In fact, having natural ability hurts far more than it helps. More often than not, the students that display a lot of natural talent early on become intensely frustrated when they reach the extent of their natural gifts, and have to start practicing like their less gifted counterparts. The students that worked hard to achieve their talent are far more likely to advance their skills to the highest level, and be able to cope with the pressures involved at the level of professional performance.

I'm sure that things are similar in any creative field.

Many people say that too much study kills spontaneity in music, but although study may kill a small talent, it is a must to develop a big one. By concentrating on precision, one arrives at technique, but by concentrating on technique one does not arrive at precision. - George Gershwin

All that shows is that 'smartness' has little to do with competence.

The purpose of education is not to be competent at a job; it's to keep from reinventing the wheel every time a previously solved problem comes about.

As an audio engineer, it would certainly be my opinion that these tracks were highly processed after mixing, and possibly before. The amount of noise and distortion from hundreds of cheap laptop/webcam microphones would be horrific. I'm certain they used a noise reduction filter, and an awful lot of additional ambiance/reverb to mask the sonic artifacts.

I wonder if they moved to Chicago...

I disagree. The government is just made up of people. And people, pardon me, are assholes...

Oops, that was supposed to be a response to the GP. Anyone who thinks that this country is theirs and theirs alone is delusional. Same goes with political parties that believe that they represent all of America with their political beliefs.

I think if you're one of 300 million Americans, it's only 1/300,000,000 YOUR country.

Ahem... Our country...

Actually, I have no problem paying your medical bills.

I'm sorry you have a problem paying mine...

Oh, Someone could make a Fortuna selling a book of Orff jokes!

I'm the only one in my entire family with sleep troubles. DSPS probably has a strong hereditary component, but I haven't seen any evidence to suggest it's the primary cause.

How interesting...

Another physicist/musician with DSPS that turned to software engineering to accommodate a bizarre sleep schedule!

I'm not alone!

~Loren

I've never in my life seen an actual study that concludes this. Every study I have read indicates that classroom size, family income, and poverty are by far the biggest factors in how well a child can be educated.

That's primarily because of high expectations, which comes from parents and from allowing teachers to push kids to their limits. Note that this can often suppress creativity and extra-curricular interests, but probably no more so than our current standardized testing regimen.