Often times someone asks me:
“Wow, how can you? So-and-so is so young, he never studied singing and he sings so well! It can only be talent (or gift)! I could never do it!”
I don’t want to deny here that everyone has natural facilities: some do math very well in their heads, others can easily interpret a difficult text, some have a very sharp logical reasoning, others speak well in public and so on. And there are also those who have a natural facility for music or singing, but in general , people who ask this question like that use the word TALENT as an excuse for not even trying.
Depending on the source, you will find in the literature that this “ease” impacts 20 or 30% on the final result of a person’s performance in a given area. That is, we have a good 70% or 80% that can be improved.
This improvement can come from many angles. For some, joining a school or looking for a teacher is better; others adapt very well to self-study; there are still people who do not adapt to formal study at all and engage in experiences and projects to learn a little more in practice.
In this last group we can have people who, since childhood, have been involved with music in some way: at home, at church, with friends, etc. And behold, they reach the age of 18 singing (or playing) very well, without ever having taken a class.
But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have some kind of learning and were just “born that way”. In fact, even those who enjoy more formal study should be involved in group music activities on a regular basis.
The problem is that I see in some people (sometimes stimulated by these musical reality shows) an absurd exaltation of talent and little or almost no recognition of how much a person can improve and learn. “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”. In other words, hard work trumps talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
Everyone must know someone who has a talent for music, but ends up not being able to work in the area. Or else they know someone who didn’t seem to have much talent, but liked music a lot, studied a lot and ended up managing to get into the market.
In general, if a person really wants to become a professional, he will have to end up, at least for a while, having some kind of formal education. It’s very difficult for her to put herself well without an it. Especially because no matter how talented a person is to be a lawyer, he will not be a professional in the area without studying law and passing the OAB test.
Why do some people think music would be different? This is the fault of the words talent and gift when used as an excuse. NOBODY, I repeat, NOBODY is born better than the others, in fact, everyone is born crying. So there’s no reason to think you’re not “destined” to sing well.
You just need to give much more importance to the 70 or 80% that can be improved and learned in your singing and much less importance to the 20 or 30% of talent, gift or ease that you may have!
