I agree with the music is easy thing.... A lot of things that "seem" hard become easier once a person lears the right way of doing them. For example (not about music) I drive forklift on the weekends, it's a great college job and pays me around $200 a week. Now the first few weeks were hard because I didn't know what I was doing, where things went, and how to move products off/on pallets. Things got a lot easier since I've been doing it for 3 months, and I'm one of the top people on my shift. I just learned the "right" way to do things. (I could also go into silver soldering and stone settings and other art metal stuff, but the forklift thing was more fun to talk about) Music is the same... Sight reading may seem hard, but I bet it will be easier once someone does it a lot. same goes for scales and really anything. it's not magic, everything is out there to be learned - there isn't a big mystery about it. =) I'm not sure about the "gifted" argument. I'll agree that those people do have it easy, but I belive that hard work will pay off...