10,000 hours...

[ryokan]

Malcolm Gladwell talks about the 10,000 hours of practice required to become great at any skill. I'm not sure that 10,000 is the correct number, but we can all agree that it requires a TON of hours to become skilled at guitar playing. I have put in 10,000 (or more) but they haven't always been focused hours where I'm actually progressing. I would say I've put in 10,000 hours, but about 7,000 of those have been spent noodling...

So, have any of you put in "10,000 hours" of focused guitar playing?

[CoachJM]

Malcom Gladwell is a self-absorbed twit who doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does.

JM

[ryokan]

Originally Posted by CoachJM

Malcom Gladwell is a self-absorbed twit who doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does.

JM

yikes

[boneyguy]

I'll say that it's the quality of practice for those hours spent that makes the real difference.

As it's been said 'practice doesn't make perfect...perfect practice makes perfect'

10,000 hours of unfocused 'practice' won't make you highly skilled at anything except unfocused practice.

[vincent]

I like the 10,000 hour theory. Any worthwhile skill needs to be developed. You've got to put in the time and effort. There are no shortcuts. Not to say you can't be efficient but 10K of focused effort sounds about right.

[guitarbiker]

I've done more than 10,000 hours on stage, not just practising. That's what the Beatles did. You really don't know anything until you've done it on stage or for an audience. After 10,000 hours you're just at the stage of being good and are on your way to being an expert. It's a long road. Then you die or your body wears out from all the hours of repetition.

[Larry F]

I first encountered something like this concept in Herbert Simon's Sciences of the Artificial (60s? 70s?). Here is a Wiki distillation of his ideas: "Simon was interested in the role of knowledge in expertise. He said that to become an expert required about 10 years of experience and he and colleagues estimated that expertise was the result of learning roughly 50,000 chunks of information. A chess expert was said to have learned about 50,000 chunks or chess position patterns."

I like the previous post about playing 10,000 hours on stage. I've played around 1,000 gigs in my teens and twenties. That kind of practice experience played a huge role in my growth as a musician. Also, though, I have been equally helped by a focused, systematic development of my technique. There are some things that a musician might need to practice slowly and methodically, away from the stage, away from the heat of battle and hot inspiration. Another factor is learning enough theory to be able to analyze other music that I hear, which ultimately help me learn new ideas and method.

Work is good. Work is fun. Work is being in a framework for being expressive and creative.

[waparker4]

Originally Posted by CoachJM

Malcom Gladwell is a self-absorbed twit who doesn't know nearly as much as he thinks he does.

JM

Tend to agree

[Mike Simpson]

I never kept track of the time spent... and I am too old to start over... it is a dumb standard.

[cband7]

I do remember a quote from Joan Jett or someone in that position who said a touring band had to play a hundred shows before they were really tight. Sounds reasonable.

The '10,000 hour' thing translates into four and a half years, five hours a day. If you can't nail it by then you need to find another hobby!



.

[1955]

If you model the right guitar players, who are at the top of their field, you can literally shave off years of blind frustration, inefficient technique, etc. Since I've actually tried to get better, I've improved.

I make light-year jumps whenever I watch somebody like Gatton and try to appropriate his style, mind-set, approach, and belief system to a small thing I'm learning. I guess I figured I was tired of banging away power chords and strumming, and just needed to get down to business and take it up a notch.

But still it seems like it takes much longer to approximate a master's level of skill (for me,) because I decided to become a musician on will-power alone, and don't have a natural talent.

[guitarbiker]

Practice away from the stage is a given, I'd say at least twice as much practice as stage time. As you get more experience, stage time is learning time as well. I've always approached every gig as an opportunity try to use the things I've learn't in practice. Just last night I finally nailed a Brent Mason lick in about 3 songs we were doing, that lick is now mine. More often, rather than mastering a lick, it would be a scale, arpeggio or finger position that I'll explore that night. Depends on the gig, some shows allow no room for personal growth, just experience.

[daves561]

However you feel about Gladwell, the 10,000-hour stuff should be attributed to K. Anders Ericsson and others who have dedicated themselves to the research of expertise:

http://www.amazon.com/K.-Anders-Ericsson/e/B000APB8AQ

The number didn't come out of thin air, and it didn't originate with Gladwell.

[ddewerd]

Sometimes I feel like I haven't really been playing guitar for 40 years, but more like I've been playing for one year 40 times over

I think it's the quality, not the quantity.

Cheers,
Doug

[boneyguy]

The 10,000 hours thing, like any model of human behaviour, has it's limitations. There's circumstances where it just doesn't apply at all.

For example it offers no explanation for savantism.

Behavioural models that simply model 'the average' don't seem particularily interesting to me. Why not model savants or at least examples of people who have acquired expertise in far less time then 10,000 hours and then teach other people how to do that.

Why hold up 10,000 hours as some sort of goal when the world is filled with people who seem to disregard that it's 'supposed' to take that long to acquire a new skill and they accomplish it in far less time. Those people are the ones we should be looking at.

[getbent]

it is a good place to start. considered practice and focused goals and a plan along with the time... will have a good result.

potshots at reporters make little sense. Gladwell succeeds in that he creates a good context for consideration... he is a reporter... he reports what he sees and he asks questions that are interesting enough that we discuss them and know what they are...

that may be the most important thing that he (and other reporters) do....


I will assume that coachjm actually knows gladwell... otherwise the ad hominem shot is just grumpy whining.

[brewwagon]

[teleowner0196]

I read that book a month ago... it seems reasonable but I do think there is a good amount of talent and personal touch involved as well.

[ryokan]

Originally Posted by boneyguy

The 10,000 hours thing, like any model of human behaviour, has it's limitations. There's circumstances where it just doesn't apply at all.

For example it offers no explanation for savantism.

Behavioural models that simply model 'the average' don't seem particularily interesting to me. Why not model savants or at least examples of people who have acquired expertise in far less time then 10,000 hours and then teach other people how to do that.

Why hold up 10,000 hours as some sort of goal when the world is filled with people who seem to disregard that it's 'supposed' to take that long to acquire a new skill and they accomplish it in far less time. Those people are the ones we should be looking at.

Are there any guitar players you can think of that fit this description? If they are out there, I agree, I'd like to study how they have sped up the process...

[daves561]

Originally Posted by boneyguy

For example it offers no explanation for savantism.

Au contraire:

"As for idiot savants ... the 'idiocy' stems from the fact that almost all of their efforts have been directed toward their domain of pre-eminence, hence they know little about anything else. Their expertness is almost always acquired in domains ... in which they can increase their knowledge by constant, and usually solitary, mental activity... When information is available about the ways in which savants spend their time, there is always a history of intense preoccupation with the domain of expertise. In the rare cases where they are world class in that domain, their histories do not violate the 10-year rule."

-- Howard B. Richman et al, chapter 6 of The Road to Excellence, edited by K. Anders Ericsson