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It's tough to say. It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music. I definitely think that the average person can play notes on a piano given

It's tough to say. It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music. I definitely think that the average person can play notes on a piano given enough time for another average person to enjoy. On a person-to-person basis, we don't know until we try. Kind of like knowing the half-life of some material: we know the decay rate of a large mass, but we can only guess at a per-atom level, and we only truly know when it finally decays. I don't hope to belittle your question, but I don't find it particularly important what the average person can do. I find it much more important to figure out what I can do.

keithpeter 14y ago
Keyboard instruments have the advantage that note formation is relatively straight forward compared to (say) the violin, but then you do have to play two handed, i.e. at least two lines of music. "It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music." We tend to judge ourselves against recordings of the best artists, and those recordings may have been heavily edited. Before recordings were easily available, amateur music making was much more widespread. I think I can see signs of a return to social music making for the fun of it.
- etruong42 14y ago
  Your mention of unrealistic comparisons reminded me of the Dove evolution commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U The original question asked about whether a person can "play music" or "do ballet". I want to add "being beautiful" to the list because I think it will help me express my point that I want to make. I believe that most people can improve on most skills, and that improvement is correlated to the time and effort they put into it. I believe that "being beautiful" counts among these skills along with "playing music" and "doing ballet". The reason I added "being beautiful" to the list is because I have found an attitude among many people, even those with a "growther" mindset, that treats beauty as static. I argue that the general expectations (or at least the projected expectations, which to the projecting person is the same thing) is unreasonable, causing many people to think of their improvements as failures because they fall short of those unreasonable expectations. So if one defines the ability to "play music" as the ability to produce live music that is on par with best-selling recordings, then I argue that no, the average person cannot "play music". Likewise if one defines the ability to "be beautiful" as the ability to look as flawless as the final product in the Dove evolution commercial. I find definitions like these to be unreasonable because these definition/expectations discourage the average person to try to play music or be beautiful when it may bring them and the people around them much joy. I hope that you are right that people can shed these expectations and do things for the fun of it. I see signs of it in music too.

keithpeter 14y ago

Keyboard instruments have the advantage that note formation is relatively straight forward compared to (say) the violin, but then you do have to play two handed, i.e. at least two lines of music. "It partially depends on how you define the ability to play music." We tend to judge ourselves against recordings of the best artists, and those recordings may have been heavily edited. Before recordings were easily available, amateur music making was much more widespread. I think I can see signs of a return to social music making for the fun of it.

etruong42 14y ago
Your mention of unrealistic comparisons reminded me of the Dove evolution commercial http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYhCn0jf46U The original question asked about whether a person can "play music" or "do ballet". I want to add "being beautiful" to the list because I think it will help me express my point that I want to make. I believe that most people can improve on most skills, and that improvement is correlated to the time and effort they put into it. I believe that "being beautiful" counts among these skills along with "playing music" and "doing ballet". The reason I added "being beautiful" to the list is because I have found an attitude among many people, even those with a "growther" mindset, that treats beauty as static. I argue that the general expectations (or at least the projected expectations, which to the projecting person is the same thing) is unreasonable, causing many people to think of their improvements as failures because they fall short of those unreasonable expectations. So if one defines the ability to "play music" as the ability to produce live music that is on par with best-selling recordings, then I argue that no, the average person cannot "play music". Likewise if one defines the ability to "be beautiful" as the ability to look as flawless as the final product in the Dove evolution commercial. I find definitions like these to be unreasonable because these definition/expectations discourage the average person to try to play music or be beautiful when it may bring them and the people around them much joy. I hope that you are right that people can shed these expectations and do things for the fun of it. I see signs of it in music too.