wintoid Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 There's this idea around that 10000 hours of doing anything gets you to complete mastery. I'm playing about an hour a day at the moment, so that would take about 27 years in total. During my teenage years, I reckon I played about an hour a day for maybe 5 years, and then just dribs and drabs through my 20s/30s. So perhaps 22 years to go. How about you? Does anyone feel like they've pretty much mastered it in much less time? Just interested as I seem to be making good progress, but nowhere near being able to say I'm a master. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Newfoundfreedom Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 I've only got about 9900 left to do then. Woohoo? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 I suspect that the '10,000 hours' is only one component of achieving mastery, Grasshopper. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neepheid Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 (edited) I could play for a million hours and still not feel like I've mastered it. By that time I hope to have got comfortable with other people telling me I'm good Edited July 23, 2022 by neepheid 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezbass Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 The 10,000 hours thing is such a nonsense. People with natural ability will ‘master’ (whatever that means) a skill far more quickly, whilst those without that natural ability may never get there, wherever ‘there’’ is. From my own experience, it’s all plateaus coupled with surges in perceived competence. 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Horse Murphy Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 During my life I've certainly eaten for more than 10,000 hours but still regularly manage to spill food down my shirt. Clearly the theory is flawed 2 26 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Happy Jack Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 Use of the word 'plateaus' is of course complete bolleaux. 😉 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezbass Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 (edited) 18 minutes ago, Happy Jack said: Use of the word 'plateaus' is, of course, complete bolleaux. 😉 Best I can do, plainly more hours required. Edited July 23, 2022 by ezbass 1 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Duarte Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 I've been slappin' the same pentatonic scales with poor technique for about 10000 hours. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Buddster Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 It feels like I've taken 10,000 hours practicing Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick and I've definitely not mastered it! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
itu Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 10k is one nice round number. It has nothing to do with skills, if there's no target and decent program to follow. Nearly anyone that has inpiration and produces lots of perspiration because of the training, can reach something. Mastery is another story. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
odysseus Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 I think age also has an impact on things - when I was a kid I could spend hours at a time doing stuff, be it learning classical guitar, reading, computer programming, playing a game. As an adult I have found that I reach saturation point much more quickly, regardless of whether I have other demands on my time or not. Also, kids don't seem to have considerations about learning stuff they want to do - they just do it. As adults we tend to look at things, stroke our chins, and thing 'Hmmm... that looks like a whole bunch of work...' 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lozz196 Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 No matter how much I practice I know I can always be better. Just learned a song this morning for a gig next weekend, a relatively easy song but I still had to sit down and go through it a good few times. Does this make me despondent, no, it makes me feel great that I can work out a song in 30mins or so that I’ve never heard before, and also makes me look forward to the gig more. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bertbass Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 1 hour ago, Old Horse Murphy said: During my life I've certainly eaten for more than 10,000 hours but still regularly manage to spill food down my shirt. Clearly the theory is flawed I thought I was the only one. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_S Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 When people at work find out I play, a good proportion say they wish they could play an instrument but they don't have the time to dedicate to it, and a fair few of those have quoted an arbitrary 'so-many-thousand hours to be proficient' figure that they've heard. I always just ask them to log on to their Steam (or whatever) account and show me how many hours they've clocked up playing Age of Assassins: Warfare and Witchcraft. You may be able to tell I don't game, but the people I'm talking to invariably do and their tally is usually somewhere near to (if not far in excess of) the number of thousands of hours they've just told me they don't have available. Fortunately I don't feel I need to achieve mastery to have fun ...and anyway, if complete mastery means playing every possible style then there aren't enough hours left until the heat death of the universe to make me want to learn how to slap 😉 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Horse Murphy Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 8 minutes ago, bertbass said: I thought I was the only one. Don't get me started on pee'ing accuracy. Put it like this, I'd make your average Stormtrooper seem like the best shot in the galaxy. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris_b Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 Generalizations are never accurate. When I was younger I was a lot better at some aspects of playing bass, but I know I do a lot of bass stuff better now. At the start energy, determination and keenness got me a long way. Now experience and common sense covers a lot of ground. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLowDown Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 I think it would only be likely with more than 10,000 hours of deliberate practice, but that's a loooooong time to maintain that level of hyper focus. 10,000 hours playing slap over and over wouldn't get me far with learning to play the bass. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Staggering on Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 I've just looked around a bit and found some interesting stuff about what Malcolm Gladwell actually said about the 10,000 hour theory. I have not read Outliers: The Story Of Success where he first talks about this idea but it seems that "10,000 hours" has become a catch phrase we all toss around without really knowing what he said, I won't try to explain it here but there are lots of online sources to learn about him and his theories, interesting guy. ...now excuse me, I have to go put in some time on my DB, a couple of gigs coming soon and at 76 my time to tally more hours is winding down fast, I may never reach "master" level unless it's soon, not counting on that. 😊 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lownote Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 I have put in three years of three hours a day on saxophone and I am still at the same stage as someone of moderate aptitude gets to in 3-6 months. The aptitude in question is being able to remember sequences of notes. I can't, simple as that. On bass I just have to remember shapes. There are no shapes on sax. So I am a case in not point. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan Dare Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 10,000 is an arbitrary figure, but progress depends very much on how you spend the time spent working on acquiring a skill. When learning an instrument, quite a few people focus only on the instrument itself and neglect musical theory. That's OK (sort of) if they merely wish to play parts learned note for note, but they can find themselves all at sea when they need to improvise, because don't understand the "why", as opposed to the "how". You don't need to have a comprehensive understanding of orchestral arrangement, but it's helpful to know why something works. It will speed up the learning process immensely. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ezbass Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 2 hours ago, Ed_S said: Fortunately I don't feel I need to achieve mastery to have fun ^^^ This x 10,000, given that a great many of us don’t play for a living. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wintoid Posted July 23, 2022 Author Share Posted July 23, 2022 Thanks for all the interesting replies, but I'm afraid @Old Horse Murphy wins the prize 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Old Horse Murphy Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 19 minutes ago, wintoid said: Thanks for all the interesting replies, but I'm afraid @Old Horse Murphy wins the prize Thats very kind. I'll get my food covered dinner suit out for the awards ceremony 😊 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikel Posted July 23, 2022 Share Posted July 23, 2022 7 hours ago, wintoid said: There's this idea around that 10000 hours of doing anything gets you to complete mastery. I'm playing about an hour a day at the moment, so that would take about 27 years in total. During my teenage years, I reckon I played about an hour a day for maybe 5 years, and then just dribs and drabs through my 20s/30s. So perhaps 22 years to go. How about you? Does anyone feel like they've pretty much mastered it in much less time? Just interested as I seem to be making good progress, but nowhere near being able to say I'm a master. Its what you put into the 10000 hours. It needs to be specific to what you wish to be a master of. I did a 5 year apprenticeship to become a toolmaker. Every one of those 40 hours a week for 50 weeks for 5 years was focused on becoming a fully trained engineer. Apprenticeships are partly where the 10000 hours idea comes from. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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