Talent vs. Tenacity : Why legends are built, not born.

There are people with no talent and there are people with so much talent that it seems unfair.....

    I got fairly lucky there. I'm closer to the 'unfair' end of the spectrum than the 'no talent'. How much closer, I don't know. However, I see folks with more talent than me every day floundering and not really improving. In the situation I'm in, being back in college, the folks I'm referring to are college students who were talented enough where they never really had to work through high school and just got by on natural ability. These folks can usually fake their way through freshman year, maybe even sophomore. However, at some point reality catches up with them and they are exposed for their lack of effort. I've seen kids fall on their face in this situation due to the fact that they simply never learned how to work.
     I've heard a myriad of excuses here- "My professor just isn't very good.", "I don't have competition in my studio to drive me to get better.", "I'm only at University of...it isn't like I'm at Indiana or Michigan. The bar is set lower here." I have responses to each which just shut them down.
1: I've been very lucky with major professors. Both of my long term sax teachers, Allen Rippe and Doug Owens, bring great and very unique skill sets to the table. However, there are students in the world who believe both are bad teachers? Do you know why? It's because these students believe that these teachers, AT A COLLEGE LEVEL, are somehow supposed to either inspire the student to practice or give them some sort of magical knowledge to where they won't have to practice hard. If you are a college music major and you need a teacher to inspire you to practice, then I submit that you really need to evaluate what you are doing as a music major.
2: If you need competition to make you work harder, well.....good luck getting a job. If you don't have the internal motivation to get after it and make yourself a better musician, then IF you even get a job, what are you going to expect from your students?
3: I'm at UT Martin. It's a small school which doesn't have a Julliard like reputation throughout the country. That said, the practice rooms here serve the exact same purpose as the ones at Julliard or Indiana. If anything, let the fact that you are at a smaller school put a little (positive) chip on your shoulder and drive you to be just as skilled as the students at larger schools.

     Yes, you need a certain level of talent to be a music major. However, hard work trumps talent ten times out of ten. Get in the practice room, give your instrument a steady diet of scales, long tones, articulation work, and voicing. Show your classmates, teachers, and the world what you can accomplish. Mostly, show YOURSELF.

GET IT DONE.