Can Everyone Learn To Play?

There was a deaf, dumb and blind kid once, but he played a mean pinball.

Nope. I've never met anyone who couldn't make music in some form or another.

I've never met anyone who I felt just had utterly No potential. Met quite a few people who weren't working very hard to use what they had.

He...ck, if I can get a (barely recognisable) tune out of a musical instrument, anyone can :shock:

Ok, so have any of you ever met someone who could play guitar, but didn't have any 'feel'? What I mean by feel is, they could play a song, but very mechanically with no emotion or 'feel' to the piece? Is that emotion something learned or something embedded in a musically talented person?

Some of these questions are posed because it amazes me how some people can just hear a piece of music and start playing it. They seem to have the gift of a musically oriented ear. I've only been playing for around 6 months, but I sometimes wonder if I'll ever be able to do what those others are capable of.

I've written about this before, what they really have isn't a musical ear, but the ability to actively listen.

I had a friend who played oboe. We were listening to classical music one day and he was whistling the oboe part. I realized that even though I knew the symphony well, I hadn't ever really heard it.

For an artist the skill is seeing
for a musician the skill is hearing

That's interesting you say that. I've noticed in the past six months how much differently I listen to music. I've always loved music and always listened to it as a whole. Now I notice myself focusing more on the guitar parts. I suppose once my experience levels increase I might be able to listen in the fashion and play it. I hope so anyway.

Music comes from the soul. If you keep doubting yourself you'll never let the music flow out.

"Have you ever seen someone who was not capable of learning an intrument no matter how hard they tried?"

Yes, me. I've been playing a few years and sound as bad as the day I first picked up the guitar. I methodically pick at notes and have no emotion in my playing. But if being "good" was the criteria for whether or not someone should play, I imagine there'd also be a lot of empty golf courses.

Hang in there.

I've got a right to be wrong
Got to sing my own song
I might be singing out of key
But it sure feels good to me
- Joss Stone

I've been teaching guitar a pretty a long time (in my 28th year), and I've taught hundreds of beginners. Some people have a very hard time with 'feel', and you pretty much know they'll never be instrumental wizards. But everybody improves with effort.

Of all the people I've met, I've only come across one - a woman in her late teens - who was 'tone deaf'. She absolutely couldn't hear the difference between two pitches, no matter how far apart... couldn't even tell which one was higher or lower. Even she learned to play some guitar (although she couldn't tune it, if the instrument happened to be in tune she could play it).

Crank,

Man it's like deja vu reading your post. I've probably posted the same thing here several times.

You definitely can improve your playing how much will be determined by the amount of time/effort you put into it.

On the other hand I also believe there is a limit to how far you as an individual can go, I know other people have much differing opinions on this, but that doesn't mean you can't become a very good guitarist.

Personally I think everyone starts with different "natural" skills and even though you may not have as much "natural" ability as someone else you still may end up being a better musician/player just from shear dedication.

But as long as you don't have any physical limitations you shouldn't have to worry about maxing out, just keep playing and have fun and you'll get where you want to go.

I guess I should point out that I didn't really post this because I'm frustrated with my playing. On the contrary, I believe I've made decent progress in the short time I've been playing. I was just curious if everyone who makes an effort to learn actually does.

I spend at least 30 minutes playing just about every day. Most days it's more like 1 - 1.5 hours. I can't play a whole song all the way through (well, unless Jingle Bells counts :D ) but I know a lot of scales and progressions. I'm learning some fretboard logic and music theory right now. I've already written lyrics for three songs and I'm working on a music piece as well. They probably aren't very good, but considering my limited ability, well, ya gotta start someplace. :wink:

And when I started learning, my goal was to write and record my own stuff. I've already started do that so I'm happy. I smile when I think about how much better I'll be this time next year, and the year after that, and ....

Music is in the genes of every person' some are more apt to it than others, but pretty much anyone can do music of some type. Can everyone do guitar? I wouldn't say that, but I think a good majority of people could do it.

Pretty much everyone is frustrated with their playing at some point. You might want to go for some lessons; have a teacher show you some songs and apply all those scale patterns and theory to real music.

Of all the people I've met, I've only come across one - a woman in her late teens - who was 'tone deaf'. She absolutely couldn't hear the difference between two pitches, no matter how far apart... couldn't even tell which one was higher or lower. Even she learned to play some guitar (although she couldn't tune it, if the instrument happened to be in tune she could play it).

That's amazing, It makes me wish I knew someone like that just so I could experiment on them. (Mad scientist mode)

If you played a familiar melody like twinkle twinkle little star could she identify it? Could she recognize when she made a mistake playing something? If so it would seem the ability to recognize pitches must be in there somewhere and it just needs to be unlocked somehow.

I'm wondering if it's just an inabilty, to correlate the concept of higher and lower with differences in pitch. I wonder if it would be easier for her to correlate pitch with some other concept like left and right, or red and blue?

It seems like even our understanding of speech is dependent on a recognition of pitch. Like when you say the exact same sentence but as a question rather than a statement, the pitch goes up at the end. Maybe I'd play two notes and say, does it sound more like a question or a statement.

The brain can be very strange sometimes, like with split brain patients. (patients who have had the bundle of nerves that connect the right and left brain severed in order to stop some kind of seizures) I read of an expiriment where a word is flashed on a screen to one eye and the patient can't say what the word is but they can write it. And they know they wrote something but don't know what they wrote. So i guess it's entirely conceivable that someone could do certain tasks that seem to require pitch recognition, but still not recognize pitches.

It's fascinating stuff. It just shows how complicated the brain is.

Just last night I was telling my wife that I've come to the conclusion that if I had better rhythmic instincts I'd be a much better guitarist by now (I'm the kind of guy who gets off-beat when there's rhythmic clapping at one of my kids school productions). I think that's where the heart/soul in music comes from. I can hit the notes and chords, but that feel is frequently missing.

What I don't get, though, is why I can listen to a song (Creedence' Down On the Corner, for example) and appear to "air" strum dead on, but when I try on my guitar, I feel lost.

So bottomline, I do think it comes easier/more naturally to some. But that doesn't mean some can't do it, they just have to work harder at it.