Carpentry is at it core taking wood and cutting/shaping it into slightly smaller pieces of wood then joining it together.
Master carpenter is just a very skilled carpenter. Unlike you as an outsider, I don’t see the magic. I just see the skill and most importantly patience required to produce high quality work.
Hahaha! Yes, I get that. Also, painting is nothing more than taking a piece of cloth and applying some paint, like this:
I might be an outsider to carpentry, but not to art.
Next time you visit Germany, go visit an old school “Handwerksmeister” - then we discuss again, ok?
I’ll never visit Germany again. But I am going to a Japan and I’m looking forward to seeing some of their traditional woodworking.
LOL! I like your attitude 
I totally understand you here. I would like to visit one of those old masters that forge Katanas!
This sounds so cool. It’s fascinating how Japanese joinery differs from European and American joinery, and I’d love to see a bunch of their historic buildings.
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.
As mentioned, I think we all pretty much agree on the gist of the matter.
However, we all shine our own little searchlight on different areas of this large, complex and amorphous blob that represents skill/talent. And thus, even collectively, we can’t quite see it in its entirety or even start to fully comprehend its complexity and implications.
Now, is there anyone who wants to share photos of a really nice bass?? 
I believe my searchlight just swept the entire prison yard. If not, the subject is beyond my ken.
Sheldon: “Woman you are playing with forces beyond your ken!”
Penny: “Well your Ken can kiss my Barbie.”
I participated in many golf clinics and camps, I can tell you these were some of the best Jr golfers I’ve seen, all can make a hundred yard shots so tight you think they are shooting rifles same goes with 60 yards. That said, I’ll say this. Schools are full of mediocre if you want to be great you have to find your own breakthrough.
As much as the pros make nowadays there are still more than handful of players sprinkle around the world who could take the top pros for lunch and you have never heard of them. When asked why they don’t go pro, similar answer were given, they couldn’t take the pay cut, 
Yeah, I don’t subscribe to the 10,000-hour trope. I just quoted it because others often state it as being a definite benchmark.
Exactly, @Al1885.
That is one of the kids I had in mind as being a prodigy. He’s amazing. You might even say he has talent. 
I didn’t mean to attribute that to you but it’s a relatively common belief.
Agree completely, and this is the function of art and music colleges, as an example. Schools that only teach skills = shop class or vocational/community colleges in the us.
That’s a good way to put it and I agree.
Yeah, the example I like to use here is perfect pitch. Really hard to learn on your own but some people just have it. This is definitely an advantage.
Jörg’s example of metabolism or hormones for athletes is another good one.
Yes. Well, most of us
Some buildings have lasted hundreds of years, through many major earthquakes, using no nails, screws, or other metal parts in their framing.
The difference is that Meisters in Germany have developed a culture of gatekeeping, and you have bought in to it
Yeah! Similar ancient designs like the forbidden city in China. I believe there’s no fasteners of any kind from the pillars to the roof and it can withstand some crazy earthquakes, definitely rivals the modern buildings.
I was thinking more about talent, and all the really great discussion.
So let’s think about talent - innate ability.
Here is a question I don’t know the answer to nor do I think anyone else does either…
What makes a talented musician?
Is it “musical ability” - it’s in quotes because - what does that mean??
Is it:
Perfect pitch does not a great musician make. I know several people who have it and don’t play much of anything well as they don’t prioritize music in their lives.
All the rest are ideas that could attributed to a wide variety of things beyond “musician”.
So how does this all come together?
I haven’t a clue but it’s darn fun to think about.
When I was at the Forbidden City, it definitely withstood such a crush of people that I was l lifted off of my feet and just kind of went with the flow of the crowd. At a show I would have been looking for the exits in that kind of scrum and fighting for my life, but there it was like so benign.
Talent is a weird thing. It’s mutable. I was one of those golf camp kids in San Diego who was on track, my dad was scratch and would have wanted same for me. I have been privileged to have tried to be, and failed often to be, talented at a lot of stuff. The thing is that sometimes people don’t get to try all the things that they might be talented at, which is the tragedy of capitalism. I am not talented at bass. Yet here I am.
Me too. This is an interesting discussion.
To refine my point further. I think talent or innate aptitude exists.
But we often assign ‘talent’ as a moniker to subjects which are well beyond our expertise.
To experts within that realm, that person is simply very skilled.
Billions of people, only one Mozart. Most of us are average. Some of us are below that 
