Bale, Kane and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
As long as I keep pumping you full of this good stuff and keep challenging you to think.
In another round of Tottenham Tittle Tattle, your number 1 Spurs blog goes where no other Tottenham blog goes, Salzburg in 1756.
Read on and all will be revealed.
Let me start by asking you a question which you can mentally answer before reading on.
Was Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, that's Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to you, born a genius?
- Born January 27, 1756, Salzburg
- Died December 5, 1791, Vienna
- Austrian composer, widely recognized as one of the greatest composers in the history of Western music
- Mozart wrote about 600 works of music before he died, aged 36 and his music has been featured in more than 300 films
- Composed 50 symphonies, 25 piano concertos, 12 violin concertos, 27 concertos arias, 26 string quartets, 103 minuets, 15 masses, and 21 opera works
- Composed his first piece at the age of 5 (a minuet)
- Touring and performing, aged 6
Was Mozart born a genius?
Hands up, if you put your hand up he was.
But was he?
He was born with the very same "gifts" you have, the same "gifts" that everyone is born with.
In 1763 a letter was published in a newspaper in Augsburg shortly before the 7-year-old was going on tour stating that the young boy could immediately identify any note played on any instrument.
That he could do so even if he were not in the room and could not see the instrument being played or if it were simply an object making a tune, like a bell.
His father was a musician, composer and music teacher and taught his son.
His father possessed every instrument.
Now are you starting to see?
He wasn't born a genius, he was simply taught.
Adult musicians of the day couldn't do it, but a 7-year-old could.
Today we call it perfect pitch, the technical term is absolute pitch.
About 1 in 10,000 has it.
Beethoven had perfect pitch, Brahms didn't.
Frank Sinatra had perfect pitch, orchestra leader Miles Davis, one of the most influential and acclaimed figures in the history of jazz and 20th-century music, didn't.
In 2014, at the Ichionkai Music School in Tokyo, an experiment was carried out that was reported in the Psychology of Music scientific journal.
A Japanese psychologist, Ayako Sakakibara, gathered 24 children between the ages of 2-6.
He then put them through a training course to teach them to identify various chords played on the piano, just by their sound.
The course was broken down to just a few minutes in each session, 4 or 5 times a day.
That's between 124 and 155 sessions for just a few minutes each session over a month.
Let's assume that was 3 minutes.
3 (minutes) X 155 = 465
465 (minutes) / 60 = 7 hours 45 minutes
There were 14 target chords and each child trained until they could identify each target chord.
Some learnt within a year, the rest had all learnt when 18 months was up.
7.45 X 12 = 93 hours
7.45 X 18 = 139 hours 30 minutes
He tested each child, remember these are 2-6 year olds, to see if they could identify the 14 notes, they all did, they all had perfect pitch.
As I said, only 1 in 10,000 has it, yet it was taught to every young children in a group within 18 months.
Mozart was taught by his father from a very young age, at age 4 he was learning full-time from his father, Leopold.
Now that is all very fascinating Clive, but what has it got to do with Spurs?
Well, the point is everything can be taught.
Everyone is endowed with a brain that is so flexible and adaptable that it can, with the right training, develop capabilities that seem incredible to those of us who do not possess it.
Cristiano Ronaldo turned himself into one of the two best players in the world simply because it is what he wanted.
He worked one-on-one with a coach to achieve it.
Gareth Bale became the third best player in the world because he had a childhood dream to play for Real Madrid, meaning he had to become great to get noticed and signed.
He, of course, developed the reverse swerving free-kick that caught the eye of everyone and bamboozled goalkeepers.
Harry Kane was not born as one of the best strikers in the world, he has had to work his socks off to get their.
He was given a chance in the final games of a season, he took it to such an effect that he has been a first choice starter ever since.
All three have had to have the right mentality to improve, to develop, to get where they are.
You were born with the same "gifts" they were born with, the same gifts Mozart was born with, a brain.
It's just that they have done more with their brain that you have done with yours.
The objective for Spurs, therefore, is to fill the squad with players who have the mentality of those three, then you will get a squad who want to develop their own game as well as the team game.
That will lead to improvement and success.
Those that don't have the mentality, you either ship out or train to acquire the mentality and thus the footballing ability that follows.
You can't do it the other way round, improvement is stifled that way, progress is slower.
If Mozart had been born in a different household he would not have developed his remarkable abilities.
It transpires therefore, that a player must be at the right club with exposure to the right methods of development to develop and expand his potential.
The job of the club is to develop that environment and the infrastructure is a part of that.
Should we not have the infrastructure in place to develop mentality then?
Seems common sense to me.
Ability is not a gift.
Ability is the result of endless hard work, often from a very young age.
The brain can be rewired, neurological pathways strengthened, weakened, created.
This is what happened to Mozart and to the children in Sakakibara's experiment.
Apparently the adaptability to acquire perfect pitch disappears from around the age of 7, although I'd suggest it was still there, just that it would take a lot longer.
We know for instance it is easier to learn a second language when you are a child, rather than an adult, the brain is more receptive.
Learning is no longer developing to fulfil potential as that implies there is a limit, there isn't.
Training creates skills, creates abilities that have endless potential to develop.
I can't is nonsense, you just haven't learnt yet.
Now obviously to learn you have to have the desire to do so.
Tanguy Ndombélé didn't have it, now he does, Dele did have it, then he lost it and we wait to see whether he has got it back again.
Why did we throw away a three goal lead in 10 minutes?
Needless fouls are the result of over eagerness or complacency, a mental issue.
Davinson Sanchez does what Davinson Sanchez does when you apply any pressure to him, makes mistakes, a mental issue.
A hit and hope shoot squeezes into the top corner with everyone in the box and nobody patrolling outside it, a mental issue again.
Mental panic pushes everyone into our own box allowing all West Ham players to push up instead of retaining any defensive shape, individuals start ball watching and ball chasing, acting as individuals and not a team.
That is anxiety taking over and what did I discuss recently, how you need training to control your thought processes and control anxiety during a game.
I keep being proved right over mental training and we keep not taking a professional enough approach.
Lot's of positives in the game from an attacking point of view.
Hopefully this is a kick up the backside defensively, although it will probably engendour panic in future games because the mind will associate the situation with the emotion and anxiety will win the day.
Hence why we need training to control it and produce positive emotions.
On Sunday I completed a good week, taking £25 and turning it into £1000, so my mental state is fine and dandy.
I'll start with £25 again today.
I have had to train myself to handle that psychological pressure.
I have talked about psychological pressure a lot in various forms.
What does Mourinho refer to after the game?
The fact we didn't handle the psychological pressure.
More points a sports psychologist, as a regular part of training, would have won.
When will we learn?
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