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  #16  
Old 11-19-2018, 10:24 AM
Earl49 Earl49 is offline
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Over the years I've had a number of hobbies, and become pretty good at some of them. I was a good photographer, but Ansel Adams did not have to look over shoulder. Martial arts studies went on for a long time, but Chuck Norris can sleep well at night. At this point, I've been studying tai chi for almost ten years, and it seems that I now know less than when I started.

A comfortable level of competence happens in about 3-4 years of reasonably diligent study and steady practice. But taking the next step into mastery (however you define it) requires about ten times the level of effort, IMO, and way more time spent. It has to be almost all-consuming and take over your life. The difference between a modestly talented amateur player like me and a true professional is both the level of talent and many hours of dedicated practice. Leo Kottke and Laurence Juber have nothing to worry about.....
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  #17  
Old 11-19-2018, 11:05 AM
tbeltrans tbeltrans is offline
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Originally Posted by Dog Shape Cloud View Post
Quite so. But I'd add that the idea of "mastery" as some distinct yet nebulous, simultaneously attainable and far off goal (e.g. 10,000 hours, which is counterproductive nonsense for all intents and purposes, and has been soundly and repeatedly debunked, including by the people who conducted the original study, who say Gladwell didn't really understand their results) can also all too often serve as a disingenuous excuse to avoid leaving our comfort zone.

It's true that people take different routes to wherever they're going, but the "natural" who never needed a lick of study and the "great master" who practiced 8 hours a day for decades under a freezing waterfall are both ultimately fictional characters, who can either serve as useful lessons or, less happily, remain backdrops onto which we project our personal insecurities and fantasies instead of overcoming or traversing them. Beyond a certain baseline, what matter are focus and determination (and a generous amount of not giving a $#!%), not time or talent.
We seem to be very much in agreement.

Tony
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  #18  
Old 11-19-2018, 11:11 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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I like Gladwell's book...people get crotchety about it...but Gladwell's take is not so much "Do this and be great" it's more "Here's what some people who are great at stuff have in common."

The 10,000 hours thing is an approximation, obviously, and it's not just putting in 10,000 hours--the commonality in the examples in "Outliers" is that the 10,000 hours is achieved by a relatively young age, when the brain is still in sponge mode.
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  #19  
Old 11-19-2018, 11:15 AM
Aaron Smith Aaron Smith is offline
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This is a subject that I've studied in great detail, asking many different guitar teachers and players that I admire. My conclusions thus far:

- Practice is unquestionably the biggest variable, although the 10,000 hour rule is completely arbitrary.

- As it pertains to almost any skill, talent is overrated. Some people have "talent" and can get started easier, but after a point we all have a similar innate ability to become highly skilled at things.

- Practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. You can spend hours and hours with a guitar in your hands and never get any better; it comes down to discipline, instruction, and improving the areas that you are weak in.
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  #20  
Old 11-19-2018, 11:24 AM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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I always kind of think of "talent" as a myth. Like for the guitar, there's no "talent" for playing the guitar.

But there's little "talents" I guess, maybe better to call them "aptitudes." If you have enough of these (say, good sense of time, memory, hand eye coordination, concentration abilities, etc.) it could make the learning process "easier," or rather "less horrible."

For example, I was blessed with long, thin, strong fingers. I could play barre chords within a week of picking up the guitar, back when I was 12. And sure enough, the "T" word got thrown around...but I wasn't any good. I just picked up something quickly others struggle with.

Most of the time I think "talent" is the ability to not only NOT hate the hours and hours of practice it takes to get good at something, but to like it. Love it or crave it, even.
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  #21  
Old 11-19-2018, 11:47 AM
Aaron Smith Aaron Smith is offline
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Most of the time I think "talent" is the ability to not only NOT hate the hours and hours of practice it takes to get good at something, but to like it. Love it or crave it, even.
I agree Jeff. I think that "talent" lives at the intersection of attitude and work ethic.
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  #22  
Old 11-19-2018, 11:50 AM
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10,000 hours of doing what?

That's something to think about.

Mastery isn't all about speed and dexterity. It's also about THINKING in music as a language and then being able to verbalize it through the guitar.

Listen to Tommy Emmanuel, Simon Fox, Al Petteway just to name a few. It's not just how they play, it's their compositions that showcase how they "speak."

Writing a book isn't about typing fast or accurately, it's about story telling.
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  #23  
Old 11-19-2018, 12:37 PM
jrdavies jrdavies is offline
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From the Reception section of the Wikipedia entry for Outliers

"Case Western Reserve University's assistant professor of psychology Brooke N. Macnamara and colleagues have subsequently performed a comprehensive review of 9,331 research papers about practice relating to acquiring skills. They focused specifically on 88 papers that collected and recorded data about practice times. In their paper, they note regarding the 10,000-hour rule that "This view is a frequent topic of popular-science writing" but "we conducted a meta-analysis covering all major domains in which deliberate practice has been investigated. We found that deliberate practice explained 26% of the variance in performance for games, 21% for music, 18% for sports, 4% for education, and less than 1% for professions. We conclude that deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)#Reception
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  #24  
Old 11-19-2018, 01:19 PM
frankmcr frankmcr is offline
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Salieri could have practiced 100,000 hours and he never would have been Mozart.

Practice can help improve a person's technique. It won't do anything to improve a person's creativity.

Talent is underrated.
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  #25  
Old 11-19-2018, 01:36 PM
Muddslide Muddslide is offline
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Mastery? We're supposed to be working towards that?!?

Sheesh...point me in the direction of The Crossroads...
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  #26  
Old 11-19-2018, 01:37 PM
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Only the muggles think that fast is better
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Last edited by TBman; 11-19-2018 at 02:54 PM. Reason: Auto correct out of control
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  #27  
Old 11-19-2018, 01:43 PM
Muddslide Muddslide is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TBman View Post
Writing a book isn't about typing fast or accurately, it's about story telling.
Beautifully put. Couldn't agree more.

I have immense admiration for technically brilliant players, but I've never listened to music just to hear flash and technical brilliance.

A zillion-note solo executed with absolute precision never made a lame piece of music better, and some of the most heartfelt, energetic and interesting music I've ever heard has been made by folks who could barely sing and hardly knew three chords.

Obviously this doesn't mean that all "barely musical" people make great music, or that great technical players all make sterile crap.
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  #28  
Old 11-19-2018, 01:51 PM
Aaron Smith Aaron Smith is offline
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Originally Posted by jrdavies View Post
From the Reception section of the Wikipedia entry for Outliers

"Case Western Reserve University's assistant professor of psychology Brooke N. Macnamara and colleagues have subsequently performed a comprehensive review of 9,331 research papers about practice relating to acquiring skills. They focused specifically on 88 papers that collected and recorded data about practice times. In their paper, they note regarding the 10,000-hour rule that "This view is a frequent topic of popular-science writing" but "we conducted a meta-analysis covering all major domains in which deliberate practice has been investigated. We found that deliberate practice explained 26% of the variance in performance for games, 21% for music, 18% for sports, 4% for education, and less than 1% for professions. We conclude that deliberate practice is important, but not as important as has been argued"."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)#Reception
Obviously a study from a prestigious university such as this needs to taken seriously.

(yes, it’s my alma mater).

But I’d like to read this study to look at their methods. On the face of it, I’m having a hard time getting on board with their conclusions. Maybe if they’re looking only at professional athletes or musicians, but if they’re looking at entire populations... seems implausible.
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  #29  
Old 11-19-2018, 02:05 PM
mr. beaumont mr. beaumont is offline
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Well, "mastery" is a relatively simple concept I suppose. I think of Kenny Werner's "Effortless Mastery," that is, mastery comes when the task at hand can be handled "effortlessly." So "playing the guitar" has literally hundreds of individual components to master. Some of them can be mastered in minutes, some take a lifetime. So overall, I just think people are looking at it too broadly.

Master the guitar? What does that even mean? I suppose if you master enough individual elements...

You are what you practice. So you master what you put the most time into. Maybe it's crafting a song. Maybe it's face melting shred solos.
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  #30  
Old 11-19-2018, 02:24 PM
JGinNJ JGinNJ is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by mr. beaumont View Post
I like Gladwell's book...people get crotchety about it...but Gladwell's take is not so much "Do this and be great" it's more "Here's what some people who are great at stuff have in common."

The 10,000 hours thing is an approximation, obviously, and it's not just putting in 10,000 hours--the commonality in the examples in "Outliers" is that the 10,000 hours is achieved by a relatively young age, when the brain is still in sponge mode.
Especially in the jazz world, there's really a component of what the quality and diversity of those 10,000 hours are. Practicing by yourself, learning by rote, is not as productive as playing in a band, jam session, listening, ear training, etc.

I agree age is a factor, too. I practiced for hours as a teenager, and all these years later a lot of that material is still there or comes back quickly with review. Learning new stuff doesn't come as easily now.

Oh, and if I averaged 1 hour of practice a day for the last 40 years, taking 2 days off a week and a 2 week vacation that would be....10,000 hours!
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