Yodeling

There's a difference between talent and success at something. A person can have talent but no motivation and go nowhere. Another person can have no talent and a lot of motivation and have success of some kind in some fields. There are areas where NO talent is such a drawback that no amount of motivation and work will make up for it.

Also, while the item was carried on SOTT, I think we should consider the source and motivation behind the "science" and the writers point of view and the culture that gave rise to both.

Talent does not equal competence and competence does not equal talent. But competence can trump talent if the talent is wasted, as it often is.

Talent is defined as "any natural ability or power". Talent is genetic, your hard-wiring, the components of your computer. However, even the most powerful computer won't work if it is not loaded with the right software.

Knowledge, skill and competence, on the other hand, can be learned and require cognitive processing - software.

Working very hard at something that you are not naturally good at can be very commendable. With a lot of tricks you can make an ordinary computer do a lot of things. But to focus on activities for which your natural potential is not optimal and excluding those for which you have greater natural aptitude seems like a terrible waste. People need to explore their essential selves and find out what is really theirs and combine that with some hard work.

Since this thread is titled "yodeling" maybe the story of Kerry Christensen will be a useful example. He writes:

Kerry Christensen, one of the world's best Alpine yodelers, was raised on a potato farm in Grace, Idaho and had to wander quite a distance to discover his passion - yodeling! A performer from the tender age of three, he has sung everything from western ballads to barbershop music. It was during his travels to Austria in 1976 however, that he discovered the folk music that would be his life. Armed with recordings of the great yodelers, Kerry returned from Europe, determined to master this ancient art--and he did. While driving the family tractor around and around the potato fields, he practiced 14-15 hours a day. He drove his father crazy and was banished to practicing in the garage--to no avail, as yodeling carries very well. (Remember, it was used to communicate between hillside farms.)

Kerry's first yodeling performance was in 1977, at a major university orientation assembly. His yodeling brought 15,000 or so students to their feet for a standing ovation.

If you didn't watch this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alMbWx4lVL4&NR=1 do so. Wait until you get to the William Tell overture.
 
Laura said:
Working very hard at something that you are not naturally good at can be very commendable. With a lot of tricks you can make an ordinary computer do a lot of things. But to focus on activities for which your natural potential is not optimal and excluding those for which you have greater natural aptitude seems like a terrible waste. People need to explore their essential selves and find out what is really theirs and combine that with some hard work.
Funny you should say that, I was just wondering about how to accomplish this in this post.

Laura said:
If you didn't watch this one: _http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=alMbWx4lVL4&NR=1 do so. Wait until you get to the William Tell overture.
I enjoyed watching this! I liked even better the yodeling of his daughter Emilie, what a beautiful voice she has! :)
 
Talent is genetic, your hard-wiring, the components of your computer.


Question is, what exactly is hard-wired. Are some of us hard-wired specifically to do music, draw, or play chess, while others aren't? I don't see how this would work this way. It's not like evolution would naturally select for artists (or their respective genes) over chess players, or the other way around.

Additionally, many diverse activities rely on same brain processes, like music and math (http://www.cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=14071.msg116608#msg116608). So person who is very well hard-wired in spatial-temporal area pf the brain will have a natural aptitude -- "talent" -- for math, music, map reading and a host of other things. But it would be up to him\her to choose what he\she likes best and then work hard for it.


[..] But to focus on activities for which your natural potential is not optimal and excluding those for which you have greater natural aptitude seems like a terrible waste. People need to explore their essential selves and find out what is really theirs and combine that with some hard work.

I agree. Self-discovery first, then motivation to work hard.

we should consider the source and motivation behind the "science" and the writers point of view and the culture that gave rise to both.


My impression has been that in our culture people are much more often discouraged, or get discouraged, from what they really like to do, on the grounds that "they don't have talent for that". Some of it may come from observing someone else doing it very well, but not seeing all the effort that goes into it, and thinking the other person's abilities are the gift of nature.

People are also often told to concentrate on something "more practical" instead. Together, this two things create exactly the situation you are describing as wasteful. Considering this, I thought the article to be focusing on what's often overlooked and can be encouraging to people who want to pursue their true interests.


While driving the family tractor around and around the potato fields, he practiced 14-15 hours a day. He drove his father crazy and was banished to practicing in the garage--to no avail, as yodeling carries very well. (Remember, it was used to communicate between hillside farms.)

This is a nice story. It also shows how important it is to have uninterrupted stretches of solitude for reflection and practicing doing what you truly like, during the formative periods of one's life. And of all vocal arts, yodeling suits perfectly the vast expanse of the mountains.
 
dant said:
I loved the Yodeling with 'The Sound of Music",
something about the "goat herd".... ah-some!

yes, that was always my favorite too!
 
Those yodeling videos had links to Jewel yodeling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9oxbyLlAYI&NR=1

I'm still not overly sure what makes bad for the soul music/lyrics (other than overt misplaced patriotism). Blues can be dark but maybe not bad for the soul. I do think there may be something to the idea that not having real music talent/skill live could be an indicator. Below are two live songs that are perhaps the darkest for both well known groups and while one has minimal music skill involved, the other has the electric guitar kind of yodelling near the end. Both could still be bad for the soul for all I know though I like both of them though certainly not in a happy kind of way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHFK1yKfiGo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3SgcSPZhGI
 
Congrats on getting your bandwidth back, Laura! There's been countless times when someone would post an amazing video, and I always felt bad when you chateau folk had to ask someone to describe it to you, when words just can't do so many things justice. I never really listened to yodeling, I've heard it in passing but never listened to a full song and I actually quite enjoyed those, and it reminded me of scat in jazz, which seems to have a lot in common with it. Here's my favorite "scatter", Al Jarreau, performing Spain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SVCmeInPgA&fmt=18
 
Hildegarda said:
Talent is genetic, your hard-wiring, the components of your computer.
My impression has been that in our culture people are much more often discouraged, or get discouraged, from what they really like to do, on the grounds that "they don't have talent for that". Some of it may come from observing someone else doing it very well, but not seeing all the effort that goes into it, and thinking the other person's abilities are the gift of nature.

Sure, there's some of that - even a lot of that - going on. But most often, I've seen people getting ideas about what they want to do or think they can do by trying to imitate others and not realizing that they really DON'T have talent and their "wants" to do that are not based on what they would really want to do if they had different role models around them.

Hildegarda said:
People are also often told to concentrate on something "more practical" instead. Together, this two things create exactly the situation you are describing as wasteful. Considering this, I thought the article to be focusing on what's often overlooked and can be encouraging to people who want to pursue their true interests.

While I saw it giving false hope to the people who really should concentrate on something more practical and stop thinking they are the next genius to come down the pike. I saw so many parents encouraging their children to do more, be more, outdo the kid next door, never a discouraging word from the over-protective, delusional mothers who were convinced that their children were the new Einsteins, soccer champions, or what have you when, in fact, the kids' weren't even remotely competent at basic math, reading or writing. I've seen way more of that than what you are talking about. I think you are projecting what may have been done to you.
 
I think the term "talent" should be analyzed a bit. If we just define it as a genetic predisposition or inclination, can we see that such a thing as a genetic predisposition even exists? Well apparently it does for diseases - we can be more genetically susceptible to certain diseases than other people. Another example is instinct which is innately programmed by genetics and then honed and perfected with practice and acquisition of knowledge. And we do know that we inherit physical traits from our families so we all look different, and in the case of psychopaths, think, feel, and act differently. Can "empathy" be called a talent? It certainly can be developed, but are some people born with more of it than others, or is it all simply a matter of societal influences? We genetically programmed to learn and make neural maps of the world, to swallow when food enters our mouth, and to jerk our hand away from a hot surface. So we already know that genetics can influences behavior, appearance, and disease susceptibility. Some diseases are psychiatric in nature, which certainly influences the behavior of some people. Of course the term "disease" is limiting, for what is really the difference between a psychiatric disease, a talent, or even an instinct? Certain functions of our brain are either reduced, enhanced, or broken. When it is enhanced we would call it a talent, when it is reduced we could call it something like "down's syndrome" or by another name. Sure talents may be more than just that, they may also include a drive or fondness for certain activities. But why is it so much easier to accept that genetics can make us all look different and have different disease susceptibility, but it is so difficult to accept that it can make us different mentally? That some people can have a stronger instinct for reaction time making them better at dodging or catching things, and others could have a better sense of rhythm that could have been inherited as well?

We will call someone else talented when it is "convenient" for us and gives us an excuse not to put in any effort ourselves, but just because it is used by people wrongly and when it suits them, doesn't mean real talent doesn't exist. And I think people have a natural resistance to the idea that we are not all "born equal". Our ego has trouble admitting (when it is not convenient to do so) that someone could be born better at something than we were, that we are "inferior" in some way by birth. I'm not saying that we should just assume the existence of talents, and I think we need to look into studies that can shine more light on this, but we do have so much evidence that genetics does create differences between people in many ways. So it seems, at the very least, a good working hypothesis that if it can give green eyes and distort aspects of our brain to create things like down's syndrome, that it can also enhance aspects of our minds or even activate things that aren't active in others. It might be a good idea to find as many studies in this area to see if there's indeed evidence of talents as genetic traits.

I found some links that offer food for thought:
_http://encyclopedia.adoption.com/entry/genetic-predispositions/154/1.html
_http://aclandbrierty.com/?p=17

I think it can be hard to separate talent from skill in adults, but looking at very young children could help shine some light on this. However, some talents could in theory be "latent" and not really show up until a person reaches a certain level of their development, by which point they have already gone through a lot of societal influences and learning, so it might already be too late for an outside observer to be able to isolate talent via a systematic study. However, circumstantial evidence does exist, and some people really do seem to work hard at things and never get good, while others seem to mold into activities almost effortlessly, and although they do need practice, they tend to improve fast and reach greatness if they persist.
 
It always makes me so happy to hear Yodeling, no matter the mood, it just makes me hop up and dance! :lol:
 
From my perspective, I haven't witnessed you doing any "music" yet! Perhaps you don't have the talent? Just the desire and you do what is easy: make nerve rattling, driving sounds that you call music? (Admittedly, a lot of other people call it "music" too, but consider the society that has made it a norm. I rest my case.)

At first, I considered this a sort of slap on the face...that was this morning. Now I'm going to consider it along the lines
of a challenge/invite. Would you all prefer some clean guitar? arpeggios, perhaps? Diatonic thirds? Would you all like something soft and soothing and comfortable to listen to? I would too, i believe i can finish in a day or so. :D

But wait, why stop there? Abstract has not typically done the softer stuff, maybe a whole album of it
would be cool. It's a different sort of avenue to explore, this might be kind of exciting! :)
 
Laura said:
I think you are projecting what may have been done to you.

Yes, something like this have been done; I think I have brought it up here, in the Music board, some time ago. Thank you for bringing it to my attention.

Now that I think about it, these two extremes of parental behavior may overlap, too, and that's also why it's important to remember and steer clear of both of them. The "over-protective, delusional mother" who encourages the child to be better then the kids next door is the same person who may later tell them to start concentrating on the "practical" pre-med major and use, say, art or tennis accomplishments as a scholarship booster, no more. In both cases it's molding the child to whatever she wants, either living vicariously through the child's achievement or acting out her own fears and insecurities.

Thank you for the lesson.
 
abstract said:
It's a different sort of avenue to explore, this might be kind of exciting! :)

Hi Abstract,

elsewhere, you write:

So basically, the solution here, I think, is to branch out into another completely different area
of doing music. Thats it. I'm bored with one thing, so i'm going to another.

if you want to view this discussion as a challenge, it's of course up to you. But if your primary motivator is escaping boredom and a search for excitement, then don't you think that isn't really any different from what you've done before? How would it get you to qualitatively different results?

Perhaps you might try aiming at developing other parts of your mind, not just your "musical mind", using the emotional shock that you seemed to have received from this discussion. Music may of course be very helpful in it too, but mindfullness is the key, not just jumping at the next thing that catches your fancy.

OSIT
 
if you want to view this discussion as a challenge, it's of course up to you.
maybe challenge was a wrong word choice.

But if your primary motivator is escaping boredom and a search for excitement, then don't you think that isn't really any different from what you've done before? How would it get you to qualitatively different results?

well, I'm not really searching for stimulation very much anymore, at least not as much as i have before. I feel like i should play and listen to some more soothing types of music.
(btw, I feel like i took this thread off, topic...apologies) I think it will go nicely with the other lifestyle changes i've made so far, letting the mind rest and recover as i gradually detox and continue EE.

I want to share another thing, I was playing guitar just about 10-20 minutes ago, playing softer, slower stuff. Whenever i play that softer stuff for long enough, my entire body relaxes in an identical way to how I feel in the middle of an EE session. Calm and relaxed, the cares of the world drift away.

mindfullness is the key, not just jumping at the next thing that catches your fancy.

OSIT

Yoda himself could not have said it better. :) I appreciate all the opportunities I get on this forum to self-reflect and know myself a little better. :thup:
 
A good book on the architecture of the mind and what is or is not genetic/evolutionarily programmed, is Steve Mithen's "The Prehistory of the Mind." He's trying to argue for the evolutionary development of consciousness and fails miserably on that point - his logic is faulty and his arguments are weak, but he does a fine job presenting archaeological data and interpreting the mind through that, and a good synopsis of cognitive science. You'll never think about your brain/mind the same way again after you read it. It is also fascinating in that it is basically saying the same things Gurdjieff said about the many different selves all contained within one individual and the necessity to establish connections between them and subsume them to a single I/consciousness. Recommended.
 
abstract said:
From my perspective, I haven't witnessed you doing any "music" yet! Perhaps you don't have the talent? Just the desire and you do what is easy: make nerve rattling, driving sounds that you call music? (Admittedly, a lot of other people call it "music" too, but consider the society that has made it a norm. I rest my case.)

At first, I considered this a sort of slap on the face...that was this morning. Now I'm going to consider it along the lines
of a challenge/invite. Would you all prefer some clean guitar? arpeggios, perhaps? Diatonic thirds? Would you all like something soft and soothing and comfortable to listen to? I would too, i believe i can finish in a day or so. :D

But wait, why stop there? Abstract has not typically done the softer stuff, maybe a whole album of it
would be cool. It's a different sort of avenue to explore, this might be kind of exciting! :)

I'll be very interested in the results.

We have a couple of serious and very talented musicians and artists here in our house. QFS has some seriously talented individuals as well. Approaching Infinity is a jazz guitarist (I don't like jazz, but I CAN recognize that he is good!) and has a band, goes on tours and that sort of thing. A very active life in addition to being a world class thinker!
 
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