Unleashing Talent: a lecture
Published: 2004 Author: Ricardo Iznaola
I AM DEEPLY TOUCHED and appreciative of the opportunity to share with you today some thoughts on an issue of fundamental importance in our lives and that of our students.
I am grateful to my friend and distinguished colleague, Gerald Klickstein, for his kind invitation to participate in this forum, and to the members of the Committee on Studio Instruction for this warm reception to my proposal for this lecture, which I very much would like to turn into a dialogue, since I am much more interested in what you have to say, than what I have to say.
In any case, and to start the ball rolling, let me point out that the thesis of this presentation is not new, and has been advocated by a growing number of educators, musicians and, perhaps most significantly, by experts in the fields of cognitive psychology and neurology. I first dealt with this issue in an article published in 1994 by the British Guitar Journal, a publication of the European Guitar Teachers Association (UK chapter), under the title, ‘Unleashing Talent: In Search of a Passionate Pedagogy’.
[click here to open ‘Unleashing Talent’ in a new browser window]
In summary, the viewpoint presented in that article and this presentation is that conventional wisdom regarding the need for the gift of innate talent for music in order to become a musician is not based on good scientific evidence, which, on the contrary, seems to point, with growing momentum, towards the view that the capacity for music-making is universal and develops to lesser or greater levels of achievement according to familial, educational, sociological and other environmental circumstances surrounding each individual. Musicians, in other words, are not born, they are made.
Perhaps the most widely known proponent of this standpoint is the distinguished British psychologist John Sloboda, Professor of Psychology at Keele University in the UK, where he directs the Unit for the Study of Musical Skill and Development. His books have reached an international audience and his influence is growing in educational quarters devoted to the teaching and learning of high-level musical performance. In his article, ‘What Makes a Musician?’, Dr Sloboda presents a list of facts which, as he says, ‘sit uneasily with the talent story’.
[click here to open Dr Sloboda’s article in a new browser window]
I must confess that my acquaintance with the work of Dr Sloboda began only after the publication of my article, and was motivated by the fact that the enlightened editor of the Guitar Journal solicited permission from Dr. Sloboda to reprint the aforementioned article, originally published in the journal of the European Strings Teachers Association, in which a similar viewpoint was put forth, but this time argued not from my rather empirical and somewhat evangelical position, but from a scientifically-based perspective. I must say that it was with relief that I read Dr Sloboda’s eloquent article, validating my little manifesto from the objective, factual perspective of the distinguished scholar and researcher. In his article, Dr Sloboda also summarises a set of pointers that research shows are encountered whenever high levels of musical ability are present. [read from article]
Another important pioneer in the effort to debunk the myth of the gift of innate talent is the American neurologist Frank Wilson, who in 1986 published a delightful, insightful and profound gem of a book titled Tone Deaf and All Thumbs? An Invitation to Music-Making.
Dr Wilson, who describes himself as having been recognised at an early age by parents and teachers as a non-prodigy, provides in his book a simple but thorough description of the complex physiology of music-making, present in every human being, and eloquently calls for a continuing and ‘growing dialogue on human musicality among educators, musicians, and medical and behavioural scientists…we need more information about how musical skills are acquired by people, whether they are or aren’t prodigies, at whatever age.’
Now, I am not interested in the science of musical skills learning as an end in itself but only as a valuable tool to improve my job performance as a teacher of the art and craft of making music. My goal as such is to facilitate my students’ acquisition of the technical and expressive skills that are necessary and sufficient to allow them to present to an audience of listeners a convincing, satisfactory version of the music they play. In fact, despite the mounting evidence to the contrary, I cannot factually affirm that there are not some individuals endowed miraculously with unexplainable talents that put them in a semi-sacred category, all their own, not achievable by mere mortals otherwise.
What I do know and firmly affirm is that my responsibility as a teacher cannot be properly fulfilled if I pursue my obligations depending on the student’s ‘talent’ to obtain the desired results. It is my ethical responsibility to uphold the view that talent, understood not as a ‘gift’ or as ‘innate natural ability’ but as ‘eminent [acquired] ability’, is a function of method and is, potentially, present in all dedicated students.
To put it more bluntly, why should I assume that the failure of a particular student to achieve progress in the art of playing is due to her ‘lack of musical talent’, rather than my ‘lack of pedagogical talent’? What gives me the right to think that my knowledge base and my experience, or even my past history of success with other students, is sufficient proof that, in this particular instance, I am doing all that is needed to bring this student’s potential to the surface? If it is true that, as a performer, one is only as good as one’s last performance, as a teacher, one is only as good as one’s last student.
What I am proposing to you today is a premise which, I am sure, is already part of your value system, or else you would not have honoured me with the invitation to speak in this forum. It is the acceptance of a fundamental principle that should conform and determine all our pedagogical efforts: every and all students that show a commitment and dedication to their love and passion for music can achieve success as practitioners or the art. (Obviously, I am referring here to students who are no longer children and can therefore decide to pursue a musical path.) This, of course, leaves open the question of how one defines ‘success’ as a musician. I think it will prove to be pragmatic to approach this issue by elimination. Let’s consider a group of specific questions related with the issue of success: Will all students achieve levels of excellence that will allow them to pursue international touring careers, or reach positions in the best symphony orchestra, or join prominent ensembles or chamber groups? Will they be nationally and internationally acclaimed recording artists, achieving big contracts with the big labels? Will all of them be happy at the end of their lives, when they evaluate the paths taken by their professional trajectories? Is the question of happiness even relevant to the topic of success? What about contentment in day-to-day life?
Let’s personalise this hypothetical questionnaire. How about us, teachers of these students? How do we view our own trajectories as successful professionals? Do we feel fulfilment and excitement in our careers, or is there a pang of frustration and bitterness for what could have been but didn’t happen?
I hope that you will agree with me in seeing the intrinsic absurdity of the exercise: there is no way to establish objective measurements of what, for each individual, might constitute ‘success’, unless we fall into the trap of accepting the conventional idea of success on a socially determined achievement of status in a given activity. The only useful approach to the concept of success, for us teachers of the art of music, is that of an open-ended unfolding of potentialities. In other words, as innumerable testimonials prove, there is no ‘end or terminal goal’ in the pursuit of excellence as a performer. There’s no such thing as ‘having arrived’ because one plays a hundred concerts a year, or because one is the principal x, y, z for the Greatest Orchestra Ever Assembled on This or Any Other Planet.
The status issue, so important for public relations purposes, or to impress our neighbours, is absolutely negligible as an intrinsic measurement when evaluating either a teacher’s success or his or her students’. In my opinion, getting rid of our assimilated concern with the social definition of success is, perhaps, the most difficult challenge that we face as music teachers, as it is for our students: after all, the achievement of fame and fortune is a primary goal, collectively, for our society, and the media’s fascination with the glamour of the rich and famous permeates our lives on a daily basis. There’s nothing wrong with this, and it can be highly entertaining to observe. It can prove, however, disastrous when we, or our students, assimilate it as a primary value that determines and measures the trajectories of our vocational paths.
It would appear that a more valid set of questions would be: Why do we or, to bring back the discussion where it matters most, our students want to be musicians? What is the source of this ‘want’? Or is it a need? Are they in search of personal enrichment and development or are they pursuing an ‘ego trip’ and want from us validation rather than illumination? And what about professional expectations past a certain point in time and given certain preconditions? Is the student, or are we, a failure because a professional career in music is not practical? Is it a success because it is? These questions, I submit, are also irrelevant. They can only exacerbate a situation in which the sad fact remains that, and I quote from my previous article:
… in most cases, the students of whom we speak will never experience the full realization of their true potential because their real needs will never be addressed or even recognized. Their own self-concepts (and our implicit assumptions as their teachers), will deny them that right. The negative expectations about their lack of success will become self-fulfilling and self-perpetuating and…we will look at each other with a knowing wink as if saying, ‘See? I told you so.’
…
[A] primordial pedagogical responsibility remains in the discovery or, more precisely, uncovering of hidden talent…many people have their talents buried under layers and layers of emotional debris. These [for the most part] are the people we consider untalented (as they themselves do).
…
Pedagogy should be passionately committed to helping the ‘untalented’ (the burdened) become talented (unburdened). What the ‘untalented’ need is a pedagogical stand of trust and faith. They need a teacher who believes in them with a passion equivalent to that shown by students in their dedication to the art.
…
The teacher must be passionate in this belief in the student. The more difficult the case, the more impassioned the belief.
By personal experience, I can attest to how difficult it is to obtain and maintain this state of being. It requires, first, an open-ended approach that is attacked on many fronts by cultural structures and procedures within and through which the business of teaching and learning music is transacted (more on this later). Second, it requires a depth and an intimacy in the teacher–student relation that is not easily achieved, and that is not without risks. Third, it requires the capability on the teacher’s part to deal with the common pattern of self-sabotage on the student’s part, a peculiar phenomenon frequently encountered when the student is about to break through in either a particular area of development, technically or musically, or, after having achieved this, when the student is close to a ‘public moment’ of demonstration, a performance of some importance.
The first obstacle is most tangible to those of us who teach mainly in academic settings controlled by time-limited curricula (four years for a Bachelor’s, two for a Master’s, and so on). Under these time constraints, the individuality of approach that respects a student’s personal growth timeline encounters tremendous institutional pressures, not always manageable. I consider myself fortunate that, after many years cajoling understanding and support out of my administrators and peers, I have been able to stretch the institutional boundaries concerning the duration of a programme of study leading to a degree, as needed by some students. But it has not always been like that, and I know of many colleagues that are still fighting this battle.
The second and third obstacles require extraordinary insights, on the part of the teacher, bordering on the art of psychotherapy. For, in many cases, these burdened, and therefore apparently ‘untalented’ individuals will only have a chance to reach their potential when the teacher and the pupil become
conspirators against those forces hindering the blossoming of the student’s potentialities…this alliance, this conspiracy, is subversive. It has to do with the attainment of freedom from the repressive powers of fear, guilt, and pain…this passionate (and compassionate) pedagogy has as its primary procedural goal, the intellectual, emotional and physical freeing of the student…unbridled mind-doing (thought), soul-doing (emotion) and body-doing (movement). And it has as its final goal the integration of these three doings in the process of preparation for…the successful completion of a performing act through which the student…enters into the realm of the sublime.
It is my personal experience that, in order to help students ‘unburden’ their potential and make their hidden talents blossom, the pedagogical approach should be based on, at least, the following starting points. These refer to the three modes of teaching that we have at our disposal, which are description (verbal communication), demonstration (through performance during lessons), and manipulation (handling of limbs to produce kinesthetic/proprioceptive awareness):
- The authority of the teacher is based on his/her concern for and dedication to the advance of the student, not of any particular method. It is the teacher’s responsibility to have an objective critical outlook of all inherited traditions, even the closest to his or her heart.
- The content of corrective verbal statements must avoid generalisations and deal exclusively with particular, concrete events or circumstances. Statements like ‘your rhythm is not good’ will always produce a more negative effect than ‘in measures 3 to 5, the values of the quarter notes are not exact’.
- Playing (or singing) music is always based on the proper coordination of muscular activity. It is, fundamentally, a physical endeavour. Therefore, a blind and non-thinking acceptance of conventional wisdom regarding technique, whether ‘old’ or ‘new’, will prove counterproductive and even damaging.
- All good teaching is a stimulus for self-discovery, which is the real source of learning. Therefore, teaching and learning do not necessarily follow one another in a linear temporal sequence.
- Context is everything. Abstract principles validate their truth only if they are applicable in a great variety of contexts.
To end, I can only summarise these comments by quoting one last time from my previously cited article:
This pedagogy forewarns of the danger of sacrificing the realities of each student’s circumstances to the ‘truths’ of the method. It abhors the exploitation of students’ successes as proofs or validations of the approach…
But fundamentally it is based on the radical conviction of the presence of so-called talent in each and every individual that shows passion for the art.
No matter how far from view, how hidden, how obscured talent might be, it is there, claiming to be liberated.
And we, teachers of the Art, are ultimately accountable for breaking its bondage.
Copyright © 2004 by Ricardo Iznaola