Newsgroups: alt.music.filk
Date: Sat,  7 Nov 1992 15:27:53 -0500 
From: Eli Brian Goldberg <eg1n+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Myth Debunking 201, part 1 of 2

[Disclaimer: Like Lola's post, this also contains a number of unpopular
opinions.  I will be more than happy to entertain any criticism, as long as
it is written in a NON-INFLAMMATORY format!]

MYTH #1: There is a mysterious "gift" that allows preselected people to be
         great performers and condemns the "less fortunate" to being
         non-performers or inferior performers.

Talent is NOT a mythical musical gift that separates the Julia Ecklars 
from the stereotypical green neo. Talent is effectively "BORN EXPERIENCE" ---
some people don't have to go through the process of learning to sing on
key, or to sing through their diaphragm, or to develop basic timing skills,
etc --- these abilities "magically" developed on their own.  If you're not
one of them [like me], _SO_ _WHAT_?  You can develop the same skills to the
same degree of magnitude through sheer effort, and in the final tally, be
just as impressive of a performer.  

I, personally, think "talent" was invented to allow people who don't _want_
to learn to improve their musical abilities to claim to have a justified
excuse not to do so: "Oh, little old _me_ can't do this; I don't have
any TALENT..." and thus remain musically unskilled.  [Of course, a simple,
"I just don't have the interest or time to expand my musical skills"
works as well, but it doesn't have the same "feel" of some mythical force
probiting the filker from success.]  

A lot of people who are known for so-called musical "talent" in filk did _not_
start out that way.  In fact, a number of filkers who have virtually no born
musical abilities who end up developing them on their own through years
of hard work are routinely refered to as "talented."  I think this is a
clear demonstration of the fundamental attribution error in action
[remember basic
social science?] in that people try to oversimplify the source of one's
abilities into a broad personality stroke --- "He's just talented."  Just
as "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indestinguishable from magic",
most of the extremely practiced performers are just considered "talented
prodigies".  As a more vivid example, I recall hearing a story from one
filker at Lindy's house from a con this filker was at ---

"A few years ago --- I think it was at a PhilCon --- there was one neo
filker who actually tried to do _God Lives On Terra_ in front of Julia
Ecklar at a filksing --- A Cappella --- and COMPLETELY offkey.  Julia sat
through the entire song, politely smiled at the end, and said, 'I like it
when other people sing my songs', and the filksing continued."

Although it wasn't quite clear whether or not Julia meant that she liked it
when _OTHER_ people sang her songs, I think we can all agree that Tom
Smith has _definitely_ improved since then as a performer.  Likewise,
Jordin Kare has stated that his gift at putting emotion into his
performances was something he distinctly worked on and developed on
his own, and was not a born ability.  Julia Ecklar, even, has worked
extremely hard on improving her voice --- with formal classial training
starting in either Junior High school or High School [I forget], and a
fair amount of her skill results from that fact --- not from being a
"born prodigy."  Leslie Fish worked her b*tt off writing Hope Eyrie over
a period of nearly a DECADE, and even through she seems to find 
writing songs considerably easier since then, she has directly stated
that it wasn't always that way.  [Writing 300-400 filksongs will
do that to you... ;]

A much too common belief also exists that there are performers who are
"talented", and thus worth listening to, and "untalented" performers,
who are best walked out on, and of course, that pure technical skill
is the only difference between these two. BBBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZTTTTTTTTTT!!!! 
It _is_ true, however, that performance quality is significantly related
to one's musical ability *AND* one's _choice of material_.  Almost any filker
can choose material appropriate to his/her voice --- and succeed at performing
it with a reasonable amount of effort.  I can think of one East Coast
filker who has a terribly offkey voice, although is generally fun to listen to
simply because this filker sings non-cliched comic material and puts his/her
heart into it.  If this filker sang, say...serious material, I would
unquestionably walk out on him/her, but this filker _doesn't_.  And
succeeds as a performer as a result.

Finally, for filkers who want to improve, we're all in _FANDOM_!!!  There is 
_certainly_ no shortage of people eager to give voice/guitar lessons
to other motivated filkers!!!  I (as well as many other people, just at
this year's OVFF alone) have been the recipient of Kathy Mar's voice &
guitar
lessons.  Leslie Fish is also notorious for being more than generous
with her time for teaching anyone interested in learning her guitar
licks, and is a _very_ adept teacher.  Cyndi Ross, a filker who attends
a lot of East Coast
cons, is a _great_ percussion teacher [and a great percussionist, BTW]
and literally got everyone who said they could never play the dumbeck to
learn how
to play the dumbeck in 5 minutes flat at last year's Balticon... ;-) I have
said it a dozen times on the net, and will continue to say that I am _ALWAYS_
willing to give guitar lessons to people at cons, as long as they can stand my 
teaching abilities (or lack of them thereof.)  Most filkers will be glad to 
teach what they're doing; I've only been refused once. [by a DC regional
semi-filker].  (Think about it from other other side --- being asked to teach
your musical knowledge --- _ESPECIALLY_ if you're not a "name" filker
--- is the
direct equivalent of a person directly stating that they liked what you did
enough to want to do it on their own.  It's _literally_ a direct compliment.)  

[BTW, on this topic, there is a book/tape from Klutz Press called _Country
and Blues Guitar for the Musically Hopeless_.  It is _EXTREMELY_ well done,
and ANY filker interested in learning the guitar should check it out
_immediately_!  I don't think it costs more than the average filk tape
nowadays!  I know Firebird sells it; I don't think Wail Songs does, or
at least not at cons...]

[To be continued]

|  "Carnegie Mellon: Where the fun never stops --- because it never starts!" |
|Internet: eg1n@andrew.cmu.edu Filknet: "Hey, you with the 12-string guitar!"|
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