Re: OT: 10,000 hours

[Sylvain Poitras <sylvain.trombone@gmail.com>]

In my opinion, with most things, quality surpasses quantity.

This reminds of a joke popular among teachers that goes as follows:
"He once told me he had twenty years of teaching experience, but I
later found out he only had one, repeated twenty times."

Don't get me wrong, Outliers is a great read (as are other Malcolm
Gladwell books, especially Blink).

cheers,
Sylvain

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 3:06 AM, Steve Bingham<sbingham@con-brio.com> 
wrote:
> Doing a quick bit of basic mental maths I reckon I've done an average 
>of, at
> the minimum, 1 hour a day practice (not counting rehearsals and gigs!) 
>for
> the last 39 years (more when I was a student, less when I was in my late
> 20s/30s, and more these days!!).
>
> So I make that about 14,000 hours.
>
> Does that mean I'm great?  (-;
>
> Actually my very first classical violin teacher (when I was 7) used to 
>say
> that it took 7 years to get to a point where one could really get around 
>the
> violin. Really though I think it's impossible to put a figure on it, at
> least in terms of years. Perhaps the hours figure is a more useful gauge,
> but so much depends on the quality of the practice and not the quantity 
>(as
> anyone who has given instrumental lessons will know!).
>
> Meanwhile I'll content myself with the thought that although I may now be
> classed as officially great, I'm still learning!
>
> Keep practicing.........
>
> Steve
>
> ps. with regard to being a prodigy, one reply has already cited Mozart.
> Maybe his really great works came later in his short life, but there's 
>got
> to be something special that allowed him to do pretty amazing musical 
>feats
> at a very early age. I would also mention Mendelssohn who, for instance,
> wrote the incredible Octet for Strings at the age of 16.
>
> Although I guess if he worked 8 hours a day, 7 days a week on his music 
>he
> could clock his 10,000 hours in less than 4 years......!
>
>
> On 17 Jul 2009, at 08:29, Art Simon wrote:
>
>> I just read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", and it makes a
>> convincing argument that there really is no such thing as a prodigy,
>> and it takes at least 10,000 hours of practice to become great,
>> whether you are talking about music or computer programming. The
>> author cites the examples of the Beatles and Mozart. I was having a
>> hard time trying to come up with musical counter examples, maybe Tod
>> Dockstader? Even "anti-musicians" like Alvin Lucier and Brian Eno
>> certainly put in the time developing their chops. I'm pretty convinced
>> that there really is something to this, and that practice is the most
>> important part of developing as a musician or a composer.
>>
>> I'm curious if anyone else has heard this hypothesis and might have an
>> opinion.
>> --
>> Art Simon
>> simart@gmail.com
>> myspace [dot] com/artsimon
>>
>
>
>