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We've probably all been told that we're talented. Mostly by folks who don't know that much about music, but like to hear us play. Not that there's anything wrong with that. :-)

And it doesn't really matter, anyway. I practice daily nonetheless, and I'm making progress.

My Russian friend told me it wasn't worth my taking the piano back up a few years ago. (I'd had about 12 years of lessons growing up - they were very bad lessons but that's another story). She was horrified that I was treaching myself Chopin. When I finally got up the nerve to let her listen to my recording of 10/12 as bad as it is, she was perceptive enough to recognize it as a work in progress and actually cried and smiled as she listened. She hugged me and told me to keep working. That meant a lot. She was a "failed" violinist. She practiced "at least four hours a day" for eight years as a kid and then apparently didn't make the cut. She went on to be a big time scientist, an MD with two Phd's but the violin business still hurt I think. She never touched a violin again. I think that's very sad. Think how much she lost. Russia may well have lost something as well.

I think that this Russian system is responsible for more pain and grief than any "blind encouragement" ever could be. So many people who love music, who could be fairly decent musicians, were just abruptly told "You have no talent", "You failed", or whatever - and that was that. How could anyone do that to someone's soul?