Tell that to Picasso.

i don't know why golden child took this thread so personal.

i dig your noise man!

I would, but he's dead and shit.

it's funny, if i could be good at anything it would be music. but i'm not good at music, and not for lack of trying. i'm pretty good at drawing though, as a kid i wasn't the type to sit around drawing at all, and it's only in the last 12 months that i've really started drawing regularly or seriously at all. i love doing drawing, but it's not something i would have choosen if somebody said "you may choose any one thing to be good at". and as much as i love certain works of art, my enthusiasm and love for art in general doesn't even come close to my enthusiasm and love for the phenomenon that is music.
we don't pick what we we're good at, i wish we could, but we can't.
are the people you know who are big sports fans also excellent sportsmen? probably not.
our interests are not a reflection of our skills, and our skills are not an extension of our interests, thus i will probably never be more than a mediocre artist. but that's life.

the only things i am good at are those that are creatively inclined. if it requires skill, forget it.

thats just it though, you can! people give up once they see it takes work. then they resort to just listening to music instead of doing what they desire.

creative stuff requires skill to be executed well.

or when they try and don't enjoy it, see that it's going nowhere, and feel like there's no potential for improvement. i still play music and i enjoy doing so, but realisticly i can see that it's something that doesn't come naturally to me the way art does. ultimately i will continue to play music from time to time, but it would be a self-indulgent waste of my and other people's time and money to put out a out a CD-R or a record.
in my drawing classes, and at my art college there are people who try and try and want nothing more than to fulfill their dream of being an artist, but their work never shows any sign of improvement.
if people enjoy doing it, fine, but if your work is not of a high standard then it's a bit much to try and sell it to people, and that is the point of this thread. it's also pretty easy to see how your work compares to the best practitioners, i.e. if it is good or not.

If I had any artistic ability, I would be able to create what's in my head. I can't do that, so I have to fake it by being 'creative.' In visual arts and in music. My 'talent' is for math, and I hate math.

I entered an art piece into a show as a requirement for a class, and got 3rd place - above some truly remarkable entries, just from my class alone. (I didn't go, because for me seeing all that talent is like Keats first seeing the Elgin Marbles - utterly depressing, because I will never be that good.) But the only reason I got the award was because it was "creative" and "artsy." There was no talent involved. I just made it look creative because it's all I can do - I thought of stuff and incorporated it. But I did not consider my entry worthy at all, and was a bit upset. It was an artistic expression, perhaps, but not a good piece of art. I think that someone was robbed of their time and effort.

At the same time, though, I often enjoy talentless and creative art far more than talented art (perhaps only because that's my kind of art...). I just don't think it's necessarily fair.

Exactly. People are born talented. That's not even a question. I do believe that almost anyone has the potential to reach the same level, but it is much harder for certain people to do certain things. You can work your ass off to be good at something you're not good at, but if there's something else that you like, which you are good at, why not do that? It's whatever is most fulfilling for you personally.

i guess my point is everyone is good at something, and is talented at something, although not nessicarily what they want (like the artists at your school)

but there is no one that isnt untalented at something, its just that not everyone manifests it. it is respectable though for them to persue their dreams and keep trying, because they are working hard and could very well be great.

no it doesn't

Talent requires a huge dose of intuition.There is a severe lack of it around.The fact that music and art in general have become so readily available makes the casual music listener think that everyone can do it(not to say the fact that music making equipment,software etc etc is much more affordable now).This is fundamentally untrue on many levels.Nobody is to say that if you have the means of making music you shouldn't do it but don't expect your finished product not to come with an invisible 'sell by date' attached to it if there a is lack of talent,intuition,heart and imagination at its core .

i rest my case.

Insightful

what kind of a case is that that you quote yourself and then proclaim the arguement over?

yes from two years go!

haha holy shit

it's a living fossil

[I'm well aware this thread is a million years old]

I think from a lot of people's perspective, it's better to not be good at something you enjoy. I'm a pretty good musician (but by no means brilliant) and I find that the harder I work at it, the harder it is to enjoy listening to music. I know a fair few exceptionally talented musicians (i.e., semi-professional classical musicians), all of whom don't really take that much of an interest in music, or dismiss everything. I know one chappy who's a genuinely exceptional musician in a field of way-above-average musicians, and he listens to nearly nothing. Messiaen and Mozart, and nearly nothing else.

I really enjoy going to galleries precisely because I am largely useless at visual art. I can do figurative stuff pretty well, but I don't really see much challenge to representing something in paint, so I'm in the peculiar position of preferring 'contemporary' stuff (cubism onwards) to 'classical' stuff. Having said that, I've developed a soft spot for sculpture recently, and was surprised at how much I enjoyed Michaelangelo and Raphael last week in Rome. I still can't abide van Gogh mind you.