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Comment by DonHopkins | Hacker News Reader

That's not what Quincy Jones says.

http://www.vulture.com/2018/02/quincy-jones-in-conversation....

David Marchese: You’re talking about business not music, but, and I mean this respectfully, don’t some of your thoughts about music fall under the category of “back in my day”?

Quincy Jones: Musical principles exist, man. Musicians today can’t go all the way with the music because they haven’t done their homework with the left brain. Music is emotion and science. You don’t have to practice emotion because that comes naturally. Technique is different. If you can’t get your finger between three and four and seven and eight on a piano, you can’t play. You can only get so far without technique. People limit themselves musically, man. Do these musicians know tango? Macumba? Yoruba music? Samba? Bossa nova? Salsa? Cha-cha?

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I remember reading an interview with Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits. He mentions how glad he was that he never joined the singer/songwriter scene because leaning picking and rhyhhm guitar gave him the facility to play whatever he wanted.

Edit: here he expresses some of the same sentiment https://youtu.be/OG__SwkV3wg

You’re wrong Quincy agrees with the article. The emotion part is what the article addresses. You gotta have that “swing” and that can’t be learned or taught, it can be enhanced, but you can’t practice into having it. As Quincy says it comes naturally, but not everyone has it. If you have the emotion part you can develop the techniques, but no the other way around.

My wife is a very good piano player, but she doesn’t have “it”, she sounds like a robot playing, it’s painful to hear, but she plays in time, all the right notes, but it’s just not there.

In drawing it’s most evident, some people can draw and others can’t, no amount of practice will help me. The emotion side of things kicks in more so with drawing.

> My wife is a very good piano player, but she doesn’t have “it”

Absurdly subjective. If you can neither qualify nor quantify "it" you shouldn't start levying it as some standard of quality.

Nonsense. The reason we have the concept of ‘it’ and ‘je ne sais qois’ is because we (many of us) find that a useful concept. Subjective assessment of art is absolutely allowed without rigorous metrics.

The differences in timing, attack, etc from a good player and a merely competent player are objectively measurable, but a non expert can hear the difference and form an option without understanding what they are using to discriminate.

Edit: fixed French spelling.

L'orthographe français contient du... je ne sais quoi.

Pardon. Veuillez excuser mon erreur.

Il n'y a rien à excuser, Monsieur. :)

Except I failed in my attempt to fix it and now I’m embarrassed :( !

> ‘je ne sais cois’

if you're going to pompously bandy a term about, you should at least spell it correctly

I can’t avoid a subjective assessment of these posts, despite the objectively impeccable spelling.

the spelling of your posts is objectively not impeccable

Exactly, the English equivalent would be 'ineffable', as in ineffible beauty; which describes a quality of an aestetic that is beyond words and relates to how the sum of techniques used together is greater than the individual techniques employed by themselves in the context of art.

> the English equivalent would be 'ineffable' which describes a quality that is beyond words

also known as "inherently subjective"

just because you deem something to be inexpressible doesn't mean it actually is.

Language has inherent limits, it is an objective subset of subjective concepts that allows us to communicate. Thinking somthing is beautiful and having others think similarly doesn't inherently mean that the beauty can be communicated linguistically. Otherwise, why have music, visual art, etc? If language was capable of describing all concepts you could just describe these concepts linguistically and that would be enough to feel the same beauty about the concept.

Not at all, just listen to some of the musical channels on Twitch. Channels like pianoimproman (old man who is crazy good) and kylelandrypiano (young) are just leagues above the rest, yet there is no shortage of live musicians. I suggest watching just to see how pianoimproman gets a request for a song he has never heard, then plays his own version of that song based on only hearing a few seconds.

A sample from the young man: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/227075655

It is pleasurable from an auditory perspective but i discern no difference in quality between the linked content and other more generic recordings of the same piece.

Again : just because "you" find that something speaks to "you" is in no way an indication that it possesses some inherent quality. More likely, it's an expression of your personal biases and/or group psychosis.

Perhaps, but they do get paid considerably by people to play like this regularly, live. So "you" here must be the viewership then.

You have no idea how many hours these people practice, when they began playing, their practice methods, and so on.

And you’re comparing them to other random people on Twitch, who might be casual players just noodling around.

So what are we supposed to deduce from this?

My point was only about how there are great minds out there who clearly are not like the rest, whether it be music or ability to perform in another professional capacity. There are Dota2 players who have played the game all their lives, yet not achieved "much" compared to young kids who explode into the scene only to remain in a higher tier. This https://dota.rgp.io/mmr/ shows that in that particular game only the 99.95 percentile is pro-level.

I've personally played an instrument since I was 7 and while I was playing every day until I was 18 that didn't automatically make me able to produce good music that gives people goosebumps. But I've met plenty who can, without much practice. In fact their earlier music had an unrefined thing about it that made it unique. They were just good, I guess.

Sorry if that doesn't make any sense.

It does make sense.

Generally, I agree that some people clearly have a lot of raw talent.

But also I think we’re very attracted to this idea of the “natural,” who becomes a virtuoso almost effortlessly. In my experience, most people who reach the very highest skill levels have both raw talent and a tremendous work ethic. And a lot of people who show early promise never reach their potential because they won’t put in the time.

Sometimes the distinction between talent and effort isn’t even clear. There’s a documentary called Magnus about the chess champion Magnus Carlsen. It shows him as a kid, thinking about chess from the moment he wakes up to the moment he sleeps (and he probably dreamt about chess too). While others are playing, he’s staring off into space thinking about chess. That is some kind of talent, the ability to maintain complete focus like that over many years.

I’d bet some of these Dota2 players in the top 0.5% spend an extreme amount of time playing or thinking about the game.

I remember reading some interview or other with some pro gamers who said they basically practiced for 15 houars a day, every day.

Its a good point, it just can’t be measured by lay people.

Anecdotally, I always use my sister and I as examples. We’re 18 months apart, similar IQ, same upbringing, etc. you can hand her any music producing instrument and she’ll be making music in a few minutes. I am the opposite, barely able to play Mary had a little lamb.

I’m pretty sure you can use tools like Myers Briggs to correlate personality traits to talents in certain areas. Some people are attracted to a career in accounting, which sounds like a vision of hell on earth to others. Ditto for music or other arts.

Not everyone can become Michelangelo, but anyone can become fairly proficient with a piece of charcoal with just a few months of instruction (given motor abilities that fall within the norm, but I don’t think this is what you were alluding to)

>In drawing it’s most evident, some people can draw and others can’t, no amount of practice will help me.

That isn't remotely true, we just don't teach children to draw. Most teachers believe that it's an innate ability and have no idea how to teach it even if they wanted to. Drawing is a straightforward skill that can be quickly learned, but it's highly counter-intuitive to most people. If you think you can't draw, pick up a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards or Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson.

Yes. I see this with Japanese people. For some reason they are all able to draw better, judt like they all fold Origamis. I think it‘s just deliberate school practice.

I agree. I currently can’t draw for shit, but at one point I went from not being able to draw to being pretty good at it, because I practiced. Then I stopped practicing and now I can’d draw anymore. Some months ago I also watched and worked through a little bit of an online drawing course and was doing quite well, although I stopped due to lack of time and now can’t draw anymore once again.

I also have no talent for sleight of hand, I’ve never been good at it, until recently, when I deliberately started practivcing for a few hours every single day (learning sleights for card illusions and caradistry). I’m not particularly good yet, but the difference from even a couple of weeks ago is huge.

It takes deliberate practice, motivation and time. Sometimes, you also need a good teacher.

I only know the words he said, I don't know if he has read the article or whether or not he agrees with it.

Going by his words: "You don’t have to practice emotion because that comes naturally. Technique is different." By that he means that you do have to practice technique. The title of the article is "No Causal Effect of Music Practice on Ability". That sounds like the words Quincy Jones said directly contradict the words in the title of the article, to me.

>she plays in time, all the right notes, but it’s just not there.

In my limited experience, I find the "it" factor which cannot be learned is the ability to keep time; that "swing" you mention. Given that your wife possesses great technical ability, perhaps self-consciousness is a factor in the perceived lack-of-emotion in her playing?

I was thinking the opposite - it's possible to over focus on the technique and lack self consciousness for what the whole sounds like. Maybe it could be developed by recording and playing back, even having a go at music production.

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