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This is accurate. Many people claim to be “bad” at art or music, but both can be learned by almost anyone up to a certain functional level in the same way you w

This is accurate. Many people claim to be “bad” at art or music, but both can be learned by almost anyone up to a certain functional level in the same way you would learn a vocation. You won’t be Picasso or Hendrix, but you’ll have a level of competency to accomplish most tasks. As an adult I learned to draw and to write legibly because—-to me—-those are valuable “intrinsic tools”. I made sure my daughter received a foundational music education from a young age, and she can play several instruments with a high level of proficiency based on hours invested, not natural talent. We often don’t value the arts the same way we do other practical skills, and to me, that’s a shame.

amelius 3y ago
Most people use feedback to draw: they keep on adding lines until they like what they see. Picasso, however, could draw with just a feed-forward network, i.e. a single stroke would do it ...
- tiffanyg 3y ago
  Haha - I love this! Excellent, witty, accurate. Kudos. Sorry for low content response, but, too good a joke to simply upvote, IMO
- JaumeGreen 3y ago
  He might have been able to do that directly at the end, but first he learned to do it by substracting. https://drawpaintacademy.com/the-bull/ https://drawpaintacademy.com/the-bull/
tiffanyg 3y ago
Hey now, how can you guarantee p(Picasso) or p(Hendrix) is 0 for all readers of your comment?* In any case, I think your response and multiple similar responses make the essential point(s). One of the useful 'results' from decades of R&D at trying to build machines (&/ "software" - may be considered another type of machine) has been 'seeing' the difficulty in practice at achieving capabilities we (and many other animals ... even, say, nematodes**) absolutely take for granted. One of the old jokes I always associate with Groucho Marx is something like: "Can you play the piano?" ... "I don't know, I've never tried" It reminds me of how people often say "foreign languages are difficult" ... As though any "native language" is somehow different / easy / easier ... Entirely neglecting the tens of thousands of hours of experience and practice most people have with some "native language" by the time they're a mere 10 years old. AND, we all continue to "practice" whatever language we speak and think (to some degree) in every hour of every day. It's all in what you put your time into, as you get at, as well. And, one particularly crucial aspect is what you believe about how skill "arises" which you reference as well. One of the greatest disservices to (young, especially) people is inculcating them with the idea of "talent." While most people are not likely capable of becoming, say, the top tennis player (male / female) in the world - there are all sorts of variables - too often people are artificially limited by nonsense that passes as "common wisdom" and permeates "culture" (ideas that just propagate from some people to others - here, especially, parents to children). It's interesting, to me, that while my mom, for example, was an incredible "believer" in education, and had defied her own parents and exceeded the role(s) they envisioned for her by many orders of magnitude, she also would often reference "talent" in various contexts when I was growing up. We are riddled with nonsense - in our heads. I know for sure that I'll always be full of internal inconsistencies and false beliefs and the like. But, it is very helpful to escape as many of them as possible. Particularly those that artificially constrain us - a species limited enough as-is.*** * Where symbols "Picasso" & "Hendrix" are understood / defined 'in the usual / obvious way' - in terms of equivalence in impact / fame / etc. ** See recent articles on mapping of "neural network" / nervous system structure of C. elegans, for example *** I write this not to disparage our species but simply to highlight the fact that we are constrained just like all other species by our form(s) and what is optimized by the process of natural selection and such ...
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Talent is very real. Any teacher will confirm this. Give some five year olds something new to do and some will get it immediately. Others will never get it, no matter much how effort they put in. In between those extremes most will get it eventually, but only after struggling with it. Most domain have hard skill cut-offs. As in math - I've known otherwise intelligent people who just cannot get how basic algebra and trig work. At all. No amount of patient explanation made a difference. They just couldn't do it. There's a very real natural ceiling on ability. For some people/skills it's pretty low, for others it's so high you can barely see it. The problem in this culture isn't that talent is a discouraging myth, it's that most of the population doesn't get anywhere those limits. A lot of native ability is wasted. Most people could do a lot more given the time and resources.
  - tmountain 3y ago
    I agree. My earlier comment is really about maximizing ability within your range of natural capabilities with a qualifier stating that most people’s ceiling is higher than they would expect.
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  > It's interesting, to me, that while my mom, for example, was an incredible "believer" in education, and had defied her own parents and exceeded the role(s) they envisioned for her by many orders of magnitude, she also would often reference "talent" in various contexts when I was growing up. Do you see a conflict? Talent provides an upper bound on what you can gain from education.
jrumbut 3y ago
We need to value and develop arts pedagogy as well. I was lucky enough to have art classes growing up but they were entirely wasted on me because there was almost no explicit/ systematic instruction. Asking me to look out the window and paint a tree was about as productive as asking a kid to estimate how tall it was without teaching them any geometry or trigonometry.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> You won’t be Picasso This is a really interesting contrast with the comment from farther up: >>> This seems to be about how making a living as a painter is difficult. If we're contrasting those two concepts, Picasso seems to have been much better at painting-the-career than he was at painting-the-skill.
- Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
  Picasso was very good at drawing and painting. He could sketch as well as other artist traditionnal artist. He choose to explore a different path, with success. I don't like Picasso, but I can recognize the quality of his works.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  Picasso was a phenomenal artist. He'd mastered figurative painting by his mid-teens. https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/pablo-picassos-masterful-childhood-paintings-precocious-works-painted-ages-8-15.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/pablo-picassos-masterful...
  - thaumasiotes 3y ago
    And yet none of that was relevant to his career.
    - Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
      It was very relevant. He used his knowledge to push it farther, analyzing thing to see how they could relate otherwise. It's luck with bad painting. It's a bit like know how a computer work deeply help you be a better develloper. You don't use your inner knowledge every day, but it will help you.
Kye 3y ago
I basically got good enough at drawing to do simple thumbnails, storyboards, and concept art for the 3D art I actually enjoy making. I used to be better, but it was always a slog, and I quit. There's something different about working directly with objects rather than constructing them with lines on paper. But the ability to quickly iterate with primitives and cropped detail sketches on paper is hard to beat. This probably relates in some way to why I prefer working with a MIDI roll and virtual instruments in a DAW over trying to learn a "real" instrument. Noodling on a pad controller locked to a scale leads to interesting melodies, but it's far from the end goal.
another2another 3y ago
I've also recently noticed that we're surrounded by a massive amount of ambient artwork - from advertising, logos, artwork on products, book covers, magazines & newspapers, websites and funny memes. I recently started looking for pictures to print out for my kids to colour in, and there are thousands online that people share. So at any time there must be hundreds of thousands of people creating content of various degrees of quality all the time.

amelius 3y ago

Most people use feedback to draw: they keep on adding lines until they like what they see. Picasso, however, could draw with just a feed-forward network, i.e. a single stroke would do it ...

tiffanyg 3y ago
Haha - I love this! Excellent, witty, accurate. Kudos. Sorry for low content response, but, too good a joke to simply upvote, IMO
JaumeGreen 3y ago
He might have been able to do that directly at the end, but first he learned to do it by substracting. https://drawpaintacademy.com/the-bull/ https://drawpaintacademy.com/the-bull/

tiffanyg 3y ago

Hey now, how can you guarantee p(Picasso) or p(Hendrix) is 0 for all readers of your comment?* In any case, I think your response and multiple similar responses make the essential point(s). One of the useful 'results' from decades of R&D at trying to build machines (&/ "software" - may be considered another type of machine) has been 'seeing' the difficulty in practice at achieving capabilities we (and many other animals ... even, say, nematodes**) absolutely take for granted. One of the old jokes I always associate with Groucho Marx is something like: "Can you play the piano?" ... "I don't know, I've never tried" It reminds me of how people often say "foreign languages are difficult" ... As though any "native language" is somehow different / easy / easier ... Entirely neglecting the tens of thousands of hours of experience and practice most people have with some "native language" by the time they're a mere 10 years old. AND, we all continue to "practice" whatever language we speak and think (to some degree) in every hour of every day. It's all in what you put your time into, as you get at, as well. And, one particularly crucial aspect is what you believe about how skill "arises" which you reference as well. One of the greatest disservices to (young, especially) people is inculcating them with the idea of "talent." While most people are not likely capable of becoming, say, the top tennis player (male / female) in the world - there are all sorts of variables - too often people are artificially limited by nonsense that passes as "common wisdom" and permeates "culture" (ideas that just propagate from some people to others - here, especially, parents to children). It's interesting, to me, that while my mom, for example, was an incredible "believer" in education, and had defied her own parents and exceeded the role(s) they envisioned for her by many orders of magnitude, she also would often reference "talent" in various contexts when I was growing up. We are riddled with nonsense - in our heads. I know for sure that I'll always be full of internal inconsistencies and false beliefs and the like. But, it is very helpful to escape as many of them as possible. Particularly those that artificially constrain us - a species limited enough as-is.*** * Where symbols "Picasso" & "Hendrix" are understood / defined 'in the usual / obvious way' - in terms of equivalence in impact / fame / etc. ** See recent articles on mapping of "neural network" / nervous system structure of C. elegans, for example *** I write this not to disparage our species but simply to highlight the fact that we are constrained just like all other species by our form(s) and what is optimized by the process of natural selection and such ...

TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Talent is very real. Any teacher will confirm this. Give some five year olds something new to do and some will get it immediately. Others will never get it, no matter much how effort they put in. In between those extremes most will get it eventually, but only after struggling with it. Most domain have hard skill cut-offs. As in math - I've known otherwise intelligent people who just cannot get how basic algebra and trig work. At all. No amount of patient explanation made a difference. They just couldn't do it. There's a very real natural ceiling on ability. For some people/skills it's pretty low, for others it's so high you can barely see it. The problem in this culture isn't that talent is a discouraging myth, it's that most of the population doesn't get anywhere those limits. A lot of native ability is wasted. Most people could do a lot more given the time and resources.
- tmountain 3y ago
  I agree. My earlier comment is really about maximizing ability within your range of natural capabilities with a qualifier stating that most people’s ceiling is higher than they would expect.
thaumasiotes 3y ago
> It's interesting, to me, that while my mom, for example, was an incredible "believer" in education, and had defied her own parents and exceeded the role(s) they envisioned for her by many orders of magnitude, she also would often reference "talent" in various contexts when I was growing up. Do you see a conflict? Talent provides an upper bound on what you can gain from education.

jrumbut 3y ago

We need to value and develop arts pedagogy as well. I was lucky enough to have art classes growing up but they were entirely wasted on me because there was almost no explicit/ systematic instruction. Asking me to look out the window and paint a tree was about as productive as asking a kid to estimate how tall it was without teaching them any geometry or trigonometry.

thaumasiotes 3y ago

> You won’t be Picasso This is a really interesting contrast with the comment from farther up: >>> This seems to be about how making a living as a painter is difficult. If we're contrasting those two concepts, Picasso seems to have been much better at painting-the-career than he was at painting-the-skill.

Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
Picasso was very good at drawing and painting. He could sketch as well as other artist traditionnal artist. He choose to explore a different path, with success. I don't like Picasso, but I can recognize the quality of his works.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
Picasso was a phenomenal artist. He'd mastered figurative painting by his mid-teens. https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/pablo-picassos-masterful-childhood-paintings-precocious-works-painted-ages-8-15.html https://www.openculture.com/2018/08/pablo-picassos-masterful...
- thaumasiotes 3y ago
  And yet none of that was relevant to his career.
  - Arcanum-XIII 3y ago
    It was very relevant. He used his knowledge to push it farther, analyzing thing to see how they could relate otherwise. It's luck with bad painting. It's a bit like know how a computer work deeply help you be a better develloper. You don't use your inner knowledge every day, but it will help you.

Kye 3y ago

I basically got good enough at drawing to do simple thumbnails, storyboards, and concept art for the 3D art I actually enjoy making. I used to be better, but it was always a slog, and I quit. There's something different about working directly with objects rather than constructing them with lines on paper. But the ability to quickly iterate with primitives and cropped detail sketches on paper is hard to beat. This probably relates in some way to why I prefer working with a MIDI roll and virtual instruments in a DAW over trying to learn a "real" instrument. Noodling on a pad controller locked to a scale leads to interesting melodies, but it's far from the end goal.

another2another 3y ago

I've also recently noticed that we're surrounded by a massive amount of ambient artwork - from advertising, logos, artwork on products, book covers, magazines & newspapers, websites and funny memes. I recently started looking for pictures to print out for my kids to colour in, and there are thousands online that people share. So at any time there must be hundreds of thousands of people creating content of various degrees of quality all the time.