" suggested by Ombudsman, as opposed to external regimes, such as being forced to practice by parents or teachers?

“… once all genetic and shared environmental factors were controlled for, the association between music practice and ability disappeared – in other words, the twin who trained more did not possess better music abilities. This was despite the fact that some intrapair differences between twins were as great as 20,228 hr.”

This result is the most surprising, suggesting that when identical twins do differ greatly in the amount of music practice they do, they still perform to a similar standard in the tests used in the study.

Patrick

[JeffD]

So my problem isn't lack of practice, its that Chris Thile is not my twin brother.

[OldSausage]

For those of you who can't get enough of this sort of nonsense, there's a new podcast out on it called "Practice" on iTunes from "You Are Not So Smart" with an interview with David Epstein, who wrote a book about it called "The Sports Gene". Here's the link to the podcast on iTunes:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/...13?i=113727803

Here's the link to the book's website:

http://thesportsgene.com/

Here's the link to the "You Are Not So Smart" podcasts (this new one is not there yet, but should be up soon):

http://youarenotsosmart.com/podcast/

I guess it's the controversy du jour.

[farmerjones]

I guess it's the controversy du jour.

Indeed it surprised me to find the exact same article being discussed over at Fiddle Hangout. Are we trying to answer the age old question of why I still suck after all this practice? Or are we rationalizing or making excuses because we don't practice enough? Y'know, inadequacy and mediocrity comes in degrees. I suck and don't care. Some stink more, some stink less. I practice and play much the same as I feed the cats. Anything, any task. Get past the novelty and shoehorn it into your life, then you can live it. New motorcyclists talk about models and sparkplugs. Old motorcyclists talk about breakfast, and mountain ranges. Not that there's anything wrong with being a newbie. This life would be pretty boring without finding new things.

[JeffD]

New motorcyclists talk about models and sparkplugs. Old motorcyclists talk about breakfast, and mountain ranges.

I think I am going to need to quote that.

[ombudsman]

For those of you who can't get enough of this sort of nonsense, there's a new podcast out on it called "Practice" on iTunes from "You Are Not So Smart" with an interview with David Epstein, who wrote a book about it called "The Sports Gene". Here's the link to the podcast on iTunes:

It's interesting, I just checked out the first part of his TED talk on this which is on the second link. I would say, though, that sports and music have some fundamental differences.

Sports generally have objective metrics and measurements of success. They aren't perfectly implemented; the ref might think somebody was out and be wrong about it; but at least we have a line and everybody knows where it is and that the player or the ball can't go out during play.

The guy that comes in second in a race is probably not going to come up with a rationale he believes to claim that he actually, literally won the race, unless he is insane. He might come up with a rationale as to why he didn't win, or could/should have won, but he can't get around the objectivity that exists when there is a high speed camera on the finish line.

I think you could make a case for genetics playing a stronger role in sports than in music, as well.

In music, nobody really knows who is best, or what good music is. We only have subjective value judgments. Sometimes those are made from small amounts of information by people who have other reasons to think less or more of the person being judged, and you can often see really different opinions about music, even among people that otherwise have a lot in common. None of this is inherently a problem, except that most people don't understand how subjective it all is. We think the way we feel and think about a piece of music is in and coming from the music, when it's largely coming from us, ourselves.

When a musician is judged or compared they have a lot of flexibility as to what they think that means and how much value they want to assign to the judgement, since we know that other people's viewpoints are subjective (even if we can't accept that about our own). So if player A can't play complicated music or sight read but has a good feel on certain types of songs, that can easily be answered in his mind (or in those of other people) with popular memes such as "people can't relate to overly complicated music with lots of notes. That stuff is just made to impress other people anyway."

And if we were talking about two specific people I had just heard, I might on some level agree with that judgement, because I think a good feel and the ability to relate to others are extremely important in music.

At the same time, this is an arbitrary set of criteria being imposed on people because it suits the listeners in this particular case, possibly for reasons that may have to do with their own lives. If you don't use it consistently, then it's really not a value system about music in the way it is claimed to be.

[John Flynn]

What disturbs me about this general topic is that it is an attempt to reduce what I consider to be an art down to some sort of formula, to define on one simple continuum (practice v talent) something that is very complex. I will use myself as an example. I don't consider myself as having a lot of talent AND I don't practice much.

I do rehearse and play at church every week and I attend jams occasionally. I'm satisfied with my playing most of the time and even very pleased with my playing some of the time. I get compliments from members of the congregation. I don't consider myself a great artist or anything, but I do approach playing as an art, not a technical exercise or a sport. My goal is to enhance the music that is being played, to make it more appealing and meaningful to the congregation to assist their worship. I have an idea in my mind of the sound I want to make and I do arrangements for my mandolin and OM on each tune. By arrangement I mean how I will fit in to the ensemble and how I will apply ornamentation to the tune.

I put some work into this and sometimes it's a challenge, but I never think, "I wish I practiced more, I would be so much better" or "I wish I were more talented, I would be so much better." They are just not dimensions that make an iota of difference to me. The dimensions I think are important are tastefulness, fit with what the rest of the ensemble is doing and tone, both from the instrument and through the sound system. These are things that one just works out through intuition and experience. I realize that people who are really invested in this topic of talent v practice could reduce what I just described to "talent" or "practice" but I think that would be missing the point.

[Jandante]

Musicians who have the talent to play by ear have such an advantage. I see some people who always need music in front of them...... and at my newbie stage don't know whether I will ever be able to join in with freestyle sessions.

[OldSausage]

Musicians who have the talent to play by ear have such an advantage. I see some people who always need music in front of them...... and at my newbie stage don't know whether I will ever be able to join in with freestyle sessions.

Most people can learn to play by ear and improve their ability to play by ear by practice. It can take time and patience, but if you want to do it and use effective practice strategies, you can do it.

[OldSausage]

What disturbs me about this general topic is that it is an attempt to reduce what I consider to be an art down to some sort of formula, to define on one simple continuum (practice v talent) something that is very complex. I will use myself as an example. I don't consider myself as having a lot of talent AND I don't practice much.

I do rehearse and play at church every week and I attend jams occasionally. I'm satisfied with my playing most of the time and even very pleased with my playing some of the time. I get compliments from members of the congregation. I don't consider myself a great artist or anything, but I do approach playing as an art, not a technical exercise or a sport. My goal is to enhance the music that is being played, to make it more appealing and meaningful to the congregation to assist their worship. I have an idea in my mind of the sound I want to make and I do arrangements for my mandolin and OM on each tune. By arrangement I mean how I will fit in to the ensemble and how I will apply ornamentation to the tune.

I put some work into this and sometimes it's a challenge, but I never think, "I wish I practiced more, I would be so much better" or "I wish I were more talented, I would be so much better." They are just not dimensions that make an iota of difference to me. The dimensions I think are important are tastefulness, fit with what the rest of the ensemble is doing and tone, both from the instrument and through the sound system. These are things that one just works out through intuition and experience. I realize that people who are really invested in this topic of talent v practice could reduce what I just described to "talent" or "practice" but I think that would be missing the point.

I agree that talent v practice is pretty irrelevant, but I don't think that means practice is worthless and can be replaced by "tastefulness" and thinking about tone. Where does the taste and tone come from? For most but the lucky few, hours of practice. And both of those are worthless without great timing, which is something even very talented people often need to practice.

[bratsche]

Musicians who have the talent to play by ear have such an advantage. I see some people who always need music in front of them...... and at my newbie stage don't know whether I will ever be able to join in with freestyle sessions.

Most people can learn to play by ear and improve their ability to play by ear by practice. It can take time and patience, but if you want to do it and use effective practice strategies, you can do it.

I follow several musical forums, and have a sense of deja vu every time a thread like this one comes up - because it invariably does. And the points brought up are always exactly the same points, no matter what instrument is at the center of discussion.

Yes, I'm convinced that talent exists - and that for the most part, it's a two part "gift" consisting of a passion that drives a person, coupled with the highly unnatural ability to sit oneself down for hours upon hours of concentrated and disciplined practice. Exceptions exist, but that's the general rule.

bratsche

[Stephen Perry]

The participants were not just asked about what they do now. From the paper:
"Participants were first asked whether they play an instrument (or actively sing). Those who responded positively were questioned about the number of years they practiced during four age intervals (ages 0–5 years, 6–11 years, 12–17 years, and 18 years until the time of measurement) and how many hours a week during each of those intervals they practiced. From these estimates, a sum-score estimate of the total hours played during their lifetime was calculated, with non-players receiving a score of zero."

There, that is an interesting domain of study. Especially given how difficult it is for me to learn new things now!!!

Regardless, the new things build upon the old. I had an incredible vision of how to play a single note on a piano in the early 1980s with Max Camp at USC Columbia. That led me to reconceptualize the entire process of generating sound. I cannot bring back the world of music I lived in prior to that paradigm shift.

Now I seem to be in the post-practice stage of performance, where I sit down and play a piece I've never performed or read through at first sitting just fine! An interesting place to be, but difficult to install new patterns in.

[OldSausage]

I follow several musical forums, and have a sense of deja vu every time a thread like this one comes up - because it invariably does. And the points brought up are always exactly the same points, no matter what instrument is at the center of discussion.

Yes, I'm convinced that talent exists - and that for the most part, it's a two part "gift" consisting of a passion that drives a person, coupled with the highly unnatural ability to sit oneself down for hours upon hours of concentrated and disciplined practice. Exceptions exist, but that's the general rule.

bratsche

Someone always says this, too.

[JeffD]

Most people can learn to play by ear and improve their ability to play by ear by practice. It can take time and patience, but if you want to do it and use effective practice strategies, you can do it.

Very very true. Most musical skills can be developed by most people to a satisfactory degree sufficient to provide a life time of fun.

Its that we worship the genetic anomalies among us.

We all learn to read, and read well enough to enjoy the reading we do for fun and be productive with the reading we do for work. And everyone is happy. Now if we were constantly bombarded with reading prodigies, genetically predisposed to read faster and with greater comprehension, we would all feel terrible.

Many of us can learn to swim enough to get to the raft in the middle of the pond, and save our lives under most conditions we are likely to encounter. But if we worshiped the Olympic swimming athletes we couldn't enjoy a day at the lake. How good do we have to be for the life we are likely to have?

[FLATROCK HILL]

Most people can learn to play by ear and improve their ability to play by ear by practice.

This is true. There is some number which is more than 50%, probably well over 50%...maybe even more than 99% of people who can learn to play by ear.

It can take time and patience, but if you want to do it and use effective practice strategies, you can do it.

Sadly, this is not true if the 'you' you are referring to is in that remaining minority percentage.

[JeffD]

Sadly, this is not true if the 'you' you are referring to is in that remaining minority percentage.

Yes, but I would submit, (without any scientific investigation), that it is somewhere close to 90 to 95% of people. Learning to play by ear is like learning to throw a ball. Most every healthy person can learn it enough to be able to enjoy it. Some genetically predisposed will excel beyond all reasonableness, and some, a few, a small few, just never get the hang of it.

[bratsche]

Someone always says this, too.

Touché!

bratsche

[PseudoCelt]

What disturbs me about this general topic is that it is an attempt to reduce what I consider to be an art down to some sort of formula, to define on one simple continuum (practice v talent) something that is very complex.

I think there are some incorrect assumptions about why neuroscientists or psychologists do these kinds of studies. They are not really trying to reduce musical ability to a formula. Reading what the authors themselves wrote about why they did the study is helpful. The first two sentences of the study say:

The relative importance of nature and nurture for various forms of expertise has been intensely debated. Music proficiency is viewed as a general model for expertise, and associations between deliberate practice and music proficiency have been interpreted as supporting the prevailing idea that long-term deliberate practice inevitably results in increased music ability.

So the researchers are not really interested in musical ability per se, but are just using aspects of musical ability to assess expertise gained through deliberate practice. They then present evidence suggesting that, for certain musical tasks, the prevailing idea that "long-term deliberate practice inevitably results in increased music ability" is not entirely true.

Another reason why researchers may be interested in musical ability is that music and language use many of the same regions of the brain. Because most people have practiced using and understanding language from an early age, it can make it harder to investigate. Looking at skills such as music that utilize the same bits of the brain, but which are used and practiced to different degrees by different sections of the population, might tell us something interesting about the development of language.

Patrick

[John Flynn]

I agree that talent v practice is pretty irrelevant, but I don't think that means practice is worthless and can be replaced by "tastefulness" and thinking about tone. Where does the taste and tone come from? For most but the lucky few, hours of practice. And both of those are worthless without great timing, which is something even very talented people often need to practice.

Agreed, and I was not trying to say otherwise. I guess the question is, what motivates your practice? Is it musicality, or some vague notion of being "good," as in playing faster, playing like Thile, playing louder, etc. To me if it's about musicality, it doesn't even seem like practice to me. It's just playing, just trying to make the sound I want to make.

[John Flynn]

To PseudoCelt re: Post #45

I get what you're saying, but I made no reference to neuroscientists or psychologists. I was referring to the musicians who think this topic is important. It's a classic example of scientists coming up with interesting research conclusions and non-scientists trying to take those conclusions off in directions that were not intended and not supported by the research.

[OldSausage]

Agreed, and I was not trying to say otherwise. I guess the question is, what motivates your practice? Is it musicality, or some vague notion of being "good," as in playing faster, playing like Thile, playing louder, etc. To me if it's about musicality, it doesn't even seem like practice to me. It's just playing, just trying to make the sound I want to make.

Isn't the distinction between practice and performance, rather than between practice and playing? - in both cases you're playing, of course.

To me, practice is precisely that act of trying to figure out how to make the sounds I want to make. Playing is about making the best sound I can make on that day. So playing is like doing a job, whereas practice is like going to school.

There is some crossover. I might well try something new in a performance, and I might also practice by running through an entire set as if I were on stage. But in general when you're performing in a rehearsal or in a show, you can't go back over certain passages, figure out different ways of playing them, work on different techniques like cross-picking and so on. When I'm practicing I'm running backwards and forwards through a tune and figuring out all its corners and what's available to me. It's no fun to listen to, mostly, but it's fun to do. So I think that if you never practice, if practice is just performance, you shut yourself off from a whole world of possibilities.

[JeffD]

Isn't the distinction between practice and performance, rather than between practice and playing? - in both cases you're playing, of course.
.

That is a useful distinction. A third activity would be jamming. It is decidedly not practice, and it is not performance for an audience. (I dislike a jam that devolves in either direction.)

While I don't usually practice for a jam, and I do not perform regularly, most of my practice is learning new tunes, and exercises. So, like you describe, its working things out and working on techniques, activities distinctly not done in a performance or a jam.

[John Flynn]

OldSausage: I think your definition of practice is a good one. That is not the definition of practice I commonly find when I Google "musical practice." I see terms like scales, arpeggios, etudes, sight reading and the concept of practice "time," as in minimum amounts of time and the phrase "putting in the time." Let me be clear, I am not saying there is anything wrong with any of that. I just don't think they are the Holy Grail either. I saw nary a mention on practice sites of creating sound or tone. Tunes seemed to even take a back seat. I fear that when scientists study "talent vs practice" they are looking at the more technical definition of practice and not the one you describe. In fact, the article linked in in the OP specifically mentioned "hours of practice."