10000 hours

[Supernaut]

 

[steve-bbb]

 

[ambient]

I’ve read that a few times. I take it with a very large pinch of salt.

 

When I was a student I was practicing for between 12 and 14 hours pretty much every day that I wasn’t in uni, that was for three years. I’ve easily gone past the 10,000 hours, I’m certainly not a master.

[Burns-bass]

The 10,000 hours thing is cow poop from Malcolm Gladwell. There is no evidential basis to it, in the same way as his tipping point phenomenon it crap too. The guy is a pop-science king but has no support in the scientific community.

There is no shortcut to success. But spending 10,000 hours will make you great depends very much on you.

[zbd1960]

This has done the rounds in the classical music circles as well, "You'll never be a pro / concert soloist unless you've done a minimum of 10,000 hours..." etc. There is zero real evidential base for this. The reality is a conservatoire student will be playing for 8 or 10 hours a day for 4 years for their performance degree and they then may do a postgraduate / masters.

[Skinny]

Every day is a school day. I forget stuff I learned six weeks ago. You only need to be as good as you need to be on the day. 

[Oomo]

No idea whether the 10,000 hour thing is true or not, but regardless, I never see any mention of skill levels before that.

 

E.g. are you meant to be awful at a mere 9900 hours, then mastery finally kicks in?

 

Or maybe more weighted towards the lower end where you can make a professional living at something after say 3000 hours of practice, and the next 7000 are getting you from 95% mastery to 99% or something?

[oldslapper]

16 hours ago, mikel said:

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.

Interesting, however I’ve met a fair few people who put very little effort in to making themselves tools. 

[Owen]

9 hours ago, zbd1960 said:

This has done the rounds in the classical music circles as well, "You'll never be a pro / concert soloist unless you've done a minimum of 10,000 hours..." etc. There is zero real evidential base for this. The reality is a conservatoire student will be playing for 8 or 10 hours a day for 4 years for their performance degree and they then may do a postgraduate / masters.

To be fair, the ones who are doing the business in those situations will have been doing at the very least 2 hours a day for several years before conservetoire o'clock. Add that into the several hours per week they will have been doing youth orchestra stuff and sitting in with their local Uni orchestra and summer courses. They will have put a LOT of hours in. Of course there are exceptions which prove the rule. But I watch videos of "the latest thing" and they are playing at technique levels which are everyday for any number of 16 year old Grade 8 classical players. Am I saying that classical is better than pop/rock/jazz/whatever? In no way, shape or form. I am saying that dedicated and focussed long term practice makes you better than not dedicated and long term practice. I am living proof of that. But not in a good way. I was around plenty of monster players when I was younger but I had zero interest in putting the work in that they were. Lots of good practice makes you way better. 10K hours? Who knows? Lots more than most of us do? Absolutely. 

[OliverBlackman]

What is bass mastery? Being able to recite Jaco’s portfolio or being able to improvise and write music in all styles? I don’t think anyone has achieved the latter, it’d need more than 10k hours

[chris_b]

How good a player do we want to be? If bass playing is more than a hobby then the 10k is a meaningful concept.

Edited July 24, 2022 by chris_b

[lowdown]

The legendary cellist Pablo Casals asked why he continued to practice at age 90...

“Because I think I’m making progress,” he replied.

 

[Guest]

Setting aside the nonsense of how many hours it takes to “master” an instrument (which is impossible anyway - no-one has ever “mastered” any instrument), there is some evidence to suggest that different instruments have different learning profiles. The piano is rather hard at the beginning because you have all 10 fingers in both hands, chords and counterpoint etc., but over time progression is relatively linear - so in general the more positive effort you put in, the better you will get. The guitar and similar stringed instruments are rather different. Although more generally accessible to beginners (basic chords in the main are simpler to execute and you suffer less with different keys and fingerings, plus you fret with one hand and pluck with the other), learning beyond a certain level plateaus significantly - so lots more effort and practice doesn’t result in the same level of improvement, just because of the physicalities of the instrument. It’s one of the facts that spurred Emmett Chapman on to create the Stick - to combine elements of a fretted and pianistic instrument. 
However, as has been mentioned many times in this thread already, it depends very much on the individual. A family like the Porcaros for example had the genes, natural ability and the perfect environment (plus tons of connections through their dad Joe). Players will more often than not advance faster with ability and/or with lots of hard work doing the right things to get better - which largely boils down to proven teaching materials and constantly challenging yourself to a) not develop bad habits (or correct them) and b) keep learning and growing with music and techniques you cannot play, instead of rehashing what you can play or are comfortable with.

The other point of view (which is just as valid) is that you only need as much ability to be happy playing the music you love

 

[wintoid]

54 minutes ago, FDC484950 said:

Setting aside the nonsense of how many hours it takes to “master” an instrument (which is impossible anyway - no-one has ever “mastered” any instrument), there is some evidence to suggest that different instruments have different learning profiles. The piano is rather hard at the beginning because you have all 10 fingers in both hands, chords and counterpoint etc., but over time progression is relatively linear - so in general the more positive effort you put in, the better you will get. The guitar and similar stringed instruments are rather different. Although more generally accessible to beginners (basic chords in the main are simpler to execute and you suffer less with different keys and fingerings, plus you fret with one hand and pluck with the other), learning beyond a certain level plateaus significantly - so lots more effort and practice doesn’t result in the same level of improvement, just because of the physicalities of the instrument. It’s one of the facts that spurred Emmett Chapman on to create the Stick - to combine elements of a fretted and pianistic instrument. 
However, as has been mentioned many times in this thread already, it depends very much on the individual. A family like the Porcaros for example had the genes, natural ability and the perfect environment (plus tons of connections through their dad Joe). Players will more often than not advance faster with ability and/or with lots of hard work doing the right things to get better - which largely boils down to proven teaching materials and constantly challenging yourself to a) not develop bad habits (or correct them) and b) keep learning and growing with music and techniques you cannot play, instead of rehashing what you can play or are comfortable with.

The other point of view (which is just as valid) is that you only need as much ability to be happy playing the music you love

 

Great post!

[gjones]

I've been playing bass and gigging for over 40 years, and I've probably got to the stage now that I've mastered what to leave out and when not to play.

 

That's definitely a start.

Edited July 24, 2022 by gjones

[Stub Mandrel]

You only start to approach true proficiency in any endeavour when you realise just how much you have to learn.

 

I know I am making progress because I finally understand that listening to and watching other bass players and seeing what they do and when and thinking about how it relates to my own playing shows up so many things I could improve.

[Lozz196]

4 hours ago, gjones said:

I've been playing bass and gigging for over 40 years, and I've probably got to the stage now that I've mastered what to leave out and when not to play.

 

That's definitely a start.

There are many musicians that never learn that, def further on than a start imo

[Happy Jack]

Well I would play 10,000 hours, and I would play 10,000 more ...

 

[nilorius]

stinky poo happens!

[nilorius]

Just now, nilorius said:

stinky poo happens!

$hit happens !

[BassTractor]

9 hours ago, nilorius said:

stinky poo happens!

 

This is far from the first time you post exactly this, or very similar stuff.
Now please share with us your advanced thoughts about the concept the thread is about.

[Burns-bass]

On 23/07/2022 at 19:05, steve-bbb said:

 

This is just plain horrid.

[Cato]

I've never been able to draw. I just don't have any natural artistic talent in that direction.

 

If I took drawing lessons and put in 10, 000 hours of practice I would hope that my drawing ability would improve to some extent, but would I have achieved 'mastery'?

 

I seriously doubt it because if I had the spark of genius that artistic mastery requires then surely I'd have been able to draw reasonably well in the first place.

Edited July 25, 2022 by Cato

[nilorius]

1 hour ago, BassTractor said:

 

This is far from the first time you post exactly this, or very similar stuff.
Now please share with us your advanced thoughts about the concept the thread is about.

I meant that sometimes You can practice one thing million times, but still don't get it right.

[Nicko]

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

Generalizations are never accurate.

Generally speaking of course.