xtcian

The mistake you've made with this list is that you've forgotten to handicap people according to how community based their art form is. Yes, a savant can be a good actor, but it helps if you put that idiot in a movie where about fifteen hundred other people help shape his performance.

Also, to have modern dance and ballet on two ends of the list is like... well, it's like having singing and violin on two ends of the list. Having had lessons in both, I can tell you that becoming a great singer requires more physical training and more of your body than violin. You can disregard fat singers but one of the greatest violinists in the world spends his life in a chair, a physical impossibility for a vocalist.

You list is more of a "dilletante's wish" sort of thing- what art can you most quickly become famous for doing adequately? Other than that, I don't think it's useful.

NOBODY should be taught to sing with vibrato (from a church musician where this is absolutely forbidden...!)

i think realistic painting is sometimes done beautifully by those untrained - think of the folk art, especially here in the south, where there are often farm or landscape scenes which are beautifully rendered by those with scant supplies or training.

There's (virtually) no such thing as being serendipitously good at writing a screenplay?!? Have you discussed this particular insight with Mr. Sly Stallone as it pertains to "Rocky"?!?

I'll assume the comment was a little tongue-in cheek, but I don't agree that nobody should be taught to sing with vibrato in church or that "church musicians" should be completely decrying the use of vibrato. A healthy solo vibrato often just sounds like good singing; perhaps cathie is denouncing the all-to-grating wobble vibrato practiced by some church soloists. If so, I couldn't agree more; wobblehead divas perform as if they're nearing the gates of heaven, but their sound too often plunges me into a musical hell.

Much choral music, especially lots of maybe early stuff that could be fashionable in cathie's church, does rely on a more-or-less straight 'group tone' to promote better blend, but within that context, there are likely some subtle individual vibratos. A practiced singer should really be able to do both--sing a solo with vibrato and resonance or produce a straight, not flat tone for genre-appropriate solos or group singing. This is one of the toughest things to teach young singers, especially guys---the over-arching importance of a healthy falsetto tone to color the whole range.

Note to Ian: Too many blogs on vocal pedagogy might bore your readers to tears or jeers. How about the top ten all-time 'screech tone'artists?
1.WoodsytheOwl
2.Axlrose
(Spacebarsux)
3.Myninemonthold

Where does blogging rank on the list?

the vibrato comment was totally tongue-in-cheek!

i personally would love a vibrato-free world, but i guess i will have to live with variety (still joking)

Cathieandall,settleformorethanoccasionalvibratofreemusicalmomentsandletthebirdsprovidethewarblewhenyouneedtotunethehumansout.Bytheway,interiordesignoften=aestheticsense+sufficientfunds/space?WasthatonenotsupposedtobeonthelistordoyouhaveanIKEAsponsorship?WTFwithmyspacebaralready?

I think architecture looks easy. Anyone got a vacant city block and a few hunnert thousand tons of granite I can practice with?

I might need a ruler or something too.

Can't speak to most of what you're all chatting about today. I tend to be a spectator, the audience. My participation runs toward sharing what I think about something, maybe spreading the word. I'm a fairly simple audience, if I like something - it's because I like it, chances are I can't interpret it for you as an art critic would. I do believe in natural talent, I think some are born with it, whether it be as an artist, athlete, singer, musician, writer, actor. I've always been happy to be the audience.

I'm going to second Sean here on how hard it is to accidentally be a good singer. There are those with good instruments, and those with good instruments with good training, and those with good instruments and bad training, and those with bad instruments and good training. And none of these people even remotely fall in the same category. Singing is the hardest thing I do.

Yes, there is ugly vibrato out there, but there is mind-alteringly beautiful vibrato out there, and you can't argue with the fact that vibrato is an extension of the movement of the sound itself.

And, well, yeah, I think this list is full of shit. It seems skewed to me, particularly since three of the four things at the top of the list are things you do or have done, Ian. People write great first-time screenplays and novels all the time. And very, very few people can,without ever having done it before, stand up in front of a crowd knock everyone's socks by singing a song. I think the only thing that can serendipitously be mastered is the art of being funny, and that is because often people are funny without meaning to be. And you know what? I'd even argue against that as well.

Just noticed the post written prior to mine... i'm so guilty of having looked at a what someone has classified as "art" and said "I think I could do that, and i'm sure it would not cost me $8000." But then I already fessed up to most likely not knowing what i'm looking at. And while I may occasionally enjoy belting out a tune in the privacy of my car my daughter asked me to stop singing the other day - which made me laugh out loud. What really cracks me up is people who do something so poorly, yet obviously enjoy it so much and just keep on doing...

Rhonda, you should seriously think about getting your own blog.

Michelle - the top three things are things I've done? I was a frickin VIOLIN MAJOR.

Plus, I know it's natural to defend your craft, but I really do think there are just "naturals" out there who are amazing actors and singers with zero training. Not to toot my own French Horn, but I just sang at a wedding - with YOU, my dear sister - and twenty people rushed to compliment us all night. And I have had no training as a singer whatsoever.

Of course, maybe I was riding your coattails. That's possible too.

However, and this is a big *however*, people who are "naturals" are very, very rare. The best actors and singers in the world have all been relentlessly trained (Hoffman, Domingo - thx, St Sacks!).

As for the bottom of the list, please tell me somebody who accidentally fell into being a great violinist, ballet dancer, novelist or screenplay writer with absolutely no training. I'm sure there are examples, I just can't think of any.

Except for "Rocky" - touché, Jon!

Sean,

Here is a link for a wonderful bass-baritone named Thomas Quasthoff who was born a "Thalidimide" baby. http://www.gopera.com/quasthoff/. He does for voice what Perlman did for violin in terms of overcoming a disability..

Ian, do you mean "Placido Domingo"?

What about Heifitz? And Benny Goodman? Both worked very hard at their crafts, but were they "trained"?

A note on novelists vs. ballerinas and violinists--to be frank, I think that novel writing (can't really say about screenplay writers, or playwrights) on the whole requires a whale of a lot less training than either of the other two art forms mentioned above...I know people work very long and very hard on novels, but you're basically taking one big, long shot in the dark with each one, whereas with ballet and violin you have to have daily training, with instruction, for years, years, and years. Many novels, though worked at with no less blood or sweat, are entirely solo achievements. Many people study writing in a school-like setting (hey, I did that!) but it usually lasts two years--three at most. Working writers find other writers and get feedback from from (nice repetition of 'from' by this trained writer) time to time, but their revisions are entirely personal decisions, whereas I imagine a dancer wouldn't make the same sort of personal decision about, for example, how to do a plie.

In ballet or violin, there is a right way--one exactly right way--to execute the necessary moves. But was there a right way to write 'Moby Dick'? Obviously, in some way there was, but no one showed Melville how to do it--he discovered it through an act of imagination. The equivalent in writing to learning how to play violin or how to dance ballet is learning how to read and write. It's simply a matter of fine motor skill acquisition. So this is in some ways a pointless argument, because you're talking about entirely different sets of talents and skills--i.e., most of us learn to read and write competently enough, but that's no less complex than learning to read music and play violin. It's simply that fewer people learn the latter (which does make it more 'difficult' in that it's more time-consuming and requires discipline in addition to that which we already expend learning more utilitarian life skills).

If what we are talking about is achievement of imagination, there is no art form more difficult than another. However, if we are talking about physical skill, ballet dancing and violin playing are much more difficult than writing.

Maybe my mind is in the gutter and I'm vicariously romantic regarding the recent nuptials, but how are all these lady commenters single? Michelle evidently sings like a lark, gives wholeheartedly to others, and knows everything about wine; I know aesthetics Ann is creative, musical, and amazing as aforementioned. Rhonda adores her family, appreciates others' talents and good country music, so she's single-minded about the stuff she favors. Cathie knows shitty vibrato when she hears it, so her neuro-artistic function is on high signal alert for that not-so-singular problem in this day and age.

Hook these ladies up. Art is love; Serendipity was the name of my sixth grade reading textbook.

Cullen's comment reminds me (again! alas!) that we have not yet congratulated Chip (who for some reason insists on being called "Chris") on his engagement to the infinitely engaging Cathie!! Way to go, you fine blog-commenters, and finer people!! Love from this cyber-community (and from the Carrboro crew--see you tomorrow night at Tony's? It's early!)

Cartooning ought to go on the list too. You can teach drawing, but that panel-to-panel narrative flow is something the artist either gets, or doesn't. (I never had it.) Some of the best comics today are being done by the accidentally fabulous.