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Gifted vs Non Gifted Singers

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bricksquad

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If Im not a gifted basket ball player, how far can I go? If Im not a gifted programmer, how far can I go? If Im not a gifted guitar player, how far can I go?

I dont know, how do you figure if you are gifted before working on it? This rule this guy mentioned about mimicing is not really a parameter. A lot of the people who figure it out naturally do not mimic that well, a lot of people that mimic well, cant sing at all. A lot of it has to do with musicianship, then again some singers only know a few intervals instinctively and never give a second thought about it.

Its a multitude of skills (multidisciplinar). And sometimes even if you dont have an easy time with one or another point, that can be holding you back and you are quite good on a bunch of others. There is no way to know prior. There is no way for we to predict the future or know all the variables in of your past that may affect you now.

In the end it boils down to wanting to learn, yes or no, and doing it. What do you want?

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as far as you want.

If you don't mind me asking, what are the criteria I should use when trying to pick a coach? Also does it depend on my goals and aspirations as a singer or are there other factors that need to be considered?

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If you don't mind me asking, what are the criteria I should use when trying to pick a coach? Also does it depend on my goals and aspirations as a singer or are there other factors that need to be considered?

That's an excellent question and yes it does depend on what your goals are. I consulted with a classical coach who would definitely eschew "distortion" in singing. Which was fine, for me, as I am not seeking to add distortion to my sound.

And we have occasionally had threads about what would be valued in a coach because just the phrase "get a coach" is a bit weak without some kind of goal in mind.

But essentially, you need a coach that speaks in terms that are understandable to you and the coach should have no problem explaining to you what he or she means. If the response is, instead, "well, you just need to know" and being arrogant, well, I predict not much progress, there.

A coach should be able to demonstrate the sound or technique they are teaching, whether they are the "greatest singer in the world," or not.

The teacher should also be able to adapt teaching to your special needs. For example, to produce a clean and true ah sound, the teacher needs to determine first if your accent is changing the ah. Some southern accents have more of a cat sound in father. So, the teacher might have you try oh, the same way that a guy helped my nasty slice in my golf swing by having me intentionally create a bit of a hook in my shot to counter balance it, which resulted in a 150 yard shot with a 5 iron right down the middle of the driving range.

Some guys like teachers who kick their butts, others like teachers who make them laugh.

But just to start, you might look at choirs and theater people in your area, if there are any.

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"Gifted" only means that as a child you were interested enough to learn about something and give attention to how you are doing it. :cool:

You may want to ask yourself WHY you want to improve your singing skills. Goals are important, style, Genre, Venue ........ What may be Awesome, stylistic, emotion filled ...... in one Genre may be considered failure in another.

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I do believe in a "gift" as I have noticed I definitely have had ridiculously different results learning the different musical (and non-musical) skills I have and the only way I can reasonably account for the easier/faster learning curves is me having a "gift" at that skill to help me along.

In other words, I have experienced being very gifted at some skills and very non-gifted at others. Here's how I define the terms:

gifted=head start on skill and/or naturally inclined to progress faster.

non-gifted=starting from the beginning of the learning curve and/or naturally inclined to progress slower.

I believe this differentiation is scientifically caused and I would bet differences in brain chemistry has the biggest impact and I think both nature and nurture are involved in bringing it about.

The good news is the only difference between being gifted or not in accomplishing the result is the amount of time/work/money you have to invest to get the results you want.

Some other details worth noting:

-Being gifted or not does not seem to affect reliability of performance after you surpass intermediate skill level. At first being non-gifted you may have some pretty big failures that gifted folks may have not experienced when they started and this is what tends to mislead folks into giving up, not realizing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel if they keep working at it hard enough. Once you are intermediate-to-advanced at your craft, the idea of gifted vs. non-gifted means nothing in terms of getting the job done consistently, putting on a show, getting professional opportunities, etc. No one will be able to tell the difference regarding how you learned, only differences in skill level.

-Being non-gifted and then getting through the vast majority of the learning curve tends to automatically make you a gifted teacher. Being gifted at just doing the skill tends to skip you through a bunch of stuff so then it's much harder to teach others, especially beginners and non-gifted individuals. However, of course it can be done. It just tends to require the reverse approach - people with a gift in DOING a skill then tend to end up at square one with teaching it and have to learn mostly from scratch, like a non-gifted individual, how to teach it.

-This whole gifted/non-gifted idea applies to anything you'll ever learn in your life. Also of course you can be somewhere in the middle it's not necessarily black or white all gifted or all not-gifted for any particular skill.

I'm only 19 and still learning about this but I'm grateful to have discovered this much about the learning process so far. It's been life changing to me to be able to make concrete conclusions about this based on my life experiences, and I hope it helps others.

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I do believe in a "gift" as I have noticed I definitely have had ridiculously different results learning the different musical (and non-musical) skills I have and the only way I can reasonably account for the easier/faster learning curves is me having a "gift" at that skill to help me along.

In other words, I have experienced being very gifted at some skills and very non-gifted at others. Here's how I define the terms:

gifted=head start on skill and/or naturally inclined to progress faster.

non-gifted=starting from the beginning of the learning curve and/or naturally inclined to progress slower.

I believe this differentiation is scientifically caused and I would bet differences in brain chemistry has the biggest impact and I think both nature and nurture are involved in bringing it about.

The good news is the only difference between being gifted or not in accomplishing the result is the amount of time/work/money you have to invest to get the results you want.

Some other details worth noting:

-Being gifted or not does not seem to affect reliability of performance after you surpass intermediate skill level. At first being non-gifted you may have some pretty big failures that gifted folks may have not experienced when they started and this is what tends to mislead folks into giving up, not realizing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel if they keep working at it hard enough. Once you are intermediate-to-advanced at your craft, the idea of gifted vs. non-gifted means nothing in terms of getting the job done consistently, putting on a show, getting professional opportunities, etc. No one will be able to tell the difference regarding how you learned, only differences in skill level.

-Being non-gifted and then getting through the vast majority of the learning curve tends to automatically make you a gifted teacher. Being gifted at just doing the skill tends to skip you through a bunch of stuff so then it's much harder to teach others, especially beginners and non-gifted individuals. However, of course it can be done. It just tends to require the reverse approach - people with a gift in DOING a skill then tend to end up at square one with teaching it and have to learn mostly from scratch, like a non-gifted individual, how to teach it.

-This whole gifted/non-gifted idea applies to anything you'll ever learn in your life. Also of course you can be somewhere in the middle it's not necessarily black or white all gifted or all not-gifted for any particular skill.

I'm only 19 and still learning about this but I'm grateful to have discovered this much about the learning process so far. It's been life changing to me to be able to make concrete conclusions about this based on my life experiences, and I hope it helps others.

Honestly, I'm really happy that you said that. It may not have been the answer I expected, but it was the answer that I needed.

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Own nailed it. With any instrument you'll find those who have studied it with a teacher (or even in an academy) and those who just picked up the instrument and figured it out by themselves, with minimal 'official' help. If your audience enjoys your work (it could be just you in your room, of course) nobody cares if you're naturally gifted or well trained.

Additionally, there are a lot of singers that might be considered 'naturals' while they are actually not - many singers started with choirs in their childhood or were raised in a house where one of the parents took lessons. A lot of the guys who say they never took lessons neglect the following phrase: 'but my parents did, and they've taught me all they could'...

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To be gifted at any skill just means your got an early start in learning it. IQ does factor in, but let's not go there.

You've probably noticed that children are much better learners than adults. Do not discount how important this is. Your progression as a singer as unlimited, but starting late does put you at a disadvantage because a lot the greats built their foundation unconsciously. Still, go for it. One day you'll look back and think "I can't believe I haven't always done this.."

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You know something.. there is a gift that I think is above a lot of other gifts and skills. And that is the power of will. Your ability to commit. Decide you want something and do whatever you can to prove yourself that you can do it. :)

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You know something.. there is a gift that I think is above a lot of other gifts and skills. And that is the power of will. Your ability to commit. Decide you want something and do whatever you can to prove yourself that you can do it. :)

Exactly - dedication, focus and maybe understanding that music is not a competition. You do what you do to provoke emotions and/or entertain - not to "win"....

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That is so true, Johnny :)

Arts are not, and should never be a competition. If it really makes you happy when making others feel what you are feeling, then you are already an artist. The rest of the journey is finding and developing the channel to convey that to others.

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