Talent, Practice and Musical Education

The discussion whether talent exists or not is probably centuries old. I personally think that the influence of "talent" on creative success is marginal. In my opinion the "divine spark of a unique gift" rather is a predisposition that is a foundation for creative development, not a "state" that you are born in. 

There never is and has been born a creative genius that didn't invest a lot of time into perfecting their art. We love stories of musical prodigies, Mozart, Korngold or in current times Alma Deutscher (google her if you don't know her). On the other hand it is well known that the human brain at a very young age can develop abilities at radical speeds. Listening to Mozart's very early works, as well as Alma Deutscher's work shows an extraordinary grasp of the musical vocabulary but on the other hand also feels like a child like "Hey look what I can do!"

Other stories we often hear are things like "Hey did you know awesome composer X didn't have any musical education and still writes such awesome music". This simply is not true, there is no successful musician that didn't have any musical education. They might not have had formal musical education but you can be absolutely sure that they invested a lot of time into educating theirselves in a system they might have come up with on their own. 

I have heard fantastic compositions by people who have never had any formal training in their lives while I heard horrible music by people who went through all stages of "proper formal education". So the discussion whether or not you need formal education to be a great musician can definitely be answered with a clear no.

But you definitely need a lot of practice in ANY case. And this is where in the restless times of the internet where we see ads like "Lose weight instantly!" "Learn a new language in two weeks!" etc. we might be mislead about what to expect at what speed once we dive into trying to master the art of writing music.

It takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work and dedication to get good at something for everybody. Some people might be quicker at picking up things than others but that doesn't mean they don't need to put a lot of work into it.

One benefit that I see in formal education is that it provides you with tools and concepts that provide a structured way to think about certain things and how to use them. If you learn things by "trying out", you might develop a feeling of the same concepts and how to use them but you will most likely struggle in putting them into words or even explain them to someone else.

When I was teaching composition and orchestration for a few years, it helped my own understanding of things a lot. I had formal training, a university degree etc. but all these things were stored in my head in a somewhat chaotic collection of conceptional approaches. The need to be able to communicate these to someone else forced me to structure these better which in return helped me to structure them for myself.

If we look at successful composers or more specifically film composers we often see similar character traits in them (as far as we can see that from what is publically available). 

Let's take two examples here where it is pretty well documented how they approach their craft. It is well known that John Williams is and has been incredibly hard-working. He mentioned in an interview that he tries to write music every day, even if it's just a little and hopes that the next music he writes is maybe a little better than the music he wrote already. It is also well known that Hans Zimmer tends to bury himself in the studio until late at night. Both composers show an incredible passion for their work, an incredible desire to push themselves forward and a willingness to sacrifice a lot for their art, sometimes even parts of their private life.

It definitely needs special character traits to be THIS dedicated but none of the composers who are at the top in Hollywood got there just by chance or luck. Many of them definitely were lucky to be involved in projects that became surprisingly successful and pushed their careers forward but none of them would have sustained such a career without being incredibly passionate about what they're doing. However, there are definitely a lot of composers out there who are similarly passionate and just didn't have the luck yet to be involved in a project that pushed their career to the top of the game.

But the bottom line is, there is or has been not a single composer who got to master the art without a lot of hard work. It doesn't really matter though in what form this hard work happens, whether it is a formal education with a proper degree or burying oneself for months under books or spending ages in a studio fiddling around with all sorts of synthesizers.

Sure, there are lucky punches (particularly in the pop music world) where you can definitely say that they are pure luck and involve pretty little knowledge or mastery of the art, and there have reportedly been such occurances since there has been music. But none of them will stand the test of time.

So whether or not you may want to go the route of a formal education or not doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is how dedicated you are in mastering music and how much time you actually invest into getting better and practicing. Nothing else really matters.