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[rhythmboy]

Have been reading Daniel Levitin's awesome book 'This is Your Brain on Music' and in one section he says that when research has been done on musicians, sportspeople, artists etc who would be classified as world-class performers, that no matter what their level of innate talent or when they started, it seems that time and time again these people have clocked about approximately 10,000 hours of practice.

It seems to be a 'magic' number, and some theorise that if anyone puts in that many hours practice, no matter what your 'talent' your brain will develop the required neural wirings to turn you into a top-level performer too. An important factor too is that you need to care enough about what you are doing to want to improve - it doesn't just happen through repeating the same thing over and over. Interest + practice = ability.

10,000 hours is about 3 hours a day, 6 days a week for 10 and half years. It's actually not impossible!

So nooblings, get practicing!

[em]

I have read that also, but I guess it depends on how versatile you choose to be as a performer. I think what separates somebody like Joe Satriani from the millions of people shredding at a thousand k’s an hour is his, and I believe innate, ability to construct passages which really say something. I think that comes from a certain kind of soul.

rhythmboy, on 30 July 2011 - 08:15 PM, said:

It seems to be a 'magic' number, and some theorise that if anyone puts in that many hours practice, no matter what your 'talent' your brain will develop the required neural wirings to turn you into a top-level performer too. An important factor too is that you need to care enough about what you are doing to want to improve - it doesn't just happen through repeating the same thing over and over. Interest + practice = ability.

In terms of technical ability, I am not so sure. I once had a boyfriend who swore he’d practiced 4 hours a day for 8 years, and heavens above, he was shit. In fact, he was pretty bad at everything (call me old-fashioned , but I like a man who knows how NOT to blow up my car engine). In his defense, he was ridiculously good-looking, and had a tendency to focus on his reflection when passing shop windows rather than the incoming information of what was going on around him. I believe he tried very, very hard, but perhaps the distraction of being so ridiculously good-looking lent itself to the failure of many endeavours…but I’m sure he’ll mosey on through life just fine!