Talent: Deconstructed

Myth: Talent makes musicians. Consequentially, you either have it or you don't.
Truth: Skills applied to contextualized patterns makes musicians. Sequentially, you either acquire them or you won't.  

Teaching By Travel Brochure
(Title is from Jamie Andreas, New York based guitar technique guru.)

"Just practice it more!"  A phrase heard by many an eager young music learner. For many kids it's the beginning of the end. It's participation's morendo.  Perhaps imperceptibly at first--but later, undeniably--their interest wanes. Motivation dwindles. Eagerness wanes. Success dries up.

''Just practice it more'' implies that what is missing is merely effort on the part of the student. Yes, some kids can be lazy. But I believe that there is a massive overuse of this phrase that says more about teacher than student.

Many talented performers--lacking a remunerative performing career--start teaching. This may not be ideal. You see, the truly gifted are often unaware of how they do what they do. They just do it. You ask them, "How do you sing that so well in tune?" and they shrug their shoulders and say, "I don't know; like this..." and then start singing beautifully again. We ask, "How do you dance like that?'' and they shrug and answer, "I don't know; like this..." and start dancing amazingly again.

For me, that shoulder shrug coupled with the phrase "I don't know; like this..." is the very definition of talent: unconscious intuition ("I don't know") that leads to demonstrable skill ("like this"). And, of course, they can do the thing. Performers perform. They show you what they can do.

Here's the problem with that:  a teachers job isn't what they can do--a teachers job is how it's done. Students know what they want. They know where they want to go. They don't need a travel brochure showing what it's like in artist nirvana; they need a map of how to get there.

"Just practice it more" can be a sort of white flag. The teacher has surrendered to the mystery of talent and has put the problem of how to learn back on the student. At that point they're not providing a map to success; rather, they're setting a trap for murdering musical mojo. Teachers that do this too often may unwittingly be chasing kids away from the lifelong joys this art can provide.

Now, in fairness to all teachers, until recently the map of how music is learned has been locked in the unconscious mind of the most gifted among us. Talent has been something magical and mysterious, the rest of us gape at uncomprehendingly.

Thankfully, talent is not a mystery anymore. It has been upgraded from a kind of monolithic mystery to a set of particulate problems we can gainfully address. Reams of nifty observational and investigative data has shed light on what happens 'behind the curtain' in the minds of those with the greatest talent.

Less thankfully (in spite of the fact that the science of how the musical mind works has been vibrant over the last 50 years), teacher training has not kept pace with this vibrancy. Indeed, it has remained stodgy. Even stagnant. 

So even though, "just practice it more" is a phrase we can actually begin to banish, it still is used daily by teachers.

So here's the intersection we currently occupy: science has deconstructed talent. Music educators now need to reconstruct curricula in light of the findings.

As more and more of the cognitive underpinnings of talent get mirrored in our teaching, we will have less and less need of the white flag of "just practice it more" that often leads to the red light of "I quit!"  Here in late 2010, the exciting reality is this: every aspect of this lovely art is learn-able by all willing participants provided we follow the revealed cartography of the minds' map.

For me, Dr. Edwin E. Gordon's half-century of research deconstructing talent offers us (among much else) the following educationally enthralling truth: the unconscious intuitions of the most talented can now become conscious tuition for all our students.

Ready for the science-y nitty-gritty? Read on!!

Facts about Music Aptitude or 'Talent':

Research has revealed that Musical talent is:

• Multidimensional. The plural term 'talents' is more accurate. Many disparate areas of the brain are at work simultaneously but independently while, for example, Mark O'Connor improvises a violin concerto.
• Measurable. Even if a child has shown no music achievement, with the right assessment tools we can peek inside her head to find out how rapidly she ought be learning (given a brain-friendly curriculum of merit). 
• Distributed normally in the population. For each type of talent, approximately 1-in-6 will have high aptitude, 1-in-6 will have low aptitude, and 2-of-3 will have normal aptitude.
• Genetic, but not heritable. It does not run in families (It's too multifaceted to be passed down directly.)
• Greatest at or near birth. Absent rich early childhood music experiences, it declines.
• Responsive to nurture. Given rich early childhood music experience, it can rise to our birthright (That's why it seems to run in families.).
• Initially developmental. Responsiveness to nurture--while extremely potent from birth to age three--gradually diminishes with age. The myelineation of the great commissures of the corpus callosum at age 10 causes it to be... 
• Largely stabilized in preadolescence.  Environment after age 10 has very little effect on aptitude (of course, environment & learning always impacts skill).
• Unrelated to other talents. Music and maths, for example, have no meaningful mental correlations.

Our Multiple Music Aptitudes are Measurable
To reiterate: talent is multidimensional. More than twenty factors have been identified. Of those, principal researcher Dr. Edwin E. Gordon has developed tests to measure the most consequential seven. The names he gave to these tests are: Melody, Harmony, Tempo, Meter, Phrasing, Balance, & Style. (Be aware that the test names are shorthand conveniences and don't precisely describe what is being measured. More on that later.)

Statistical analysis shows these tests measure brain functions which are at least 85% disparate. That is, they overlap by less than 15% in the mind. 

One of the keys to understanding how music is learned is to keep in mind that these separate mental modules get pressed into simultaneous service when we are being musical. The unified products of music disguise concurrent disparate processes. 

Wonderfully, Gordon's tests measure potential. No prior musical achievement is necessary to obtain high scores. One needs only to bring clean ears. These seven tests comprise his spectacularly underutilized treasure the Musical Aptitude Profile. It's the MAP we've needed. (Gordon prefers 'aptitude' to 'talent.' I use the terms as synonyms meaning ''the potential for achievement.'')

'MAP' is a tremendous tool. It allows us to to peek into the mind of any student from age 9-18, regardless of what degree of achievement she has shown, and see how rapidly she ought to be learning (provided she's given a curriculum of merit). Gordon has also written other aptitude tests for older and younger students, but MAP is the most comprehensive and diagnostic. It therefore provides us with the best lens for looking at the many separate cognitive gears that mesh in Mark O'Connors head as he improvises, or a four-year-old mind as she invents.

Meshing Mental Modules
As I mentioned, the seven test names in MAP are shorthand. The bold and italicized phrases below are what the brain is actually doing moment by moment when we're being musical.

1.  Melodic Aptitude – we each have some degree of potential for intuitively integrating sequential tones into an overall modal structure. Put another way, Gordon's 'Melody Test' measures how fast one turns the surface structure of melodic tones into the deep structure of a functioning mode. Regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills by:

• Listening to brief, wordless, tonally-rich songs in all modes.
• Singing brief wordless, tonally-rich songs in all modes.
• Echoing functional arpeggios followed by keynotes in all modes.
• Improvising functional arpeggios in all modes.

2.  Harmonic Aptitude – we each have some degree of potential for intuitively integrating simultaneous tones into an overall modal structure. Put more simply, Gordon's 'Harmony Test' measures how fast one grasps tonal patterns when they happen at the same time. Regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills by:

• Learning rounds and partner songs in all modes.
• Aurally identifying harmonic functions (i.e. tonic, dominant, subdominant, etc.)
• Singing the bass lines and/or chord roots to familiar songs. 
• Learning how to notate the tonal patterns that you hear.
• Improvising tonal patterns with and without accompaniment daily.

3.  Tempo Aptitude – we each have some degree of potential for intuitively detecting the kinesthetic feelings of flowing & shifting body weight that underpins rhythm learning. Put more simply, Gordon's 'Tempo Test' measures how fast one grasps the physical feelings that underlie the mental flow of time (More about rhythm here). Regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills by:

• Moving with relaxed flow with as much of our body as possible; like a (calmer) Stevie Wonder.  :-)
• Taking different parts of our body on ‘curvy journeys’; especially backs and hips.
• Listening to music while moving with flow. 

4.  Meter Aptitude – we each have some degree of potential for intuitively integrating rhythm patterns into an overall metric structure. Put more simply, Gordon's 'Meter Test' measures how fast one grasps interactions between the beats and subdivisions they feel and the rhythm patterns they hear or perform. Regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills by:

• Moving to beats and subdivisions while listening to music in all meters.
• Echoing rhythm patterns while moving as above in all meters.
• Improvising rhythm patterns while moving as above.
• Identifying meter in the music you hear. Is it Duple? Triple? Asymmetric?
• While moving, creating rhythmic accompaniments to music.
• Becoming rappers!

5.  Phrasing Aptitude – we each have some degree of potential to intuit how sonority, rubato, intonation, and dynamics interact in musical phrasing.  Put more simply, Gordon's 'Phrasing Test' measures how fast one grasps the qualities that underpin beautiful phrasing. Regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills as we:

• Listen to differing interpretations of the same music. Glen Gould in '55 vs. Glen Gould in '81
• Analyze and discuss our judgments of interpretation with others.
• Notice how timbre and volume impacts phrasing and meaning in speech.
• Perform multiple interpretations of the same music.  
• Record and evaluate your interpretations.

6.  Balance aptitude test– we each have some degree of potential to intuit structural quality in terms of antecedent/consequent balance. Put more simply, Gordon's 'Balance Test' measures how fast one grasps structural quality in creativity, improvisation, and composition. Regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills by:

• Discovering varieties of rhythmic balance by reciting poetry aloud.
• Joining a group that improvises. 
• Listening to rock, pop, jazz and folk improvisations.
• Studying multiple improvisations over a repeated progression. Gonsalves with Ellington
• Composing (provided you're skilled with Melody, Harmony, Tempo & Meter above).

7.  Style Aptitude– we each have some degree of potential to intuit the expressive qualities that arise from interactions of tempo and articulation. Put more simply, Gordon's 'Style Test' measures how fast one grasps stylistic interpretation. Regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills by:

• Learning and applying all suggestions above for Tempo
• Practicing familiar songs at many different speeds. 
• Evaluating and discussing your judgments.
• Applying the true meanings of tempo & expression markings in music.  Allegro ≠ Fast!!

All In Sum, There is Some In All

Every neurologically normal person is born with some aptitude in every one of these areas, and every one of these areas are educable. I just used the following phrase seven times: "regardless of how high our native talent is in this area, we can continually improve our skills by..."  For me, as a dedicated music educator, there is no more exciting notion.

Onward...
If you wish to read more, one important issue only lightly touched on above is this: no matter what degree of potential one is born with, to maintain that potential and not have the brain literally atrophy Early Childhood Essentials are critical.

Personal Note: Edwin E. Gordon’s Music Learning Theory provides the basis for just about everything in this blog. I urge all parents and teachers to discover the efficacy of MLT.  www.giml.org is a great place to start.