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:
Unleashing Talent: Towards a Passionate Pedagogy
v i c . v u o i z .o i .
e Myth of Innate Talent
T
v.ui1io.i musical pedagogy is still tainted by the conventional wisdom which
teaches us that musical talent is an innate gif with which a few privileged people
are blessed, and that its presence or absence is not necessarily related to a voca-
tional calling, which may exist in the untalented individual. Tis deleterious viewpoint
shuts the door to the riches of musical training to untold numbers of people who never
give themselves a chance to pursue their musical dreams, in the belief that they were born
without a talent for music.
Te belief in innate talent is also a convenient expedient to excuse pedagogical failure;
indeed, how can we blame a method or a teacher for the dimculties encountered by this
or that not very talented individual, poor soul, full of desire and enthusiasm but 'not
gifed: Tis pedagogy of predestination has to be counteracted energetically and with-
out compromise. Traditional musical pedagogy must follow the lead of the great early
childhood training methods (like those of Orf or Suzuki) and ground itself on the prem-
ise that everyone who shows a strong desire to do music has a talent for it. Tis is the
only truly disinterested pedagogical posture because it places the burden of responsibil-
ity where it properly belongs - with the teacher, instead of the learner.
We, as pedagogues, must come to believe in talent as a function of method.
e Adult Beginner
Te success of early childhood musical pedagogies lies in their assumption of a univer-
sal musical capacity in children not dissimilar to that which allows them to learn their
mother tongue by rote, through imitation, playfulness, trial and error, etc. Tis success
gives credence to modern generative theories of music which assume similar mental
structures for music as Chomskian linguistics speculate may exist for language.
Be that as it may, these pedagogies deal with a stage in the development of human
beings when the spiritual slate is cleaner, less burdened, than in older individuals, who
carry a heavier emotional and intellectual load. Our main interest, pedagogically, lies
with the musical training of the latter.
Post-adolescent musical pedagogy is notoriously defcient in handling the challenge
presented by the passionate adult beginner: what to do for those students intensely in
love with music but possessing little or no training, who usually bring with them deeply
ingrained convictions about their lack of talent, their being too old, too physically badly
coordinated, their lack of aural ability and other such negative self-concepts. Where to
begin: What goals can we realistically expect to achieve: How far can they go:
:
Uii.sui c 1.ii1
Tere is no denying that the passing of time does have a deteriorating efect on the
human body, with joints becoming more stif, refexes slower, stamina and endurance
lessened. Tese efects of ageing, however, are not strong enough to produce noticeable
malfunctions usually until well past middle age and are practically irrelevant in most
normal adults until the sixth or seventh decade of life. Even more, some radical medical
thinkers are now disputing the unavoidability of old ages dereliction and are beginning
to ofer alternative viewpoints of far-reaching implications.
:
Of even less consequence is the efect of age on mental / spiritual capacities, except in
cases which are pathological in nature. We can keep fully functional intellectual and emo-
tional capabilities for most of our life. We must then conclude that much more important
than the obstacles imposed on us by physiology or the passing of time are those created
by our psyche, by our self-concept, by our relationship with authority fgures, etc. In short,
by the world surrounding us, and our interpretations of it.
Te sad fact is that, in most cases, the students of whom we speak will never experience
the full realization of their true potential because their real needs will never be addressed
or even recognized. Teir own self-concepts (and our implicit assumptions as their teach-
ers), will deny them that right. Te negative expectations about their lack of success will
become self-fulflling and self-perpetuating and, in our faculty lounges, we will look at
each other with a knowing wink as if saying, See: I told you so.
For those of us involved in academia, this scenario is a familiar one (and who, among
us, can claim innocence:): the distinguished master, talking about his star pupil, with glit-
tering eyes, hushed enthusiasm in the voice, pride in the accomplishment of the pedagogi-
cal missionor talking about that other student, eyebrows raised in disgusted surprise,
a sneer, and a dismissive shrug.
How commonplace and how terribly unfair! Surely that other student is more a victim
of who knows what complex circumstances than of a cruel fate that has deprived this
pupil of talent. If only the illustrious and no doubt well-intentioned master would take
the time to educate (bring out) rather than instruct (pile upon). If only the teacher could
empathize rather than criticize and could become an ally instead of a judge
Seen in this light it becomes evident that a primordial pedagogical responsibility re-
mains in the discovery or, more precisely, uncovering of hidden talent. For diverse reasons,
many people have their talents buried under layers and layers of emotional debris. Tese
are the people we consider untalented (as they themselves do). Te talented are those
who have managed to maintain unimpeded access to their talent: those souls who are
relatively free from the burdens that scourge the human spirit.
Pedagogy as Conspiratorial Alliance
Pedagogy should be passionately committed to helping the untalented (the burdened)
become talented (unburdened). What the untalented need is a pedagogical stand of trust
and faith. Tey need a teacher who believes in them with a passion equivalent to that
shown by students in their dedication to the art.
Te eminent American psychologist, Nathaniel Branden, who has devoted most of his
,
Uii.sui c 1.ii1
professional life to pioneering investigations on the nature and role of self-esteem in
peoples lives, writes:
What a great teacher, a great parent, a great psychotherapist, and a great coach
have in common is a deep belief in the potential of the person with whom
they are concerned - a conviction about what the person is capable of being and
doing - plus the ability to transmit the conviction during their interactions.
:
Dr Branden continues:
Sometimes it can be dimcult to go on believing in another person when that person
seems not to believe in himself or herself. Yet one of the greatest gifs a teacher
can ofer a student is the refusal to accept the students poor self-concept at face
value, seeing through it to the deeper, stronger, self that exists within if only as a
potential.
,
Te teacher must be passionate in this belief in the student. Te more dimcult the case,
the more impassioned the belief.
We must bear in mind that chronological age does not in the least afect this circum-
stance. Older students need this support as much as children. Pedagogy (guide for the
young) refers to youth in terms of expertise, not age. An inexperienced beginner, no
matter of what age, is always young and has the same psychological needs in the particu-
lar areas of youthful inexperience as children.
Tis attitude of utter confdence in the students eventual success will be one of the two
factors necessary to create a teacher/student alliance capable of beating the odds. Te
other is the students own passion for the art. Without evident signs of it, the problem
compounds. Tis being a diferent, though related, topic requiring independent explora-
tion, we will leave it untouched except by saying that, as in the case of hidden talent,
glimpsed only though the manifestations of vocational calling or passion for the disci-
pline, there is such a thing as hidden passion, repressed, suppressed or depressed, much
harder to identify and bring out. Tis situation presents an incomparably more dimcult
psycho-pedagogical problem.
But given the existence of such passion on the part of the student, teacher and pupil
then become conspirators against those forces hindering the blossoming of the student's
potentialities.
Conspirators etymologically means nothing more than mutually inspiring, a fairly
exact description of the ideal teacher / student interaction. My teaching will inspire you to
levels of achievement that will inspire me to surpassing levels of inspired teaching, and
so on per aeternum.
Hence this alliance, this conspiracy, is subversive. It has to do with the attainment
of freedom from the repressive powers of fear, guilt, and pain: fear caused by power-
wielding authority, guilt caused by impossibly prescriptive duties, pain caused by fruitless,
frustrated efort.

Uii.sui c 1.ii1
Grounded in an initial act of faith in the student prompted by the latters enthusiasm,
this passionate (and compassionate) pedagogy has as its primary procedural goal the
intellectual, emotional and physical freeing of the student. It focuses on unimpeded free-
dom of action for the students mind, soul and body: unbridled mind-doing (thought),
soul-doing (emotion) and body-doing (movement). And it has as its fnal goal the inte-
gration of these three doings in the process of preparation for the public moment,

the
successful completion of a performing act through which the student transcends the
realm of the petty and enters into the realm of the sublime.
Conclusion: Towards a Compassionate Pedagogy of Liberation
Sharing in your passion: the word compassion says it, referring to the two meanings of
passion, as sufering and as the ultimate emotional attachment to something. Tis is what
is required; my sharing in your sufering but also in your love and commitment to the
art. By helping you unburden your spirit of the former we will enhance and make more
powerful the latter.
Tis unburdening process is essentially a therapeutic one but this form of pedagogy re-
quires a descriptive/remedial rather than a diagnostic/prescriptive approach. Te process
starts and ends with the student and both method and teacher continuously adapt to his
or her needs.
In particular this pedagogy avoids:
the overbearing authority of historical traditions, which may easily lead to dogma and
rigidity. is is the greatest enemy of intellectual freedom
critical statements which express, explicitly or implicitly, moralising value judgements. is
is the greatest enemy of emotional freedom
standardised or formulaic procedural approaches to technique which constrain the playing
mechanism by their narrow and unimaginative perspectives on the issues of technical
control and security. is is the greatest enemy of physical freedom
Instead this pedagogy searches for:
tangible evidence demonstrating the existence of connecting, integrative principles whose
applicability is based on contextual interpretation rather than pseudo-apodictic certainty
ways to stimulate the students discovery and identifcation of problem areas, that are
viewed as opportunities for learning and progress, rather than as reasons for condemnation
or derision
the ftting application of functional movement, and its related sensory feedback, to each
individual circumstance presented by the ever-changing technical procedures contained in
the work under study
,
Uii.sui c 1.ii1
Tis pedagogy forewarns of the danger of sacrifcing the realities of each students
circumstances to the truths of the method. It abhors the exploitation of students
successes as proofs or validations of the approach; it rejects the dictum, no pain, no gain,
as the remnant of anachronistic Puritan values that wrongly demand self-denial and
sufering as evidence of a solid work ethic; it reinterprets work and profession to mean a
committed dedication to a way of living through and in our art, rather than as a way of
making a living with our art.
But fundamentally it is based on the radical conviction of the presence of so-called
talent in each and every individual that shows passion for the art.
No matter how far from view, how hidden, how obscured talent might be, it is there,
claiming to be liberated.
And we, teachers of the Art, are ultimately accountable for breaking its bondage.

Notes
See Deepak Chopra, Ageless Body, Timeless Mind, New York, Harmony Books, :,.
Nathaniel Branden, e Six Pillars of Self-Esteem, New York, Bantam Books, :, p ::o.
Ibid. p :::.
I am indebted to Angel Vigil, Chair of Fine Arts at the Colorado Academy, Denver, Us.,
for identifying and describing this concept.
First published in Guitar Journal , (:)
: Ricardo Iznaola, Aurora, :, April, :