Huh. I don't actually know how I feel about this question, so I'm going to ramble a bit and hope I end up somewhere useful.
So, to begin with, I am the only member of my (abusive) bio-family without perfect pitch. I love music, I love singing, but I was constantly bullied over it, told to shut up and stop "ruining" whatever music was happening. So I taught myself to sing according to their standards; I have to actually play a song on piano from sheet music in order to make my voice learn it, I cannot sing by ear or by sight (except Gregorian notation, interestingly) without playing it first, except sometimes when I've heard the same exact recording a *lot*. Occasionally I can bypass the "do not have a keyboard" part by ~playing~ the sheet music *without* a keyboard, on whatever surface, bypassing the first step of the sound-to-sight-to-space-to-sound translation, but I don't know what makes that work.
I don't consider myself talented at music. I am *passionate* about music, I was literally not able to just shut up and listen. I had to be participating in the music. I don't know if the years of plunking away on our old piano trying to teach my voice to associate Middle C key with Middle C sound with "vocal cords must do like this", fully unsuccessful until my youngest sister took pity on me and actually sat down and told me "Yes, that's Middle C, try to go one note up", would have been even more painful without whatever nebulous thing makes you talented. But I was able with much struggle to learn a skill I still don't think of myself as "talented" at, is kinda the short version there.
On the flip side, I'm also an excellent knitter, pretty darn close to "master craftsman" lever -- there are two more techniques I would need to learn in order to say in truth that I would be able to knit any pattern you put in front of me. (I haven't learned them because they're both two-strand techniques and my ability to match or blend colors is... extremely erratic. Colors are much like music to me in that everything looks/sounds good together and I struggle to find the aesthetic preference that will make others not bully me over it.)
Uh. What was I saying? Right. I learned to knit at age twelve in a 4-H class. I also learned cake decorating and flower arranging in similar classes. Knitting was the one that stuck. I don't know if I'm a "talented" knitter or just a bloody-minded one who enjoyed having something my eggcubator could not do, but would buy me supplies for. I do remember when I was knitting my first scarf, feeling like it was unbearably slow and convincing myself to continue by telling myself "every stitch I do now is one I don't have to do later", but I also remember being the fastest of the beginning knitters in the class (I won a little packet of two blunt-ended yarn needles for weaving in ends, which I treasured for many years as I had no way to get more, and that definitely contributed to me continuing to knit as I had everything I needed to make satisfying finished products.) And I remember carrying my knitting everywhere, such that people gave me patterns and yarn and more needles because knitters are Like That(tm). So there was a whole feedback loop of boredom and luck and maybe some talent too, that got me into knitting in a big way.
(It was also a handicraft that satisfied both Herself to see me doing a "womanly art" and me as a small transmasc tortoise to be doing something I could consider more "manly" due to the legends of sock-knitting Scotsmen. That probably contributed in a big way. But I don't know if it was talent or sheer competitive stubbornness that got me over that first hump and won me those little yarn needles.)
I'm also really good at writing. I suspect I am talented at that one. The near-photographic memory for words helps too, I can and do overanalyze how other writers produce the effects I'm looking for. Which may be a part of my talent for it, if we're defining talent as whatever nebulous thing makes the practicing less painful.
On the other hand, one of my sisters is talented at the violin, as in she was four and someone handed her a small violin and she made violin noises come out of it on the first try instead of dead cat noises. The ability to skip that first step of being absolutely horrible at the new skill is what I think of as talent. (She is not a professional concert violinist, because abusive family. Any healthy-minded parent should have said "I will get this child violin lessons stat". Herself, unable to bear to give any of us an ability she couldn't take credit for, blocked my sister from getting violin lessons until her twenties.)
Uh. Where was I? Right. To me, talent is picking up a violin for the first time and not sounding like a beginner. But maybe it should be more broadly defined to include whatever nebulous set of circumstances made me a master knitter. Or maybe that's just luck. ;-)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 08:32 am (UTC)So, to begin with, I am the only member of my (abusive) bio-family without perfect pitch. I love music, I love singing, but I was constantly bullied over it, told to shut up and stop "ruining" whatever music was happening. So I taught myself to sing according to their standards; I have to actually play a song on piano from sheet music in order to make my voice learn it, I cannot sing by ear or by sight (except Gregorian notation, interestingly) without playing it first, except sometimes when I've heard the same exact recording a *lot*. Occasionally I can bypass the "do not have a keyboard" part by ~playing~ the sheet music *without* a keyboard, on whatever surface, bypassing the first step of the sound-to-sight-to-space-to-sound translation, but I don't know what makes that work.
I don't consider myself talented at music. I am *passionate* about music, I was literally not able to just shut up and listen. I had to be participating in the music. I don't know if the years of plunking away on our old piano trying to teach my voice to associate Middle C key with Middle C sound with "vocal cords must do like this", fully unsuccessful until my youngest sister took pity on me and actually sat down and told me "Yes, that's Middle C, try to go one note up", would have been even more painful without whatever nebulous thing makes you talented. But I was able with much struggle to learn a skill I still don't think of myself as "talented" at, is kinda the short version there.
On the flip side, I'm also an excellent knitter, pretty darn close to "master craftsman" lever -- there are two more techniques I would need to learn in order to say in truth that I would be able to knit any pattern you put in front of me. (I haven't learned them because they're both two-strand techniques and my ability to match or blend colors is... extremely erratic. Colors are much like music to me in that everything looks/sounds good together and I struggle to find the aesthetic preference that will make others not bully me over it.)
Uh. What was I saying? Right. I learned to knit at age twelve in a 4-H class. I also learned cake decorating and flower arranging in similar classes. Knitting was the one that stuck. I don't know if I'm a "talented" knitter or just a bloody-minded one who enjoyed having something my eggcubator could not do, but would buy me supplies for. I do remember when I was knitting my first scarf, feeling like it was unbearably slow and convincing myself to continue by telling myself "every stitch I do now is one I don't have to do later", but I also remember being the fastest of the beginning knitters in the class (I won a little packet of two blunt-ended yarn needles for weaving in ends, which I treasured for many years as I had no way to get more, and that definitely contributed to me continuing to knit as I had everything I needed to make satisfying finished products.) And I remember carrying my knitting everywhere, such that people gave me patterns and yarn and more needles because knitters are Like That(tm). So there was a whole feedback loop of boredom and luck and maybe some talent too, that got me into knitting in a big way.
(It was also a handicraft that satisfied both Herself to see me doing a "womanly art" and me as a small transmasc tortoise to be doing something I could consider more "manly" due to the legends of sock-knitting Scotsmen. That probably contributed in a big way. But I don't know if it was talent or sheer competitive stubbornness that got me over that first hump and won me those little yarn needles.)
I'm also really good at writing. I suspect I am talented at that one. The near-photographic memory for words helps too, I can and do overanalyze how other writers produce the effects I'm looking for. Which may be a part of my talent for it, if we're defining talent as whatever nebulous thing makes the practicing less painful.
On the other hand, one of my sisters is talented at the violin, as in she was four and someone handed her a small violin and she made violin noises come out of it on the first try instead of dead cat noises. The ability to skip that first step of being absolutely horrible at the new skill is what I think of as talent. (She is not a professional concert violinist, because abusive family. Any healthy-minded parent should have said "I will get this child violin lessons stat". Herself, unable to bear to give any of us an ability she couldn't take credit for, blocked my sister from getting violin lessons until her twenties.)
Uh. Where was I? Right. To me, talent is picking up a violin for the first time and not sounding like a beginner. But maybe it should be more broadly defined to include whatever nebulous set of circumstances made me a master knitter. Or maybe that's just luck. ;-)