Antoine Boyer on a guitar he built....

[fitness1]

24 year old spent the last 7 years building the guitar he's playing - I wasn't sure the recording wasn't sped up at first. This is pretty amazing playing for anyone, let alone someone so young.

[tbeltrans]

That is interesting and unusual that he built his own guitar AND plays at that high a level. However, with a consistently high level of caring and focus, humans can achieve goals that, to the rest of us who don't share that level of singular commitment, can certainly seem amazing. Personally, I believe that we are all capable of similar level of achievement in something, but we often don't have that consistent level of commitment.

A woman that I used to date, went to high school with Sharon Isbin. She said that, while people saw here in class and around during the school day, they never saw her at social events or any activities outside school because Sharon was wholly devoted to the classical guitar, with all her time spent either practicing or attending lessons and master classes. Few have that consistently high level of commitment.

Many of us in this forum can say we have been playing guitar for 30, 40, or even 50 years. Despite that, we are amazed when somebody plays really well, and often put that person on a pedestal. The difference, as can easily be seen in forum discussions, is that we all have other lives, families, multiple hobbies, day jobs, etc. As long as we remember that we make choices and reap the results of those choices (and are hopefully) satisfied with those choices, we can enjoy such a performance as the guy in the video realizing that he also had to make similar choices.

I realize that nothing in the OP's post warranted these comments, so I guess I am just in that philosophical mood today.

Tony

[fitness1]

All that said, I think some people have an innate ability to do what they do, and then when they work much harder than anyone else, these are the results.

I've often wondered how many are out there who have this innate talent that have never picked up an instrument.

[tbeltrans]

Good question.

There was a woman in our condo association (died not too long ago) who took up painting at the age of 83. She took a seminar given by a protégé of the guy on PBS, Bob Ross (and we will put a nice little tree here...). She readily took to it and her paintings were really good. She started to branch out into painting other subjects and those were equally good. She often said she had no idea she could do anything involving art. I wouldn't say that her painting s should hang in an upscale art gallery, but I wouldn't mind having one in my home.

I didn't want anything to do with computers when the VA gave me a series of tests and said I would be good at it. I went through school and have had a very productive career as a software engineer and moved up to Principal Engineer for about 15 years before I retired, and even in retirement I have no problem finding just the right short term contracts. There are those who are much quicker than I am (I don't claim to be anything special), but I have done surprisingly well considering how opposed I initially was to anything of this kind. For some reason, technology just makes sense to me. I seem to have a kind of conversation with computers as I dig in to fix a problem. My job is engineering, which is a far cry from programmer or web developer, but I seem to always be fixing somebody's computer problem outside work too.

I do believe that everybody has something they can do really, really well that they have some sort of natural affinity for. But I also believe that we ALL can excel at most anything we set our minds to. What I mean by "excel" is that to an onlooker not involved in that thing, we could seem amazing, but to practitioners of it, we would probably be considered reasonably OK.

With guitar, some people just seem to have music pouring out of them, while for many, we have the ability to learn from material provided by those for whom it is natural, and still sound quite good. I figure that for those for whom music seems natural, it is a bit like computers seem to be for me. Many who have music pouring out of them seem to learn enough about computers to have a web site and stream performances. I don't see any of us as being "one trick ponies".

Tony

[Bob Womack]

Beautiful. Next, hair styling lessons.

Bob

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

Beautiful. Next, hair styling lessons.

Bob

He plays so fast it blows it up in the air!

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by fitness1

He plays so fast it blows it up in the air!

What comes to mind is that Memorex tape ad of the guy sitting in the chair and being blown away by the sound.



Tony

[Arthur Blake]

That's an amazing piece of work no doubt. Both the guitar and the performance.

Did you stay to see the photographs at the end? First rate construction and detail.

Sometimes young people are just quick.

I remember hill climbing on a dirt bike I essentially built, by welding motor mounts to a frame I had, and installed a Honda engine from a salvage bike that had burned.

Some kids on Yamahas flew past me like I was standing still, and the hill was really steep. Probably 50 years ago, still remember it.

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

What comes to mind is that Memorex tape ad of the guy sitting in the chair and being blown away by the sound.



Tony

Haha - yes. Had that poster at my record store many, many moons ago!

[fitness1]

Originally Posted by Arthur Blake

Did you stay to see the photographs at the end? First rate construction and detail.



I remember hill climbing on a dirt bike I essentially built, by welding motor mounts to a frame I had, and installed a Honda engine from a salvage bike that had burned.

Some kids on Yamahas flew past me like I was standing still, and the hill was really steep. Probably 50 years ago, still remember it.

I did watch the build pics - pretty cool.

You probably had more fun on your bike than the others though. A little less than 50 years ago I was a 13 year old riding a Husky 250 up very steep hills at times. I ended up in the ER more than I'd like to mention.

Moral of the story - being the first to the top can have it's disadvantages sometimes!

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

What comes to mind is that Memorex tape ad of the guy sitting in the chair and being blown away by the sound.


Tony

My boss has that poster up in his office. I envy him.


Bob