Are you Talented?
I think you are.
How do I know that?
Because you are reading this article
My general attitude toward talent is that if you have desire for something you also have the talent for it. In other words, your tastes and desires are simply reflections of your hidden talents. Think about it! You wouldn't be able to notice and distinguish the beauty of whatever you are interested in without the physical ability to do so.
Yes, different players and learners have different strengths and weaknesses but these cannot be seen as grounds to decide whether one can become a good player or not. You simply need to find the right exercises and drills to strengthen the weak spots and develop the strong ones.
Remember what Paco de Lucia said: "90% perspiration and 10% inspiration." Paco was a firm believer in hard work in achieving mastery. He spent many hours perfecting his musicality and technique.
The ability to play and compose well comes from hard work and practice. When my students ask me if I think they are talented, I tell them yes. And I mean it. Because they have made the commitment to learn flamenco guitar and they love it. Each one learns with a different pace and they all have different strengths, for sure. But all display a good progress and end up finding their own personal technique that serves them.
That said, the learning curve is never straight. There are several ups and downs and you hit various plateaus along the way where it feels like you are not making any progress. And sometimes you play even worse than before after a long period of heavy practice.
This is very normal. The human body does not work like a clock. The formation of new neural connections as a result of practice follows a peculiar path that does not mirror your physical practice routine. Especially if you don't have a fixed practice regiment, i.e. everyday between 1pm and 2pm, it is impossible to know in advance when you will be able to master a specific technique.
Your body may not function like a clock, sure. But you certainly can! Professional guitar players, at least the classical ones that I know, spend a minimum of 4 hours per day with their instrument. And they do this within a structure. One pro I know does his morning practice everyday from 10 am to 12 noon without fail. He gets up at 8:30am, has breakfast, goes to the gym for 40 mins and sits down with his instrument for 2 hours. This is an uninterrupted and focused 2 hours with very short breaks every 20 mins. Then he does a similar routine for the afternoon and evening.
I did tell you in a previous article that we don't have so much time to spend on our instrument as we are not professional performers. The idea is not to spend as much time as possible practising anyway. It is the scheduling and the quality of the practice that counts. What I am trying to say is, set aside a chunk of time everyday to practise. And if possible, reserve a fixed slot in your timetable for this. So, practise for, say, 40 minutes, everyday right before dinner and stick to this schedule.
By standardizing your guitar regiment, you will be able to observe at what rate your brain takes in the incoming information. And since the input is fixed both in terms of duration and schedule, you can make fine adjustments to improve the efficiency of your practice. Say, you find tremolo more difficult than any other technique, you will increase the time you spend on it by 10 minutes and observe the results in 2 weeks, or a month. You can also begin to evaluate the influence of other external factors to your learning. You may find out that you progress faster practising on an empty stomach, or vice versa.
As long as you take control of your practice by forcing it into a good structure, you have nothing to worry about. You eat three meals a day regularly, right? Do you ever worry about starving to death? And if you eat the same amount for all three meals everyday and you start losing weight, would you not think that there is something else the matter? So, as an instructor, I am your guide for those unexplained weight losses and gains. Just keep eating regularly… Enough with the metaphor...
Let me conclude by saying keep practising regularly and within a fixed schedule and you will get results. Maybe not the next day. But your focused and serious practising will pay off. I guarantee you.
How do I know that?
Because you are reading this article
My general attitude toward talent is that if you have desire for something you also have the talent for it. In other words, your tastes and desires are simply reflections of your hidden talents. Think about it! You wouldn't be able to notice and distinguish the beauty of whatever you are interested in without the physical ability to do so.
Yes, different players and learners have different strengths and weaknesses but these cannot be seen as grounds to decide whether one can become a good player or not. You simply need to find the right exercises and drills to strengthen the weak spots and develop the strong ones.
Remember what Paco de Lucia said: "90% perspiration and 10% inspiration." Paco was a firm believer in hard work in achieving mastery. He spent many hours perfecting his musicality and technique.
The ability to play and compose well comes from hard work and practice. When my students ask me if I think they are talented, I tell them yes. And I mean it. Because they have made the commitment to learn flamenco guitar and they love it. Each one learns with a different pace and they all have different strengths, for sure. But all display a good progress and end up finding their own personal technique that serves them.
That said, the learning curve is never straight. There are several ups and downs and you hit various plateaus along the way where it feels like you are not making any progress. And sometimes you play even worse than before after a long period of heavy practice.
This is very normal. The human body does not work like a clock. The formation of new neural connections as a result of practice follows a peculiar path that does not mirror your physical practice routine. Especially if you don't have a fixed practice regiment, i.e. everyday between 1pm and 2pm, it is impossible to know in advance when you will be able to master a specific technique.
Your body may not function like a clock, sure. But you certainly can! Professional guitar players, at least the classical ones that I know, spend a minimum of 4 hours per day with their instrument. And they do this within a structure. One pro I know does his morning practice everyday from 10 am to 12 noon without fail. He gets up at 8:30am, has breakfast, goes to the gym for 40 mins and sits down with his instrument for 2 hours. This is an uninterrupted and focused 2 hours with very short breaks every 20 mins. Then he does a similar routine for the afternoon and evening.
I did tell you in a previous article that we don't have so much time to spend on our instrument as we are not professional performers. The idea is not to spend as much time as possible practising anyway. It is the scheduling and the quality of the practice that counts. What I am trying to say is, set aside a chunk of time everyday to practise. And if possible, reserve a fixed slot in your timetable for this. So, practise for, say, 40 minutes, everyday right before dinner and stick to this schedule.
By standardizing your guitar regiment, you will be able to observe at what rate your brain takes in the incoming information. And since the input is fixed both in terms of duration and schedule, you can make fine adjustments to improve the efficiency of your practice. Say, you find tremolo more difficult than any other technique, you will increase the time you spend on it by 10 minutes and observe the results in 2 weeks, or a month. You can also begin to evaluate the influence of other external factors to your learning. You may find out that you progress faster practising on an empty stomach, or vice versa.
As long as you take control of your practice by forcing it into a good structure, you have nothing to worry about. You eat three meals a day regularly, right? Do you ever worry about starving to death? And if you eat the same amount for all three meals everyday and you start losing weight, would you not think that there is something else the matter? So, as an instructor, I am your guide for those unexplained weight losses and gains. Just keep eating regularly… Enough with the metaphor...
Let me conclude by saying keep practising regularly and within a fixed schedule and you will get results. Maybe not the next day. But your focused and serious practising will pay off. I guarantee you.
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