10000 hours

[Nicko]

10,000 hours of properly directed practice might be enough for me to be a lot better, but I'll never achieve virtuoso level with ten times that amount.

 

I've been playing guitar for 40 years - I'm pretty sure I've averaged 5 hours a week during that time and I'm only an intermediate player.

[Al Krow]

I came across Scott (of Bass Lessons fame) saying he set himself a target of 3 hours of focussed bass practice a day when he wanted to become a pro. That seemed to be a very decent benchmark to me (and not one I've managed to do, yet, btw).

 

There's a related point about the physicality of playing bass, which some have touched on in this thread. As someone who is no longer a spring chicken, just wondering if there's an age when our mind might be willing but our bodies say "be realistic, that's as good as you're going to get"?

[NancyJohnson]

During the pandemic I spent a bit of time transferring some old cassette recordings to my PC, some of these were from jams in the late 1970s (when I was listening to a lot of Rush, The Police and Rich Kids); reckon I'd been playing 12-18 months at that point; I'd be spending an hour a day playing along to albums in my bedroom and jamming on Saturdays in a local church hall with two other guys (our drummer's mother had spoken to the vicar because we were too loud for a terraced house).  The playing on the recordings was surprisingly fast, clear, coherent, concise and in time.

 

The turning point for me was that first live Rush album; I played along with that more times than I'd like to admit and would transfer my findings into early (original) material we'd jam on the weekend.  (It was never, 'Oh, shall we play Message In A Bottle?')  I was lucky enough to be playing with a drummer and a guitarist who were as equally obsessed with playing as I was and it was a sharp learning curve - occasionally a guitarist or keyboard player would come in to jam for a week or two, then not bother.  It was just us three.  There was urgency and desire in our playing which translated to achieving a fairly decent standard fairly quickly.

 

Let's assume for a moment that I could plot my progress on a graph, zero being when I first picked up my mates Jedson Telecaster bass and 100 being now; I reckon I hit 85% ability in under two years, possibly less.  The remaining 15% has taken 40 years and most of that is about theory and experimentation, more along the lines of what things would sound like if I played some weirdness instead of just sticking to the root.  I've had the misfortune of playing with guys that have been playing for decades and who consider themselves 'pretty good'; some/many of these guys can barely muster a few major chords or play drums in 4/4, which leads to the conculsion that you either have an aptitude for the the instrument (same applies sport/

 

None of us are really masters of our craft and it would be wrong to assume otherwise.  What is mastery anyhow?

 

 

[mikel]

49 minutes ago, Nicko said:

10,000 hours of properly directed practice might be enough for me to be a lot better, but I'll never achieve virtuoso level with ten times that amount.

 

I've been playing guitar for 40 years - I'm pretty sure I've averaged 5 hours a week during that time and I'm only an intermediate player.

As I say, the old 10000 hours trope is aimed at treating the task like a full time Uni course or an apprenticeship. It must be specific and full on. 40 hours a week minimum.

[BassTractor]

Gladwell initially seemed blissfully simplistic (see how I avoided "ignorant"? 😉 ), and later has modified and softened the notion, but that doesn't mean that the entire thought is without any value.
Not that we needed Gladwell to tell us that you need a number of hours of focussed, efficient practising in music, arts, sports etc, but you do need a number of hours ... If that be 5,000 or 15,000 hours to me is of less importance, as the point remains: put in the hours.

To me, the core seems to be how fast the brain can set aside sections for certain tasks and use those sections at speed.
I know that the knowledge is out there, but have forgotten what I've read. At any rate: your fingers need to put in the hours and so does your brain.

Oh, and define what "mastery" is. I've seen hard working people finish music college after six years and coming out on wildly different levels of proficiency and the ability to tell something interesting about the pieces they played.

Just for fun, I put down some rough typical numbers as I've seen them in Holland, with the Dutch system of teaching at music colleges:
 3,000 h  -  beginner to music college (my most efficient pupil did this in 1,750 hours; others will need a lot more and some even less)
 5,000 h  -  music college first three years (theory and piano taking a lot of time too)

 7,000 h  -  music college last three years
--------

15,000 h  -  roughly and typically

 

Edited July 25, 2022 by BassTractor

[Stub Mandrel]

Don't forget, the surest way to write a bestseller in the US is to 'explain' why successful people are successful and how you can emulate them. Changing your parents is rarely given as an option.

[Barking Spiders]

I've probably done at least 10,000 seconds of noodle based practice while sat on the settee watching TV sitcoms

[BigRedX]

I've been playing musical instruments and doing other music related activities for almost 50 years now. Even at a very basic 1 hour a day that takes me to almost twice the magic 10,000 hours and given that for the first 25 years I probably spent nearly all my time that wasn't occupied with school/university/work/sleeping doing musical things I've probably racked up somewhere between 30,000 and 40,000. Unfortunately I'm still very average. That might be because I haven't spent all that time concentrating on just one instrument, but my time has been given over to guitar, bass, keyboards, synthesis & sound design, sequencing/DAW, recording, producing, graphic design and printing for everything a gigging and recoding musician might need as well as building instruments and other musical devices and hardware, so really it should be no surprise that I haven't mastered anything yet.

[Dad3353]

25 minutes ago, BigRedX said:

... I haven't mastered anything yet.

 

I concur with my learned friend. 

 

...

 

 

[chris_b]

6 hours ago, Nicko said:

Generally speaking of course.

 

I was wondering when that penny would drop.

[NancyJohnson]

10,000 hours, you say?

 

[MrSpace]

LOL. But maybe it's time to give Mr. Clayton a break? The bass parts on U2's earlier works (pre stadium success) are a lot more varied and interesting than the more plodding 8th note stuff he did later on. I suspect the booze had something to do with it. Perhaps a controversial opinion. 

[Lord Sausage]

I gave up after 9999 and a half hours.

I decided it wasn't for me!

[Norris]

On 23/07/2022 at 12:58, chris_b said:

Generalizations are never accurate.

Is that ALL generalisations?

[pfretrock]

There is an 85% rule out now.  If you don't achieve at least 85% success, you are not trying hard enough to progress.  Not sure how to interpret and measure this,  but for me I suppose If I try to play a B7 chord on guitar, I need at least 85% success.

[Dad3353]

48 minutes ago, Norris said:

Is that ALL generalisations?

 

Generally, yes. 

[Nicko]

16 minutes ago, pfretrock said:

There is an 85% rule out now.  If you don't achieve at least 85% success, you are not trying hard enough to progress.  Not sure how to interpret and measure this,  but for me I suppose If I try to play a B7 chord on guitar, I need at least 85% success.

Well, if you got 5 of the 6 notes right you'd be approaching 85%*.

 

* the traditional fingering of course only uses 5 notes.