That was my point, innate talent only gets you so far.
Bummer, this is an interesting discussion.
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Yep, but also a very tricky one, and apparently one that a lot of people feel strongly about. And, certainly, a lot of good points made!
My take is this: “talent” is a hard to define (dictionaries nonwithstanding) “something”, which is made up from factors internal to a person (this could be drive, curiosity, but also anatomical and physiological aspects of a body, as well as “structures” in the brain hardly understood so far), and factors external to a person (upbringing, early exposure, parents, teachers, environment (“hotbeds”), imposed dedication (tradition, heritage, …))
Where this all becomes tricky and impossible to settle is that none of this can truly be tested, since it is impossible to have (negative) controls with that very same person.
We can’t test how Felix Pastorius would have turned out with another father, growing up in a different family.
We can’t test how Lance Armstrong might have turned out with a different femur to tibia length ratio (OK, work with me here 
)
We won’t ever know how Ellen Alaverdyan would have developed without a nurturing, encouraging (but likely also pushing) father
We will never be able to test whether Kiefer Sutherland would have become an actor growing up in a different environment
Etc etc. - There are a lot of factors that have to come together just so to make a Marcus Miller, Hadrien Feraud, and so on, and at some point it becomes a game of probabilities.
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Look up the ‘nature vs nurture’ experiments… they were done with twins… and didn’t end well.
But I get what you are saying 
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Yes, twins would seem to be the closest we could come to having a true control (just shy of cloning), but… not really, and let’s not even think of the immense ethical implications 
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The experiments were done… with twins and triplets… ethics be damned… separated at birth to see if environment/family changes things.
DISGUSTING … many ended in suicide.
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I think it’s pretty clearly, like most things, a balance. In this case between nature (in terms of innate ability; some people have a leg up with things like perfect pitch, etc), nurture (in terms of support and opportunity), and work. And all three can make up for deficiencies in the others to some extent.
Like Barney, I am a big fan of working hard to get results - mostly (and ironically) because I am lazy and it’s the easiest and most straightforward path.
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This is probably the most succinct summary of the discussion… with an emphasis on “to some extent” 
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Just read through this thread, as you say an interesting discussion.
I’ve mentioned before that I know a professional guitarist, whose band have played stadiums. When we met at university, he was already an insanely good guitarist. I remember sitting in his room in our Halls of Residence and being blown away by the ease with which he could move his fingers over the fretboard. We met for a drink last October - he was finally moving out of London 36 years after arriving at that Halls. I asked him about his talent, his response was that by 18, he had already been playing in bands. But he wasn’t “talented”. What he was, was “driven”. He wanted to be a guitarist and had dedicated his life to it from the age of 10, when he got is first guitar. “I’m not talented,” he said, “I just play guitar shitloads.” It’s the classic 10,000 hours thing. “You could have done it, but you chose not to.” Incidentally, his degree was in music; his parents made him go to university as a fall back. If it all went wrong, then at least he’d be degree educated and would be able to get a “real” job. His brother is a professional bassist and his sister, an actor. Are they all “talented”? Or did they just grow up in a family where their parents encouraged the arts? As I understand it, neither parent were musical, in fact his dad was a minister in the church. My mate is atheist
So is he talented? I don’t know. What I do know is that he had now played guitar for 45 years, and professionally since leaving university. How many thousands of hours is that? He’s also a producer - in fact he was always interested that side of things. I remember us recording songs in that Halls on a Fostex four track, using a wardrobe as the vocals booth - that was fun! So he knows and understands the mechanics of building a song, mixing a song and getting it so sound good. Again, talent? Or he’s just done it so many times that it is second nature?
There probably are some naturally gifted people out there - Einstein, Mozart, the sprinter who’s fast-twitch muscles are just that bit more twitchy, etc., but for the vast majority it’s work, work, work…and frankly, for them, the 0.1% who are super-talented, it’s the work, work, work too. Read about the training that tier 1 athletes put in, it’s insane.
Not the same, but linked, I’ve mentioned before, I’m a management consultant. In my experience, most companies don’t have problems because of a lack of strategy (use strategy as a metaphor for talent), but a lack of execution, i.e. the grunt work of actually getting sh!t done. You could have the best strategy in the world, be the most “talented” (potential) sprinter, musician, actor, business leader, politician ever, but unless you can consistently apply yourself to the task in hand you ain’t going to go anywhere. Personally, I’d take application over lazy unrealised talent any day of the week. (The sunDOG is recruiting at the moment, this is a live conversation with my matrix-structure bosses (I have 2) and HR )
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I’ve told my daughter that I always passed exams the first time ‘cos I’m lazy! I simply didn’t want to sit them again…
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Yeah, then you just have to worry about it twice!
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If you’re going to be the best in the world there’s a huge dose of luck involved, and your innate biology and upbringing and educational or sport opportunities are all super important and the stars need to align. If your parents think sports are a silly waste of time you’re not going to be the best sprinter in the world regardless of fast twitch muscle propensity.
If you’re going to be good at something, but not the best in the world, that’s mostly an outcome of intentional practice (even if done unintentionally). Not many people can be Mozart, but the thing keeping you from writing songs people will appreciate at an open mic is not listening with intention to song structures, and learning music theory, and continuing through the part where you suck because you’re doing something new.
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That is an excellent point.
I consider myself a solid beginner/low level intermediate bassist.
Sitting down and listening to Felix and Jaco I can’t tell where the skilled part ends and the talent begins.
I agree with @joergkutter’s well argued point that talent is a very fuzzy unscientific term.
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I’m pretty sure that drugs is the reason for many skilled people to become artists, including and especially people like Jaco.
But I am with you, @MikeC for the rest of the discussion and share your opinion.
This morning I went to a “master” carpenter and discussed art and craft, talent and skills.
So, in Germany we have a “master craftsman”, in the tradition of guilds.
In other countries, if you have a hammer and can hold a saw you can call yourself a carpenter.
But here you can only be a “Meister” (the highest professional qualification in crafts and is a state-approved grade) after long training (several years).
Not everybody makes the cut! Not because of lack of training, but because of lack of talent … so they don’t have what it takes (the best skills). To be a master you need to have both skills and talent.
One cool variation is the “Journeyman” … those are really freaks (in the best sense). They are on the road for several years, like the guild members in the centuries before them … and mostly become true artists!
So that carpenter (a master) said: everybody can make a bass (from the woodworking POV), providing they have the tools and reasonable experience/skills.
It might be Fender a copy, it might be ugly, but it’s just some wood, nothing magical…
Making a bass with specific properties (shapes, tone) is a matter of experience and art. You need to “understand” the wood. You need to be able to create the flow of the material, the shape.
And most of all: you need to be able to create your own vision. That is not skills, that is art. That is talent!
Of course, if you just hammer together roof terraces, skills are sufficient! For those cases he has apprentices 
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This highlights my point exactly. You are looking at the world of carpentry from the outside. So it’s easy to assign the label of talent to a subject that’s a hidden world. You’re drinking the kool aid that a master carpenter is serving.
But as someone who’s inside that world I know carpentry isn’t difficult. My competency is the result of thousands of mistakes that I’ve learned from.
I’m skilled, not talented and I’m very ok with that.
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I also take a lot of issue with the idea that talent is innate and cannot be developed. Seems like a defeatist attitude tbh.
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My point was that - if we accept that “talent” represents a multitude of factors that all contribute to you being really good at something - there are some of these factors which are innate, and cannot be transferred from one person to another, or acquired by purchase, training, learning or hard work. (This could be stuff like a specific metabolism, or a way of “seeing” numbers, etc.)
Some of these other factors can make up for the missing factors, to a degree, but never entirely. (That’s my thesis anyway )
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I understand.
But maybe it’s not difficult on your level? After all you say “I’m skilled, not talented”. That’s not master material here…
I don’t know what kind of products you build, but I can tell you: the master level of carpentry is not easy. It needs this little extra, beyond hard work.
A friend of mine went through the whole procedure. She was really really good (talented, in my opionion). She was hard working too, I can’t count the number of parties she did not join us, cause she needed to work and prepare.
She failed twice, if I remember correctly. Even her good looks didn’t help
The brother of my GF just bought a half-timbering (“fachwerk”) house. For uncomplicated stuff, he uses skilled & cheap east-european carpenters. They do the job.
For the stuff that needs more “finesse”, so that the character of the house is preserved, he uses a master carpenter.
I can watch that guy for hours - he is like a Samurai, wielding his sword…
There is a difference, surely!
What I am suggesting is that even innate intrinsic talents are just a start and can be developed and nurtured to grow.
Consider the difference between coaching and teaching.
Put another way, if talent cannot be nurtured and grown, we should just close all art and music colleges now
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Yes, I never intended to imply that they cannot be developed and nurtured. Just that there is no real replacement if they are not there (however small) to begin with.
I think we all agree on most core parts of the discussion, just perhaps not (yet) on all the details
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In art & music colleges you learn many different techniques (= skills) and get in touch with alternatives to your initial ideas about art, both from history and other students.
I don’t know about the US, but over here in old Europe you need to do a test before you can go to an art school. It’s a telent test!
I did this test in the beginning of the 90s art the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, which is quite famous in Holland.
This test was all about talent, not skills. I had no skills whatsoever.
In fact I wrote a little computer program, based on David Marr’s book “Vision”, which could automatically generate art. I presented the results as print outs and showed the program.
I passed and could have become a student.
It started as a fun project to tease my gf at the time, who was a true artist (painter) … and it was never my intention to become an artist or enroll.
I told them the truth, but the commitee took great lengths to explain to me, why I was, in fact, an artist.
I left very confused … but left art to my gf…
Are there no artists at BassBuzz? Only handyman??! They should be able to resolve this…