I've lost most of my belief in a higher supreme power but can't seem to over come the idea if God given talents. I have the gift of playing the piano by ear. I can play anything I hear and have the ability to make great music. All my life I have been told I have a god given talent to do this. I just can't reconcile it with my new belief or disbelief per se.

What are your thoughts?

I am exactly the same way - perfect pitch, play with music or by ear, play what I hear, and can make great music (I follow singers, groups, musicals, etc. well). I too have been wondering if this is God-given or just a fluke. Not sure how it works and am anxious to hear other peoples' thoughts.

Sorry about the provocation the other night. I was a bit of an ass.

No worries, GLAJ. I wrote you a post - not sure you've seen it though. Check it out - it's entitled "To GLAJ", or something similar and wonderful like that. To each his own and all is well, o.k. :)

I think talent has more to do with genes and heredity than anything else.

Like you, I play the piano by ear, have perfect pitch and have a penchant for singing opera. Whether God gave me these abilities or not, who knows?

I mostly attribute my musical abilities to my genes- my dad has a voice like an angel, my aunt is a genius on the piano, and my maternal grandmother started singing with the MoTab choir when she was 17.

Just my take.

Add me to the list of the musically inclined. I don't play piano much anymore, but I have perfect pitch and about a 3.5 octave vocal range. I have very musical parents and extended family and I always attributed my talents to genetics and the fact that I was exposed to music very early. My mom is an organist, my dad sings (or used to before his voice was ruined by a trach), and I have aunts, uncles, and cousins who are mostly self-taught musicians.

Did any of you folks with perfect pitch take part in the study being done by the University of California at San Francisco? They're doing some cool research on why some people have perfect pitch.

http://perfectpitch.ucsf.edu/



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2011 07:11PM by knotheadusc.

I'm in that study - joined up a few years ago. They came out to the house and got a blood sample and I did a test or two online. Haven't heard much since - wish they'd send out some results.

Very thought-provoking thread - thanks for starting this, Piano Man. It gives me much to think about, which I appreciate. I'm really working hard to sort out a lot of stuff nowadays - I'm taking nothing for granted and am starting back at square one on basically everything. It's quite a journey, but totally worth it.

I'm in the study, too. They asked for information about my family, but no one else related to me has it as far as I know. I took the test twice and noticed that the tones they played were exactly the same.

They didn't take any blood from me, but then I live a long way from San Francisco.

Just went to their site via your link and saw study results posted. Can't wait to browse those. Thanks. :)

Blindness, tay-sachs, dyslexia, etc. If he gets credit for everything good, he should also take the blame for everything bad.

...if you're good at, say, erm....*other* stuff that may be considered a sin...how d'you explain that if you believe God gives people talents?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/18/2011 06:51PM by steve benson.

Hail Satan!

I think there's enough in our social surroundings, our conscious thought and our genes to account for extraordinary talents.

If you have spent alot of time with the piano as a child, and most likely you have done so, you'll get good at it. It's a positive circle: you have an inclination for something, therefore it's rewarding to do it, you get better at it and before you know it your'e so good that it "must be god-given". No, it's all inclination and practice.

If it was for "god given talents" life would never have evolved from single cell organisms. As biological creatures our inate skill sets vary to a greater or lesser degree from each other. Yours lend themselves toward reproducing auditory sounds, another person may have athletic aptitude, and another an aptitude for math.

I think we would expect to see variation in abilities to do things that would be considered talents just like we see variations in things like height, athletic coordination, voice quality, etc.

If you are really good with music, you won the music gene lottery where hard-wiring relating to sound and processing of sound might be more developed.

Can you calculate square roots and do all kinds of math in your head? Can you pick up multiple languages easily? It's all accounted for in the genes and inclination to strengthen the tendencies we might have. I don't think there is any reason to resort to the supernatural (god) to explain talents.

Now see... I have a lot of natural musical ability, but I completely suck at math and am not in any way athletic... again, just like most of the people in my immediate family. P.E. was hell for me because I was always the kid that got picked last in team sports... especially when we played volleyball or basketball.

Incidentally, I actually quit doing anything with music from the time I was about 10 until I went to college because my parents were so into music and my dad and I don't get along. I knew that if I got involved with musical stuff, I would be forced to join a bunch of ensembles and that would mean having to spend a lot of time with him. I love my dad, but I don't like him all that much, if you know what I mean. I got involved with horses instead. I'm not particularly talented when it comes to riding, but I did okay. I kinda miss it now, even though I haven't ridden on a regular basis since 1990.

I got back into music in college because I had to fulfill a general ed arts requirement and ended up getting recruited.

I want to go totally OT, but about music, so I'm gonna steal some space in your thread. :)

I grew up with the sort of poor mormons who also prided themselves in being deprived. As if deliberate sacrifice somehow made them more better..

In no other category was this more evident than with music. As an infant I was regarded as "graced" because I could vaguely carry a tune before I could speak. My mother liked to brag that she could take me to relief society and I would sing along like a little angel, even without words.

However, in any other setting, my life was completely deprived of music.
There was church, any music that happened to be on sesame street, and my mother had a handful of records of which she played only two. Wake me up before you go go... Whatever that was, she exercised to it. And a stranger choice, by Pet Shop Boys, West End Girls.
And she had a handful of classics she played on the perpetually out of tune piano when she wasn't practising a hymn. Fur Else and a couple others.

At some point I got a hold of 99 Red Balloons in English. I LOVE!!! that song!!!


Anyways, that was it. My dad just knew we would fall prey to modern music and insisted the music of his day was really running right up to that precarious precipice of the evils of rock and roll. *I roll my eyes, he's 57.* When I was 16 I got my first clock/RADIO, but he was on a crusade to make sure he couldn't hear it. With ears like a bat he'd find me listening with headphones and make me turn it off.
(Eventually I started messing with him. When I heard him coming I'd slowly turn down the volume on the headphones until he came in, mad that I was "damaging my hearing". Insisting that it wasn't too loud until he put them on to check, and then dialing the volume back up as he left.)

I had a burning desire to hear music, but it was mostly forbidden. I have a moderate talent for it, in fact I can play along with songs I have never heard, provided I only use one finger on the piano, or one string on a guitar. I think chord progression and improvisation within the given structure of a song comes very naturally to me, but creating my own? No...

Nothing like what you real talents on this thread have said. I think I was deprived of it during the crucial years I could have wired my brain for it.

Music still moves me, but I can't remember it in the way I know I would need to to become really skilled with it.
It makes too many emotions in me too, and amongst my friends I am known as tragically indifferent to it because I just can't invest myself in it. I know I missed a crucial window somewhere and church hymns of the dirgeful mormon sort didn't fill the gap.


The radio was free, but full of Satan. :(

my control and people laugh at me if I sing.

Instead I got logic circuits in my brain, and I can program a computer in my sleep. That, combined with the luck to be in the market as computers came into business, made for a pleasant and lucrative career.

Thank God? No, I thank my luck and my genes.

What if you have no talents, God-given or otherwise? I envy all of you on this board-I have absolutely no talent, period.

It's been my experience that most people have aptitudes in something. Are you sure you have no talent? Maybe you're talented in something you've never tried.

Piano man Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I've lost most of my belief in a higher supreme
> power but can't seem to over come the idea if God
> given talents. I have the gift of playing the
> piano by ear. I can play anything I hear and have
> the ability to make great music. All my life I
> have been told I have a god given talent to do
> this. I just can't reconcile it with my new belief
> or disbelief per se.
>
> What are your thoughts?

Then just call it a natural flare.

... when my heart ached and my fingers bled.

He forever takes credit where none is due.

All hail Clapton!

For he is the one-true!

Timothy

In fact, they've never seen or talked with the guy. And yet they are convinced He has bestowed them.

Clearly, some people have natural ability in different areas. My observation is that these abilities tend to run in families. My vote is on the genes, along with environment and encouragement.

More of an aptitude. Folks are always going to do well in areas of interest.

I play several musical instruments. Like piano man, I also play by ear. Its not a "gift." I just caught-on to something some folks don't get, namely that its all the same song just phrased differently, in another key or both.

I play a rather mean guitar (shameless plug):

http://youtu.be/IXOyKmH2_NI

That ain't no "God Given Gift" neither, unless you consider spending god knows how many thousands of hours studying and practicing to understand and improve a "gift"

Trust me when I say god had nothing to do with it.

All my life I've been told by religious types that I have "God Given Talent" when it comes to the arts and other interests. I say bulls**t on that. All I have is an aptitude, which is to say I have a passion. It really pisses me off when folks attribute my accomplishments to anyone other than myself. God gets all the blame for the good s**t, but won't accept an ounce of responsibility for what's f**ked-up.

And then the bastard wants 10% of the take?

I don't think so!

Timothy

About the part where you say God gets all the credit for the good stuff and none of the blame for the bad... just like a selfish parent who only cares about their kid when he or she does something they can be proud of.

As you know, "talents" means "money" in several texts including the bible.

Now that said, let me render an anecdote:

A priest was once asked how he determined his salary. He stated that he gathered all the offerings once per month into a basket and took them outside. He then drew a circle around the basket that was 10 feet in diameter. He would stand in the circle and toss the "talents" high in the air out of the basket. What the Lord caught was his and what fell to the ground was the priest's salary.

Thus, God-given "talents".

End of lesson.

Ron