I’ll take another shot at this.
My thesis is that every human possesses some degree of innate/inborn/natural talent, discovered or not, whether in large or small amount, related to some area of human ability or endeavor. This could be cognitive, creative, or physical.
I certainly never stated, suggested or posited that a person’s innate talent cannot be developed. That’s a ridiculous notion and not my position at all.
Skills can absolutely be taught and learned.
In contrast, natural aptitude for a human activity or endeavor (read: possession of innate skills and natural ability to perform a human activity = talent) is something one has, but perhaps not to an appreciably demonstrable level.
Skills absolutely can be acquired and improved through repetition, time and dedication (hard work).
Talent absolutely can be honed using the same criteria. For example, a prodigy (age is immaterial) can be educated about the area or field related to that individual’s innate talent, thereby disciplining, focusing, targeting that talent like a magnifying glass can focus sunlight to produce a pinpointed bead of burning heat.
A human’s given talent can transcend and shine through whichever mental, physical or addiction issues that individual might have to endure.
Jamerson was one example. Jaco was another. So was Miles Davis. Coltrane. Hendrix. Van Gogh. Stephen Hawking.
Prodigies have existed and do so today. These are individuals with a remarkable degree of inborn, unexplainable talent in a human activity not attributable to “10,000 hours of repetition and hard work.”
Examples of this are tiny children who can hear a piece of music one time and are able to play it back immediately, note-perfectly, in tempo, complete with dynamics identical to the recording they had just heard.
Other examples are people with uncanny spatial or motor skills they had never heard of, seen demonstrated, or ever been taught.
The list of similar examples of innate, inborn human aptitude throughout history is long.
In summary, humans can be taught skills that can be practiced and developed over time through repetition and hard work. At the same time, there are now, and have always been, humans throughout the history of mankind who have exhibited uncanny, unexplainable, inborn aptitudes to perform cognitive, creative or physical abilities that they previously had not been taught or necessarily exposed to prior to being able to exhibit those abilities. That is talent.
Salieri had skills. Mozart had innate talent.