TALENT, SKILL AND HARD WORK
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| Ugandan bassist and singer Sammy Kasule |
One morning, I visited a musician friend of mine, Sammy Kasule who is a legendary Ugandan musician with over 4 decades of musical experience behind him. I found him with a bass guitar in hand busy practicing. He is talented, he is skilled and his experience is not in doubt; so why practice?
From when we are very young, there are some things we do reasonably better than others without much effort. Parents normally look out for these to discern the child's gifts. Perhaps you learnt to read so fast whilst others were still untwisting their tongue; or may be numbers and algebra were like play time for you; some kids can remember and logically predict complicated sequences and tasks at a young age like playing chess; perhaps you danced so well with innate rhythm whilst other babies were still discovering their limp joints; other kids can draw clear figures with a clear understanding of shadow and light whilst some of us had nonsensical zigzag squiggles and ripped pieces of paper; perhaps in infancy you sung with a bellowing rich voice in perfect tune where other kids simply yelled and screeched like car horns; may be at age 5 you were a fast runner or football balancing wizard with perfect kicking target whilst some of us no matter which direction we kicked the ball always took the same direction, up! If you had this, you had a talent or gift; a free starting point already wired in the system.
Talent can be internal such as logic/deduction, mental calculation, musical arrangement and perception of game rules etc; or it can be external like dexterity, fast reflexes, powerful lungs and keen ears etc. I believe every person has a given combination of these, to different degrees and development of which can lead one to acquire a wide range of skills if pursued and harnessed
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| shutterstock image |
Can you recognise your talent?
Interestingly talent is normally first noticed by others around you and not necessarily by you the bearer. Although often the bearer is interested in these exploits, its not always true that what comes easily to us is also of interest. Sometimes people directly back away from their talents unless guided toward them. I, for example, was told by one of my teachers that I was good at teaching because in high school though I wasn't exceptionally attentive, I used to successfully explain to many of my peers the basics I had picked up in class. This ability had to be pointed out to me, I wasn't aware of it and when it was, I detested it! But it was a talent nonetheless which I later developed into a set of skills and even grew to love.
Unlike talent, skills are not innate, they are learnt. One has to put in effort and work, very often serious hard work to acquire a skill ; or consistently serious hard work over a given period to excel at a given skill or skill-set. Even after a person has acquired a skill, they often have to stay in practice in order to stay at the top of their game in executing the tasks that make up that skill.
It is quite common to find individuals who are not so talented often excelling beyond those who are very talented. It is almost guaranteed that everyone knows several very talented people in their circles whose performance is rather mediocre or no-existent whilst some not so talented but hard working individuals are at the top of the game in their given field. Why is this?
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| Kaz Kasozi the post author (photo by Daniel Ecwalu) |
To practice or not to practice
I'm always surprised when fellow artists and my students ask me why I keep practicing regularly or studying music when I "already play well or make music competently!" Why practice? I usually say I feel I am just starting to understand how little I know! Even without learning something new, practice is necessary to hold onto the little that I already know. Especially with physical tasks, the muscles and tendons need to remain alert to the mental commands. This requires constant practice. Forget this nonsense of total recall "just like riding a bike"; risk that live on stage trying to sing after having been dormant for a year and see how you will croak!A common boast among musicians, I am ashamed to say including myself is, "I am self-taught". This is great but if an opportunity comes to be coached in one aspect of your musicianship it doesn't make you less of a musician, it compliments. Not so long ago I learnt from another guitarist about a technique that I had been doing wrong for years with reasonable but limited results. Now I know the right way, I need to unlearn the bad habit if I am to improve some aspects!
Oddly, talented individuals usually don't want to practice, be schooled or coached in their given talent since they feel they have a natural aptitude for the tasks at hand. After attending two music composition classes out of twelve, one very talented student of mine told me he didn't need my lessons because he was "a natural born composer." Apparently, my classes were going to dilute his raw composing talent. Its three years since I last saw him and I am yet to hear his glorious compositions. Meanwhile his peers who seemed less able are delivering competent work.
What this guy failed to grasp is that, his talents needed honing, direction, schooling and polishing to turn them into skills/a skill-set. Then these needed to be practiced over and over again to become second nature and exemplary. Talent doesn't come equipped with skills; even Motzart and Beethoven practiced hard. Will Durant put it best when he said, "We are what we repeatedly do; excellence then is not an act but a habit." The Story of Philosophy (1926). So not only does talent need inspiration and grooming; it needs to be turned into a habit for one to achieve excellence.
This will apply if you are a brick layer, a dancer, a karate kid, a race driver or even a chapati-rolex guy by the street. Even for this blog I often write and rewrite quite a few times before the piece feels good. Then I rewrite it again. Repetition, refining and perseverance. Today after I had completed what was the final draft of this article, I mistakenly wiped it via an app update on my phone! It took perseverance and determination to rewrite from scratch something which I had actually completed. Even though this is just a simple blog, that is hard work still. Talent doesn't come into it.
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| Steven Kiprotich Olympic Gold medalist. Ugandan diaspora news |
In the now famous Michael Gladwell theory that it requires 10,000 hours to become an expert at anything, examples are drawn from sports achievers, to exceptional musicians, across to architects and mathematicians. If one reads biographies of great figures in sport such as Pele, Venus Williams, Mohamed Ali, Messi, Bolt, even our humbler but still high achieving Kiprotich, one soon discovers that the amount of time dedicated to the tasks that make up the skill set is incredibly high. They practiced at length; thought about the processes at length; and constantly learnt new things about their field, horned their focus then practiced some more. They repeated and repeated and persevered until they triumphed.
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| Paulo Kafeero R.I.P |
Great thinkers like Newton and Einstein revisited ideas endlessly until they cracked a problem; painters like Picasso and Salvador Dali thrived on repetition to master and advance their craft; Martial artists Jackie Chan and Samo Hung are known for their resilience to repeat physical stunts over and over until they perform seemingly superhuman feats. Many other people had the same talents and similar resources. But these guys had honed their skills to such a high degree and advanced them through repetition, hard work and perseverance to come out top of their game.
This clearly indicates that talent is very little without development into a skill/ skill-set and without revisited practice to maintain and improve on that skill, it stagnates.
So when I stumble upon a legendary fellow like Sammy Kasule still finding a moment to practice, I don't wonder why he is a legend. I've long learned that talent alone without, skill and hard work is a road to limp mediocrity. So I just do the same as the legend does until I am as good or better and keep on seeking to learn until the day I drop. Even then, I know I will have just scratched the surface.
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| Sammy Kasule's latest single featuring Clarissa |
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