Is talent born or created with hard work and practice

[pekbro]

No doubt there are many variables involved that we have no control over. I have one friend who's a multi-millionaire rockstar guitarist. I have another friend who's a world-famous guitarist in his own right, written up in guitar player and whatnot. Tom (Conway), is very likely a better guitarist than the rockstar, but he still needs to work at the local music shop to make ends meet. Tom went the art/edu route pursuing traditional playing styles and stuff, the other guy simply was lucky enough to be in a band that got super famous. In the end it's pointless to worry about it, just pursue what makes you happy, and what you can manage, that's all we can do.

[raiderpdog]

People thought I was good at Art when I was a kid.
There was a guy up the road and I was much better than him. Everybody said it.
The difference between me and the guy up the road was that I had some natural ability but he had the passion to turn his scribbles into a full time career as an Artist.
I have zero interest in Art these days. I'm atrocious at drawing. I have no aptitude for it at all now.

It was a passing phase for me. Kept me entertained for a little while and not much else.

The real 'talent' is in the perseverance, as far as I can make out.

definitely reminds me of my experience, when we were kids and early teens, my best friend was phenomenal at copying comic book art. Still to this day, I have no explanation for how exact they looked. Me and my other friend, would then ink his pencil work, because he hated inking. We would also make it look worse, truthfully. I was always an artistic kid and could draw well, but he was on another level, and my other friend was worse than either of us.

He dropped it completely during high school. I kept going and majored in Art at college and am a full time visual artist since. Whenever I bump into him, he tells me that I was the creative one, and that he could only copy stuff, but could never think of something original to draw on his own.

A somewhat similar thing happened to me, but your drawing talent is still there, just needs to be dusted off. I went to art school with the idea of doing 3D animation, but as soon as I graduated, the world said, “hey, want to make big bucks in web design?” I also had a degree in graphic design, so that world just sucked me in and from there I went into UI Design (games). In all honesty, I like those things, but my heart was never in it. My lesson is: don’t let a dollar tell you what to do. They problem was, my stomach was telling me to get some dollars because it was hungry.

yep, in art school some of the faculty would always have talks about making money, careering, hooking up with a gallery, getting into commercial art, selling however you could, whatever, and the rest of the faculty would push us not to do that and only try to make our "Art". It was kind of a battle for the students souls, almost. I guess I easily hitched my wagon to the non-money side, maybe I was stubborn or something, but I always resisted as much as possible to going commercial after my degree. A couple times I did try, and the results were disastrous. Lasted one day painting wooden fish for restaurant walls, was probably some of the easiest money I could have made but just was trying to paint them really well, and guy wanted them cranked out. Walked away.
So, whenever I needed a job, I usually chose pure physical labor, outside, hot, manual work or stuff like that, completely removed from art. Just to keep my job separate as a money thing, but also not as a defining thing. I knew it wasn't a career, but I also actually liked doing stuff like that instead of the couple office creative type jobs I didn't like. Still did my paintings at night/free time, in fact became more disciplined. And then just luckily met enough people on the same wavelength and got opportunities. It's all a crap shoot sometimes, no perfect plan for sure.

[Synthack]

......

[e-crooner]

I think talent is just an arbitrary set of properties that happen to be beneficial with respect to a certain activity of interest. I suppose we all have talents for activities, but we don't know because we have never been interested in those activities.
The arbitrary set of properties part might sound clumsy, but I see it that way because I am against saying that one has a talent for singing or skiing. It somehow implies that there are genes for singing for skiing, which I think is nonsense.

Yes, I think we can maximize those properties, but not create them out of nothing if they are just not there to begin with.

[pekbro]

Ana Vidovic was a child prodigy classical guitarist, who has more technical "ability" to play the guitar than the BEST rock guitarists out there.

She did the work but was clearly gifted in the beginning and it shows.

I stumbled upon this video while looking up classical guitarists and was absolutely a fan at the end of it. If you watch, she is clearly working at it but once she gets in that natural "groove" she just seems to play the guitar like it's a part of her. This is not a "skill" you can learn easily, and for some people i think they are born with it.

Could someone who is not "Gifted" get to the same level with the same amount of practice? No i don't believe so.

This is normal and there are many people out there like this and it's completely OK.

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I've always thought she was awesome, and pretty hot imo... I could play that stuff well probably, but I'd have to learn the music, which would take some time Too much.

[Synthack]

......

[pekbro]

^^ Meh, I don't have that kind of guitar.

[cryophonik]

Could someone who is not "Gifted" get to the same level with the same amount of practice? No i don't believe so.

Maybe not, but you also can't discount the countless other factors that may have contributed to her ability to excel at her particular skill set. It's not a simple matter of either being born with it vs. practicing at it. There are other factors that contribute to everyone's predispositions for excelling (or failing) at certain skills, including other skills or experiences that developed muscle memory over time, people's thought processes, etc. You hear people talking about the mental state of elite athletes all the time and I'm pretty sure there's a commonality with elite artists as well. I'm not saying that people aren't born with certain genetic predispositions, but the problem with this discussion is that people seem to want to overly simplify something that is not at all simplifiable (yes, I made that word up), especially when you're debating a word (i.e., "talent") that is pretty nebulous to begin with.

The other issue is that this whole question falls squarely into the camp of the so-called "soft sciences", meaning that it's based heavily on empirical data, rather than numeric data, and is generally not readily replicable or testable. That's not to say that they are any less of a science than the so-called "hard sciences", but it is much harder to test a hypothesis and get conclusive results, so you're left with more or less a weight-of-evidence approach. IOW, it's much more difficult to get conclusive answers and/or get scientific consensus.

[Hink]

do two people take the same amount of steps to arrive at the same destination?

[cryophonik]

do two people take the same amount of steps to arrive at the same destination?

Yes

[Hink]

that's not two people...sorry best I could come up with

[Synthack]

......

[Hink]

That's actually called eyes right and it's typically used when passing a review stand acknowledging whomever is watching. The ones in the right column stay focused forward as to guide the formation.

[vurt]

do two people take the same amount of steps to arrive at the same destination?

Yes

needs the village people.

[Hink]

need more than a village