TALENT
The American heritage of the English language defines talent as A natural endowment or ability of superior quality. The word Talented originated from the Latin word ‘talentium’. In Middle English, it is spelled talentium but in old age English, it was spelled ‘Sallente’.
Talent is a gift of nature. To be talented is to be gifted. It is a trait given by the creator to individual human beings. It reveals itself in the behaviour of individuals and it is a natural psychological phenomenon.
Talent helps a scientist or a technologist or an artist to perform extraordinarily well in this discipline; inventors of scientific phenomena such as aeroplane locomotives cameras radio television, etc. depended basically on their talents.
Talent helps the creator or the artist cause something to exist. It helps to bring into the creator or artist some foresight which is the power to think ahead and produce something or perform any action on a high singular level
Talent helps imagination, to bring out something from nothing; it helps the creator of any literary genre to build the right characteristics in his work. In Literature, Fine Art, Craft, and Music, talent functions in helping artists to get something meaningful freely into a man.
It is in-born in man; it is part of the totality of a person. It is one of those things that make a person whatever he is in life. It is thus an element of fate.
It is harmonic, and thus it assists a person to perform well in any art, technology or science, freely without rigor. As a gift from the creator of nature, it could be seen as a blessing.
In traditional literacy, artists depend solely on talent. Most traditional artistes of various music, dance, and fine art and applied artists and the users of words of a language to narrative, exchange, dialogue and challenge emotion – Literature, exchange, dialogue and challenge emotion – Literature of the African past, makes us of their talents.
It is a talent that helped Aristotle, Sophocles, and other ancient Greek literacy authors write and formulate theories of the various forms of literature. The Roman Cicero used gifts for oration, and that was why he excelled as an orator.
To come home, Yoruba Orators: Like Late Chief L. Akintola, [The Premier, Western Region of the First Republic of Nigeria] and Late Chief Bola Ige [the Governor of Oyo State of the Second Republic of Nigeria] made use of creativity talents in Oration.
Pioneer Yoruba Dramatist and theatre Practitioners such as Late Hubert, Late Kola Ogunmola, Late Duro Ladipo, Lare Paimo, and Ogungbe all utilized their talents of the arts and that is why they were able to excel, or are still excelling in the arts.
The same thing applies to Musicians, Pioneers of Juju Music, highlife, and ‘Apala’ Music made use of their talents.
Musicians like Ayinde Bakare, Ojoge Daniel, Kayode, Ebenezer Obey, and Sunny Ade, to mention a few, made use of the natural endowment for music and that is they were able to lay the foundation of their various types of music.
EXPERIENCE
According to Edwards Paul [1972] Experience means familiarity with some matter of practical concern, based on repeated past acquaintance or performance.
The experienced doctor or solider was known not merely by the book, but by practices under a variety of circumstances.
It denotes the capacity of doing something, a learned habit of doing something. It is the learning of doing something by guidance rather than by rule-of-hub, by precept, then by theoretical understanding.
The learner through experience must contribute something in the process of learning, by way of inference, interpretation, or contribution.
Experience must in part at least, be the work of the mind. This is psychological. For all that, we do not create or invent our experience and certainly, we cannot alter it at will. Any experience that is altered becomes an adulterated or adapted recipe.
Thus generally, we have an immediate experience or object of ‘bara’ in contrast to the more solid or developed experience of which is an essential ingredient.
In immediate experience, there could be theories whose claim of material objects is immediately given so that there is no difference between naked and clothed experience.
William James and F. N. Bradley [1998] have expressed that there is no difference between the product of immediate experience and what comes from it.
Experience is that concept that reveals all that a person had tested, touched, and felt in the past. It could also be what happened to a person or to another person or thing where one is present.
It could also come through verbal communication i.e. something that one learns through explanation by other people.
Anything that happens in one’s presence or which one learned about and could store in his memory becomes his experience.
There is a popular philosophical saying that “Experience makes a man”. Excellence performance in teaching, use of a language, trade and technology, administration, evangelism, politics, and other human endeavors depends on experience.
The happenings in the Second Republic of Nigeria formed the bulk of experience which Professor Femi Osofisan tapped to create and write his play ‘Midnight Hotel’.
Wole Soyinka’s ‘The Trials of Brother Jero’ reflected the author’s experience in spiritual ‘Aladura’ churches.
These cannot be compared with most of the productions of the Late Oyin Adejobi, a renowned dramatist of Osogbo who made use of his talent and experience but lacked formal training.
TRAINING
Encyclopedia Britannica (1998) says that training is a means of achieving scholarship in any discipline. The scholarship is an exhibition of excellence in anything we do or produce. It is coaching or accustoming to some mode of behavior with specialized instruction and practice.
Training is the process where we acquire knowledge systematically and practically. Training is more than learning through examination because it involves practice. After all, practice makes perfect.
Training is a means of securing perfection in any discipline. It is the total involvement of the mind, soul, and body of the trainee in any discipline.
A training program affords the trainee the competence to produce standard products for whatever he is trained. Meaningful production in any literary genre either in writing or in practical presentation as in drama depends partly on the level of the artist’s training.
A trained artist will not find himself/herself fidgeting when he/she is questioned on any of his works. Whatever he/she produces will be original.
In the course of training, he would have learned all the principles of successful creativity and these will guide him to produce something that will be useful to society.
A BLEND OF TALENT, EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING
Talent, experience, and training work together in the life of an artist. Each of them is not enough for the artist to make a name or shine.
Parts of each of them have to be blended into the production of any art work. The sketch shows three circles each representing Talent, Experience, and Training
Editors
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