It’s a little bit of both. There has to be some innate musical ability there. There has to be some sort of connection between what the ears hear, and what the brain translates and tells the larynx to do. Generally, if someone can speak well, they can sing well. It’s down to their interpretation of pitch–how they can hear pitch and reproduce it.
That’s built into some people more than others, just like playing basketball or some other instrument. Someone picks up a guitar and it’s their thing. They wouldn’t be a great drummer. For some reason that instrument just appeals to their brain. All of it can be developed, it’s just how far it can be developed.
It doesn’t matter how many years I practice, I will never be a major league baseball athlete. I’m not built that way. It’s just not part of who I am.
I get this a lot: “I have a lot of passion for it.” Well, passion isn’t enough. It’s good, but you can love the dream and it doesn’t have to love you back. Your best may never be good enough. And that’s a sad thing to tell somebody.
We’ve got a lot of people out there who have little or no training who are fantastic artists because there is some innate quality in them that just appeals to others. You could say, technically, they’re not an amazing Singer. Mariah Carey is a “technically” amazing Singer, but some people don’t like her voice. All the acrobatics don’t really impress them.
Then you have someone like Adele, who’s not as technically trained as Mariah Carey. But there’s something organic, something visceral in her voice that makes you want to listen over and over again. It has nothing to do with vocal exercises and scales. There’s just something about the way she sings a song that draws you in. That’s something that’s built into somebody. You can’t train that into somebody. If they have that ability, you can train that ability more. But it has to already be there to some degree.
In my 15 years of teaching, I’ve only ever turned one person down and said, “This isn’t for you,” because they just didn’t have it. They had absolutely no innate musical ability. None at all. They were attempting to write songs and I was like, “Have you ever actually heard music? Because that’s not how it’s structured and that’s not how it works.”
They wanted it so badly but it just wasn’t in them. And that’s the only person I’ve ever told, “Singing isn’t really for you.” Everyone else I’ve told, “You have something there, we can develop that.”
So there has to be something there that can be trained, and then how much that grows is dependent on many factors. The ability to be open-minded and train a lot. To do the work. To do the process. Do they have something to offer? There’s not a lot of music that’s unique today, but do they have something to say? That has to come through in the song.
You can have all the technical ability in the world, but if you can’t communicate, if you can’t sell that song to somebody else … it doesn’t matter how many hours you train a day or how many years you put in if nobody wants to buy what you’re selling. And that’s most people. There are only so many people at the very top. You can be just under the top, but even that’s a very selective amount of people. That’s the unfortunate part.
The odds are stacked against you even more now than they used to be. There are so many more people doing it and the access is so much easier. You can just throw yourself on the internet and everyone can see you. So the market is flooded with a lot of very subpar people. You have to rise above the noise. You have to work really hard to do something that catches somebody’s eye.
So again, it has to be partly there and it can be trained. There’s always something there that can be developed. It’s just how far do you want to go? People have different levels. You may be able to achieve it, you may not. But you have to try.
As the uncle/mentor/surrogate grandfather that I never had said: “If you’re going to do this and you feel you really need to do this, you need to do this 100%.” There’s no 90%. Give it 100%. That’s what I tell all my students. You have to want to learn. Because I’m going to challenge you a lot.