Grateful Dead Music Forum

I've been wondering about this lately and wanted some other opinions about it. I think of all of the greats (Garcia, Hendrix, Page, Clapton, Gilmour, Richards, etc.) as talented but I know that many of them did what Garcia did and practiced the guitar all the damn time. So how much is pure talent and how much is hard work? I mean, no one is born knowing how to play the guitar, but some people just seem to take to it quickly. Thoughts?

I have had this conversation with several pro musicians here in music city and they say that all those heroes spent countless hours practicing - 1000 hours for every hour on stage. Very very few are gifted without the work that goes in to it. Follows is a quote my former instructor shared with me.


Finally, I'll finish with a quote from someone with much more personal experience with this concept than yours truly. Charlie Banacos is one of the most respected music teachers in the world. He has taught many of the world's top jazz and rock musicians from his perch in the Boston area. In the April, 1988 issue of Guitar Player, he wrote a letter to the editor concerning some comments that a former student of his, Jeff Berlin, had made about the importance of practice:


"[Jeff]'s right when he says correct practice is the way to great playing; in my experience teaching Jeff and others, it's the only factor separating great players from others. And I'm talking about thousands of students. I actually had Jeff, Mike Stern, Leni Stern, Dean Brown, Neil Stubenhaus, Wayne Krantz, Jay Azzolina, and Bruce Bartlett on my schedule at the same time! They worked hard for their artistry and deserve the recognition they've received..."
So I guess the moral to the story is that if you're asking yourself, "how far can I go?", the answer is: "as far as you want to go, as long as you're willing to work at it..."

My 2 cents.
I went to music school for a year and could easily see that some people had little natural talent but worked hard and were good, some people had a lot of natural ability and were good despite not working very hard---and there were some who had a ton of talent and busted ass practicing---those were the people who ended up being great.

I unfortunately was in the first group.

That is simple for me.

The harder you work the more talented you get.

I started with not much but an innate sense of groove and a desire to have a bass in my hands pretty much from the minute I picked one up at age 19. I learned pitch recognition, music theory, advance rhythm, and beat subdivision in music school, and am still learning. I think that puts me in the same group as Mttourpro.

It actually takes three things; talent, hard work and luck- being at the right place at the right time...

It's kind of hard to say. Wes Montgomery never picked up a guitar, or any other instrument, until he was 19; a year later he was already leading a smoking hot jazz group in Kansas City. So, since he was also 100% self taught, that must have been almost all natural talent.

J.S. Bach, on the other hand, is reputed to have given this answer to someone who questioned how he was able to be both so prolific and also turn out work that was of such high quality - " I work hard".

Personally, I think that either one, by itself, can only get you so far - but I think talent is the "x factor" in what separates the men from the boys.

I think of it like the 100 yard dash. If I went to a track and ran as fast as I could, I would suck. If I trained for a few months, I would be better, but I would still suck. If I trained for a few years, I would be better still, but I would still suck. If I had started when I was 13 or 14 and trained for years, I would be even better in my mid-20s than I ever could be now, but I would probably be just "OK". Take a guy with a ton of talent, and have him sit on the couch and drink beer until he is 45, then have him run. He will beat my time, but he will still suck. He will follow the same pattern as I did, but will be faster at every stage, such that if he started young and focused, he would be great. I think guitar is the same way. If you want to be "world class" you better have BOTH a lot of talent and work hard at it. Guitar being less physical, an early start is less important than for the 100 yard dash, but it would still be a big advantage. There is no question though that no matter what your talent level, you will never be the best you can be without putting in a ton of effort.