I hate the word talent. Talent is an excuse that most people use so they don't have to put in the hard work. Because without hard work not even the best talent will get to shine. Show me a talented musician and you will show me one who practiced more then most of us combined. They say it takes 10.000 hours to become good at something, well, how many of us are willing to commit to 10.000 hours of practice? Nah, far better to sit back and blame it on lack of talent. (raises hand as he did it himself)
Does this kid have talent? Probably. Did that kid just go sit there and play? Hell no, his parents saw that he had talent and made him practice. Maybe his dad is a drummer and he wants to play along. Small kids want to do that. They see their parents do things, they want to imitate. Kids are blessed with the ability to quickly pick up things, skills, language. It comes easy to them. I'm not impressed by seeing a wonder kid like this, although age 4 is effing impressive. I'm really impressed by an adult still being able to learn new things, because somewhere around puberty that talent to quickly and easily learn things gets shut off. And that's often the point where these wonder kids lose interest as its no longer as fun as it used to be, learning new things becomes harder, practicing becomes a chore and girls or boys are now infinitely more interesting.
Nice rant
The fact of the matter is that some people are just better at some things than others. We come into the world with different gifts, yes, and "talents". We aren't created equal. This is just species variation and not to be refuted unless you want to fly in the face of modern science and reason. I think you are confusing two issues, talent, and motivation. I grew up with a guy who could play the piano, I mean REALLY play the piano, it was ridiculous how good he was. Did he practice, NOPE! did he take lessons, NOPE! none of it. He could just sit at a piano and purely by ear work out a tune in 30 seconds. A minute later he was playing it with improvised parts and flourishes that would make Herbie Handcock sit up and listen. But here's the thing, he never bothered to do it for a living because he had no motivation or interest in it really, it was a party trick to him. Was he talented? Hell yes, but...
In my own life, I've seen it amongst guitar players. I work really hard at my craft, I have for years played hours a day, yet I have come across kids who have been playing a couple of years who can just blow me away. They can't possibly have practised more than me, they are not old enough. They can just do it, it flows out of them in a way it never has for me. That's talent. You can choose to ignore it, as my piano player friend did and never go further, or you can choose to pursue it like Vai or Satch or Wes or SRV any other "guitar hero" you choose to name. What you can't do is ignore the fact that some people are just good at it, better than average, yes, talented.
When I think of talent, I don't just think of good, I think of exceptional. I think Mozart, Paganini, Zappa, Da Vinci, Einstein, Planck, Newton etc. These people didn't only just work hard, they had something the average Joe doesn't have, that spark of indefinable but tangible...Talent. The kid in the vid has it in spades buddy
(The Kid in the Vid...I like that)
