Talent is overrated - anyone can be a great producer

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destinmoffett

New member
Yo!

Often times I have caught myself comparing my work to that of the greats (ie. Martin Garrix, Oliver Heldens, Tiesto and so on). I tend to ask questions like, "Am I talented enough?" or say things like "Oh these producers are just special," or "they were just born with it and I wasn't." I have found that this inner voice trying to talk me down is quite depressing, so I decided to do some research to see if it was right.

I love to read. I truly believe that some of history's most impactful human beings valued the knowledge in books. I just finished reading Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated and I found it to be very applicable to my aspirations as a music producer. I have also read Malcolm Gladwell's OutlierS and Daniel Coyle's The Talent Code to further my research. I wanted to take some time to share with you guys what I learned!

Through years of data, researchers have essentially proved that the concept of innate talent does not exist and/or is irrelevant to a person's overall performance. What drives people to do great work is not talent, but passion. And the deciding factor to whether or not that person succeeds is the amount of time that person puts in to practicing their craft.

Malcolm Gladwell observed that it takes about 10,000 hours to become a world class expert at anything. This equates to about 3 hours of practice a day for 10 years, or 6 hours a day for 5.

People tend to forget that young successful producers like Martin Garrix and Oliver Heldens have been producing music for the majority of their lives. This should be encouraging to you! Anyone can be successful in the music industry, it's just a matter of how much time and effort you put into practicing your craft. There is no question of whether or not you are creative enough, or musically talented enough or whatever. No one was born with those gifts. Everyone comes into this world with the same amount of potential. The greats just practiced a ton. The most successful producers were relentless in practicing their music, even when they didn't feel like it.

Stop questioning whether or not you have what it takes, or if your creative enough. Success is not dependent upon natural born abilities, its dependent upon work. If you want to see success as a music producer, commit to working really hard, and understand that with enough persistence and enough patience, YOU WILL MAKE IT!

Thanks,

Destin
 
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Encouraging words! Though I'm not sure if I totally agree. As no one can be an expert at anything without a crap load of practise I'm still pretty convinced that talent plays a part in most things. It depends on what one is trying to achieve though. Often you can compensate a lot by working harder, but for example if you want to be the fastest runner there is (or even a world class runner) you most likely won't be able to achieve that no matter how much effort you put in to it. That's something you just have to have the talent for (or genes). Though if you're strictly talking about music then those words were accurate!

I've actually given a lot of thought on these things and one thing I love about music is the fact that you can't be the best or worst. There's no absolut truths or measures to categorize good or bad. After all it's all about expressing one self and personal preferences, so in arts talent doesn't make that much of a difference. Of course theroretical talent helps a lot, but that's not what it's about. And even if you knew everything there's to know about theory and producing it still doesn't mean you're able to make a good track.

But hard work never goes to waste! Even if you're most talented person, the more work you put in the better you'll get! Great topic in any case!

P.S. I should already be a universum class expert at producing if that 10,000 hour rule would apply. :D
 
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There's quite a few variables to consider when talking about what's good.
A producer could be a technical marvel but a sound that stylistically doesn't capture an audience.
What I consider to be good is subjective to my own frame of reference.

I would maintain that to be successful there needs to be at least a modicum of talent behind your grind and if you have only a modicum of talent then you'd better have one hell of a winning personality; cos that grind might sell dogsh*t once or twice - but when people realise it stinks they won't buy it again unless you can convince them it now smells of roses.
 
10,000 hours has actually been debunked...in a good way its actually less, there was a study on it. Seen it on one of the TED talks, interesting..... I know people who have made it big in their respective fields and believe me it wasn't talent
 
I think one variable that might be forgotten by most is considering the environment that the given expert was brought up. Mozart's father began teaching him to compose at the age of 4. Tiger Woods' father gave him his first club at 2 years old. Alot of these experts weren't born prodigies, they just started practicing at a very early age. However, your points are very valid, and I do agree with you!

Thanks!
 
But hey, what is talent?

Are those artists listed above really talented, or are they just knowledgefull? You say research indicates the talent-thing is false, and that there is a pattern for becoming an expert in something. But isn't talent defining those people who break the pattern and become experts unnaturally fast - that niche of geniuses? Or people who become experts despite not having access to all this knowledge in books and finds out quite advanced things their own way - maybe because they're the ones who later wrote these books?

This following example is somewhat overused, but still very helpful - Mozart. Do I have to say anything more? He broke this pattern that we've mapped in a very extreme way - that is talent. To spend 10 years to become an expert has more to do with knowledge than talent as again, talent defines those who stand out from the crowd with sharp contrast.
 
Yes! Mozart was used as an example in Outliers and Talent Is Overrated. Actually if you look at Mozart's life, you will see that he was not a prodigy at all. Here is a passage from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers:

"Mozart, for example, famously started writing music at six. But, writes the psychologist Michael howe in his book Genius Explained by the standards of mature composers, Mozart’s early works are not outstanding. The earliest pieces were all probably written down by his father, and perhaps improved in the process. Many of wolfgang’s childhood compositions, such as the first seven of his concertos for piano and orchestra, are largely arrangements of works by other composers. Of those concertos that only contain music original to Mozart, the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K. 271) was not composed until he was twenty-one; by that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years.”
 
This is a passage straight out of Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin:

"Tiger Woods’ father was Earl Woods. Like Leopold Mozart, Earl was only average as a golfer, but he loved to teach. He and his wife had decided that Tiger would be their only son and they would nurture his development as much as possible. He gave Tiger his first putter at the age of 7 months and began hitting balls with him at the age of 2. He then had Tiger working with professional instructors as early as the age of 4. Tiger even admits that he did not have a natural talent for golf. Only that he had a natural desire to be like the man he admired most – his father. Which gave him the extra willpower to practice and improve his skills."
 
destinmoffett said:
Yes! Mozart was used as an example in Outliers and Talent Is Overrated. Actually if you look at Mozart's life, you will see that he was not a prodigy at all. Here is a passage from Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers:

"Mozart, for example, famously started writing music at six. But, writes the psychologist Michael howe in his book Genius Explained by the standards of mature composers, Mozart’s early works are not outstanding. The earliest pieces were all probably written down by his father, and perhaps improved in the process. Many of wolfgang’s childhood compositions, such as the first seven of his concertos for piano and orchestra, are largely arrangements of works by other composers. Of those concertos that only contain music original to Mozart, the earliest that is now regarded as a masterwork (No. 9, K. 271) was not composed until he was twenty-one; by that time Mozart had already been composing concertos for ten years.”
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Well that doesn't change much of my stance more than that I can't use that example, the ideology remains. If you do some research I'm sure you'll find plenty other examples (which I'm too lazy to do for you as this is only another random debate on the internet).
My point with the word "talent" is that it may be a large misconception these days as people use talent so much in daily conversations that they're undermining the true meaning of it, hence why some people claim that talent is a lie and link it to being successfull and knowledgefull - because they no longer understand what may have been the true meaning of it. It's a bit of philosophy/linguistics subject.
 
I'm not sure I'd even call any modern electronic music talented. Nor any musician at all- maybe some of the big classical names (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven) possibly but only because they're music has endured for hundreds of years.

Brian Eno did a talk on radio six music saying how it's much more about having a big community where artists can feed off each others ideas than having one guy who's great and did it all by himself.
I personally think it works like evolution- making small but pretty much random changes to a track/genre over time and keep the ones that sound good.
 
I'm not sure I agree with that... Some producers consistantly drop fire beats. You see 'Produced by:' and their name on a new rappers album and you know it's gonna bang hard. Surely that's (although subjective) a recognition of talent?
 
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Not true at all. I've known people (Person A) who just pick something up and are just good at it and others (person B) who will try the same thing and even after a year or two, still not be at the level of person A when Person A was just starting out. I think everyone has the potential to be great, but nobody starts out at the same place.
 
I'mNoGuru said:
I'm not sure I agree with that... Some producers consistantly drop fire beats. You see 'Produced by:' and their name on a new rappers album and you know it's gonna bang hard. Surely that's (although subjective) a recognition of talent?
Click to expand...

You might like their music, I'm sure it's not bad music.
but doesn't it all stick pretty close to the same formula... whoever it is got lucky and found a sound that's good, so they just repeat the same principle over with just enough variations to keep it interesting.

Also, it could just be that they've spent a lot of hours on their music. That's not talent, that's dedication, which is completely different.
 
Overrated or not, it doesn't mean talent doesn't exist. It's not just the magical ability to do it all without trying that it's - more or less - often made to be. There's of course also a lot of technical proficiency in this craft that almost anyone can learn with enough hours put into it. A lot of what's considered "having an ear for it" probably results from listening enough of different things, which brings it under "technical proficiency" as well. But not all of it - there's that sliver of magic somewhere that gives some people the kind of intuition and ability to combine things that shouldn't make any sense, and that just won't come to everyone no matter how many hours they've put into it.
 
I feel that talent and hardwork go hand in hand. I do believe that some people are just born with a better ear than others, and have this predisposition of music from there genes (or somewhere). However, if not worked towards, they won't accomplish anything with just talent. Visa versa, people with no talent but who are committed can absolutely transcend that barrier.
 
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