Q #4 Hey Mona! Do you feel your awesome ability to sing harmony can be…

[Rudolf Wagner]

Hi Mike!

Personally, I am not a huge believer in talent. By that I mean that I think most “talented” people out there have earned that description by working hard on whatever they are good at and interested in and, most importantly, kept up the interest and discipline to go through the tough patches that no doubt occur when learning or creating new things 🙂 Obviously with things like sport, genetics can play a huge rule (I don’t think a basketball career was ever in the cards for me) but personally I try avoiding the word “talent” for that reason.

In our case specifically with singing harmonies I think it was a natural, slow learning curve that came from repetition over many years. Like many other young kids we used to be pretty bad at singing but we always sang at home and in the car and it’s something our parents always encouraged. When we were on car journeys our dad would show us how to sing harmonies to our favourite songs or sing triad chords with us (each one of us took one note).

It was something we did for fun to make car journeys go by quicker and really enjoyed it, so by the time we were teenagers it came quite naturally to us and we had a basic idea on how to find the harmony to a melody by listening alone. These days it comes easy and natural but I don’t think it would have if it wasn’t for those hours of singing with Lisa as little kids and Dad. It didn’t seem like work or effort at all but looking back it definitely was a big part of us being kids. I don’t think we had much talent from the get go. We just sang a lot and got better and stuck to it 🙂

The fact that we are twins and have similar voices I think helps with making our harmonies sounds more … harmonic 😉 Sometimes voices just don’t work together even if everyone is singing in tune, so whenever we sing with someone else it’s a hit or miss whether or not it’s a nice blend of voices. All the sibling bands you mention have that bonus. It’s nearly like singing harmonies with yourself.

I don’t know if we would sound much different if we were merely sisters, not twins, but it would probably be at least similar I’d guess 🙂

Also, I’m sure if someone explained to you the basics of harmonies, and maybe showed you on a keyboard and pointed it out in songs your ears would soon get used to it and you’d have a much easier time with it. It probably wouldn’t even take very long!

Anyway, thanks for the questions! All the best from snowy Liverpool,

Mona

[Michael Triba]

Waahhh!  Mona, I just wrote you a long reply to thank you and when I hit “submit” it told me to log in, and my reply was totally gone!  🙁  I just wasted about 40 minutes.  I should have learned my lesson and typed and saved it in MS Word first.  I totally forgot to do that.

This happens in Facebook, YouTube, and even Patreon.  Maybe I get “timed-out” or something?  Stupid computer (or is it the user?) can be so frustrating.  I’ll have to ask Christomir or someone.  Sorry, I’ll go to MS Word and try to remember most of my reply to you.  Grrrr!!!  🙁

[Michael Triba]

Actual reply from me:

Hey again Mona!

I’ll try to reconstruct basically what I wrote you this morning and give you the gist of it.  Yes; when I was a junior psychology major in college, just for the fun and joy of it I took an elective course with the freshmen music majors.  It was on music theory, and it did help me much in my piano playing.  One of our textbooks, which I still have after 45 years, is entitled, “Harmony and Ear Training at the Keyboard.”  In the last decade or so, I enjoy singing along with my piano playing more than ever before.  I am an average vocalist and probably a tenor.

It sounds like your dad taught you girls how to sing the sub-dominant and dominant notes of the tonic triad.  Of course, he did not use those terms with you, lol! (Or did he?)  I could train my ears to hear the harmony notes and even to sing them solo.  But once I hear the melody, the synapse pathways of my brain would lead me back to sing melody.  Lenore and I have a lovely friend who I would say is “tone-deaf.”  Hearing her sing is very painful, like a chorus of long fingernails moving down a chalk-board; yikes!  She could go to a professional voice coach, and he or she would soon pay her to quit and take up knitting or something.  Her DNA simply does not contain the “talent” or inclination to sing well.

I understand and agree about what you say about talent:

natural aptitude or skill.  synonyms: flair · aptitude · facility · gift · knack · technique · touch · bent · ability · expertise · capacity · power · faculty · strength · strong point · forte · genius · brilliance · dexterity · adroitness · skill · cleverness · virtuosity · artistry

Becoming skilled in any endeavour takes a lot of practice, repetition, hard work, and patience.  I really love your sentence: “In our case specifically with singing harmonies I think it was a natural, slow learning curve that came from repetition over many years.”

It has been said that “repetition is the mother of retention.”  People often say, “practice makes perfect” but I do not agree with that.  To me, “practice makes permanent” instead.  Your father taught you and Lisa the correct techniques to sing melody and harmony.  Through years of honing your craft the two of you have become “World Class” vocalists.  Maybe you don’t have a range of 4 octaves or an extremely high upper register, but you have the sweetest and cutest darn voices I have ever heard!  <3 <3

Does this make sense?  My tone-deaf friend could practice for decades, but still sound horrible.  Her neural pathways are firmly established.  She and 99.99% of us simply do not have the natural aptitude and/or special gift from God to sing as well as you two.  You have taken those gifts and used them wisely.

By the way; I loved how you and Lisa both harmonized with John Sebastian (John Sebastian himself!)

You and your sis and I have exclaimed groovy love aka philia aka affection many times.  But have I ever told you both how much I also like you?  Well, I do!

Groovy-love and groovy-like from thawing Omaha  ????

[Michael Triba]

*

[Jung Roe]

….Melody and Harmony is what you and Lisa do incredibly and remarkably well.  It is often sublime when your voices mix!

[Howard]

Wow Mike, you have raised some huge issues here! And please lay off that ‘tone deaf’ friend of yours. Sounds like she could be my soul sister as we have something in common. As much as I love music, I too am tone deaf and no amount of professional training and hard work on my part could ever make me any more than a very ordinary singer at best.

While in primary school I had piano lessons from our local Methodist church organist and passed my first year examinations at our Conservatorium of Music. However, I could never play by ‘ear’ and had to rely on reading the music. I used to envy two of my brothers and a sister who couldn’t read music but could play by ‘ear’. My sister played piano and two of my brothers played the guitar.

I have five siblings and three of us inherited our father’s musical ear and three of us inherited our mother’s ‘van Goh’ ear for music unfortunately.

As for Mona and Lisa, it sure sounds like they have both inherited their father’s musical gene. If we look at that very brief video of them standing on the sofa singing ‘Singing in the Rain’ (I think), I bet they are in tune and they are only four years of age.

I understand why Mona isn’t ‘a huge believer in ‘talent’, as this label does people like her and her sister a huge disservice. While they may have been blessed with good genes, they “have earned that description by working hard on whatever they are good at and interested in”. I have no doubt that they have worked very hard on developing their ‘talent’, and we are now the beneficiaries.

Getting back to your unfortunate friend Mike and your comment “Her DNA simply does not contain the “talent” or inclination to sing well”. I can sympathise with her and find it very frustrating when people are offended if I don’t sing along with them at birthdays etcetera. I have developed the habit of pretending to sing as they would be even more offended if I actually did join in. LOL!

I agree it would be more useful for everyone if we used terms like “natural aptitude or skill”, rather than talent. I remember once, when I was younger and attending regular martial arts classes, someone asked our instructor what the difference was between an amateur and a professional. His response was, ‘repetition, repetition, repetition!’ In the case of the MLT, I believe it has been practice, practice, practice!

[Tomás F. Calvo]

If I may jump in, that was a precise and fantastic response by Mona.

I have used the term “talented” to describe the MonaLisa Twins, and I will continue to do so if I don’t offend, but I agree with Mona’s definition of talent, it’s 90% hard work. However, when the “natural aptitude (what you’re good at)” + interest matches in a person, that is what fuels the arduous learning process, which otherwise is very hard to endure. Another key element is the proper instruction from an early age. This I know well, because I had crummy music instructors as a kid, which I had to unlearn, and then spend a lifetime re-learning. It’s clear that Rudi was/is a fantastic instructor (on top of everything else) and set them on the right track off the bat. The advantage of doing this as twins vs sisters is the age, as the age difference in sisters would be more pronounced in the early ages, creating more of a gap to overcome. You can have some or all the ingredients, but you have to put them together with skill.

In all creative endeavors, there is a craft element and an art element. If a carpenter is making a chair, he has to learn how to use the tools, understand the materials and their strength, to make a chair that someone can sit on. Only then can he start to make it pretty, into an art form. Music is no different.

That being said, the part of “Personally, I am not a huge believer in talent.” I take it as humble modesty. Like Michael said, there are plenty of people that work very hard year after year and don’t get anywhere near the success of the Twins. I’ve seen this first hand in people in the music and film industry. I know I could work at it for several lifetimes, even if I was granted a twin, I couldn’t get near what MLT produces. From Mona and Lisa’s perspective, all they have is hard work, and do the best they can. They can’t be like “hey, out of my way, I’ve got talent!” Proof is in the pudding, and I don’t mean those sugarless Christmas cookies.

[u]Here’s an anecdote[/u]: In a panel of musicians talking about The Beatles, I think this was for the 50th anniversary of the Ed Sullivan show, one of them said how they had been inspired by them and even now, with all the success this musician had, he would still every now and then try to do a Beatles song, and in his words “we would go into the studio and realize we are not The Beatles”. What he meant is that the Beatles are deceptively difficult to do, and you may think you can do it… until you try. This coming from top musicians. There was an album that came out a couple of years ago “The Art of Paul McCartney”, is was all covers of Paul’s songs by huge stars (Dylan, Brian Wilson, Roger Daltrey, etc.) and personally, it’s painful. I heard it once and couldn’t listen to it again. As a contrast I’m listening -yet again- to the twins cover of “If I Fell” and it’s heaven.

So, to summarize, I hope I can tell anybody that will listen that the MonaLisa Twins are Incredibly Talented and by this I mean that they achieve what others can only dream of, which only comes after years of hard work and unwavering dedication, if it ever comes at all.

Mona, If I knew how to say it I’d say it for you: you have an understanding of rhythm that very few possess. I know this didn’t come from the end of a wand or in a chromosome.

[Jung Roe]

This has evolved into an interesting discussion about natural talent versus hard work and discipline to earn one’s accomplishments.

This reminds me of something I read in a classical music article some time ago comparing natural born geniuses like Bach and Mozart who inherited inspiration from the heavens and their art came more easily than Beethoven who possessed a more modest natural talent and had to really work painfully hard for his art. Beethoven didn’t possess the natural born child prodigy genius of a Mozart or Bach. Bach and Mozart’s composition in Symphonies and Concertos vastly outnumbered Beethoven’s output, example 40+ Mozart Symphonies to only 9 Beethoven Symphonies or 20+ Piano Concertos by both Bach and Mozart to Beethoven’s mere 5 etc… It appeared perfect music just appeared to Bach and Mozart with ease because of their genius, and hence their greater volume output. Bach’s music was a force of nature full of math and physics, and Mozart’s music was angelic. While the greatness of Bach and Mozart’s work is undeniable in the impact they had in music, each work Beethoven produced through sweat and blood are monuments. Depth and emotions are considered to be greater in each of Beethoven’s work. While music was generally considered a lesser art than literature, paintings, and sculptures etc prior to Beethoven in the days Pachelbel, Vivaldi, Handel, Bach and Mozart, many classical music experts credit Beethoven’s work for elevating music as an art form to a plateau equal to the other arts. After Beethoven, composers were held with the same high esteem as the likes of Picasso, Shakespeare and Da Vinci. So there is much to be said for hard work and dedication when it comes to music and art.

[Howard]

Ecellent contributions Tomás and Jung.

While it’s easy for us to use the term talent (in the most positive way), when discussing Mona and Lisa, it’s only the two of them that really know all the hard work, focus, passion and discipline that has gone into developing that ‘talent’. I have no doubt that their father and Michaela have also been a huge support in their pursuit of perfection.

I particularly like your analogy with a carpenter Tomás, as in other trades and professions, people aren’t born as plumbers, teachers and doctors. They achieve that status through hard work and discipline and MLT have certainly achieved their status (up there with the best in their particular discipline) through hard work and dedication to achieving their goals. Being born into an environment that has been very supportive of their passion has been a bonus for them as they have often attested.

I will also continue to refer to their enormous talent but on the understanding that this talent has been earned rather than inherited.

[Tomás F. Calvo]

That’s interesting Jung. Though it might be on point to note that Beethoven went deaf by 28 years old, producing masterpieces while almost completely deaf.  I think it was being arranged for Beethoven (20 years old at the time) to take lessons from Mozart before he died at 35. Bach was born about 100 years earlier, at a time with much cruder instruments (and different tuning for different instruments and scales) and he completely revolutionized music.

Personally, I feel closer to grumpy ol’ Beethoven’s music, and feel a connection between him and John Lennon.

[Jung Roe]

Tomas, it’s interesting you draw the parallel between Beethoven and John Lennon.  I always felt that way too about Lennon, and perhaps Paul McCartney is more like a Mozart.  John always seemed to be the more passionate and emotionally spirited of the 4, and Paul was the song writing genius who kept cranking out the songs.   In the post Beatles, for me John’s “Imagine” eclipses Paul’s numerous solo works.

The thing that set Beethoven apart from the other composers in history was he was an equally accomplished master pianist, probably the best in his day or ever that no one could come close to, and he didn’t start out as a child prodigy like Mozart, but had to develop his piano skills.  I think earlier in his career when he started to compose, he was more famous as a master pianist drawing crowds where ever he went.

The article I read tried to point out Beethoven had to work harder for his art than Mozart and Bach, and in the end created greater music.  Beethoven’s music had more emotional depth than Bach and Mozart’s masterpieces, perhaps because of how hard it was for Beethoven to create his art while facing challenges of deafness and other obstacles in his life.

 

[Howard]

I like your analysis Jung. Bach and Mozart on the other hand just sat there and inspiration kind of came down upon them in a sense. This sounds very much like the Paul McCartney experience whose Yesterday and Let it Be songs for example, came to him in his sleep.

As for John, I could never imagine Paul writing songs with the emotion and passion of John’s Gimme Some Truth or Mother. Even in his earlier days with the Beatles, this passion is also evident in songs like No Reply and I’m a Loser from the Beatles For Sale album and Misery from their first album, which was more a joint composition written for Helen Shapiro who was at the time, Britains most successful female singer.

In early 1963 the Beatles were fifth on the bill to Helen Shapiro’s nationwide tour of the UK. By the following year, Beatlemania had spread across the world. Can we possibly draw any analogies with the MLT supporting Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel’s 2015 tour? Steve Harley may not be the top touring act in the UK but the music scene has changed drastically since the early sixties!

 

[Jung Roe]

Thanks for pointing out those other John Lennon songs Howard.  I’m not familiar with those ones you mentioned but my curiosity is piqued.  If reincarnation was true, I’d bet Beethoven and Mozart would’ve loved to come back as John and Paul.  🙂

[Jung Roe]

I love this scene about Beethoven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=524VlYD0PVw

Genius or innate talent tempered by “life” challenges, made Beethoven’s music immortal.   Beethoven had to work hard for his art, including dealing with the challenges of deafness in his case, and this is why he created music with so much passion and emotion never seen before his time, exceeding all his great predecessors like Bach and Mozart who’s art came more easily.

[Howard]

Yes Jung, and beautifully juxtaposed in the scene from the movie “Amadeus”, in the video following, with the frivolous Mozart showing up the serious Salieri. Unlike Mozart, Salieri had to work hard for his art.

[Jung Roe]

Ah yes Howard Amadeus was a classic.  Love that scene you mention.  Problem with Salieri was his huge pride that he could not get past which led to his demise.   Now there is Haydn. Haydn taught both Mozart and Beethoven at one point and had enough humility to know greater talent than his own when he saw it, but still went on to become one of the great composers himself well respected in music history for his contribution unlike Salieri.

[Jung Roe]