Today’s song is the Huron Carol, Canada’s oldest Christmas carol, written in 1642 by Father Jean de Brébeuf, who was recuperating at the time from a broken clavicle. The oldest words are different from what we usually sing, and there are lots of translations. That last link has a guide to pronunciation and a file to download, if you want to sing it in Huron, and there’s a video recording of it in Huron here along with the various sets of words. You can play with it on mfiles, and print out sheet music for all your instruments. If you don’t want sheet music, there’s guitar tab with a nice guitar recording. It has also been recorded by the Crash Test Dummies and by Bruce Cockburn, if you just want to listen.
Frances Tyrrell has done a picture book of it, and Christmas cards, too.
This is a great example of how the early church fathers adapted their message to the context wherever they were, a practice which the apostle Paul would have applauded, though plenty of people nowadays would call it cultural imperialism. The tune was “Une Jeune Pucelle,” which you can hear played by the Boston Camerata for a moment or two, though I haven’t found lyrics. 
Yesterday, the Art Teacher posted a student handbook and asked for feedback, so I went and read it. I was struck by one section, which explained that design students who didn’t have talent should plan to work harder.
I don’t have design talent. Actually, I’m good at the whole information architecture part, which is pretty central in web design, and I’m improving my coding all the time. The art part, however, escapes me. I figure this is because I have no talent.
I’m adding the front page of my project for the web design class I took this past summer as evidence. It isn’t horrible; it was in fact better than most of the projects I saw from that class. But I can look at it now and see that the typography isn’t quite right and the margins aren’t correct. I was wrong to use a single large image for the background, too, since that would slow the load time. The header isn’t readable, the multiple background images aren’t well suited to one another, and the whole thing has that “I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like” effect.
My inclination is to figure that my lack of talent in this area means I can’t do it, so I was interested to see the claim that untalented people merely have to work harder.
There is some support for this claim in the mere fact that I can now see the problems with the way I put in that text, though I didn’t see them at the time. However, I have sung with people for years who still aren’t any good. They don’t have the talent.
What do you think? Can untalented people become good at things like design merely by working harder?
Working harder will help, but there are no guarantees. IMHO.
OK, here’s a reply from someone who has outstanding art talents and worked as a technical/graphic artist for 47 years. I’ve gotten a prize in every fine art contest that I’ve ever entered. I was doing professional quality work before I was out of high school.
Art talent is great, and if you’ve got it, you’re truly blessed.
But it is possible to study the principles of design and color and LEARN to be an artist. It won’t flow the way it does for someone who has true talent, but over a period of time, using those principles, they will be learned in a more internalized way. You’ll start to FEEL what looks good instead of applying abstract principles.
Another hint is not to just design something, but to design five or ten of whatever it is, and then pick one.
Another thing I want to mention, although you have some sense and probably already know this is that if you’re putting something up on the internet (or having it printed or whatever), if it’s not just a piece of art, it’s there to tell someone something. The objective is to COMMUNICATE.
I’ve seen “artists” create websites and brochures that have text that’s too small to see, text that’s almost the same color as the background it’s on, and a hundred other ways that completely defeats the concept of communication. If you talk to them about it, they’ll insist that they’re ARTISTS, and you just don’t understand. Well, it’s going on the internet or into a brochure, not an art gallery. It was CREATED to communicate, and anything they do that defeats that purpose makes the whole thing useless! Even fine art in a gallery should communicate, even if it’s just a feeling. If there’s no communication, there’s no art, no matter how pretty it is!
Here’s something to illustrate what I mean on the internet: http://thewhiterabbitinc.com/
The button to push to get more info isn’t very obvious, when you push it, you have to watch an animation that might move along on a brand new computer, but pokes alone and makes me wait several minutes to get another button that promises to do what the last button did, but delivers another slow animation to get me another button that says it’ll show me what the button two buttons back said it would show, and that’s when I gave up without getting whatever message they were trying to send.
Another problem with some website makers is that they think they’re so important that you’ll install programs and even buy a new computer just so you can see their site, and, frankly, it’s not going to happen. So as a consequence, they just don’t communicate, and their website is a complete waste of time and effort for them.
I hope this helps.
@lostarts –
That communication part is what I do, and so often I feel that I’m spoiling the designers’ fun when I say, “Yes it looks great, but we have to make the navigation buttons look like navigation buttons, okay?”
It’s encouraging to think a person can just study the principles of design and learn them. I guess I should continue studying.
You can learn the principles of using color, and learn good design, but there’s a spark that happens with a good designer.
I think you have enough intelligence and willingness to learn that you’ll eventually get to the spark part.
I wouldn’t say that of everyone. I know some people who pay attention and work at something long enough to pick up a few principles and get by on it, and then quit learning. I, on the other hand, continue to learn anything that I do as long as I do it, and I think you do, too.
So, there are lots of people who will never get it, but I think you have a shot at it.
And then, there are people like Kristen Nicholas (sweater designer), who is constantly told what wonderful things she does with color, and when I look at her stuff, it makes me think that she (and the people who praise her) are color blind. Her sweaters make my eyes feel like they’re bleeding.
On the subject of color, there ARE people out there who have color perception problems, so you’re probably never going to please everybody with color combinations.