10,000 Hours

10,000 Hours

It was interesting to see a number of new interactive music programs for learning guitar and other instruments at the summer NAMM show. The "Guitar Hero" craze has fueled more interest in guitar than anything since the Beatles.

The programs on the market today are far better than what was available in the past. Plus, there are all kinds of instructional materials available through YouTube and other commercial resources. Its a great time to be a budding guitarist.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band games have sold more than $3.2 billion since their release. Thats a lot of pretend players. But research indicates most people who play those games don't really have an interest in learning the instrument. The fun comes in pretending. It takes way too much patience to learn the instrument for most.

How much patience does it take to become a true master of the instrument? In the book "Outliers", the author makes a case for it taking 10,000 hours to be the most successful at a particular endeavor. He cites Bill Gates, the Beatles and others who basically invested 10,000 hours,or more, in honing their skill before they reached the top of their field. I believe this is an accurate picture of success that applies to musicians as well as many other things.

Study musicians like Yo-Yo Ma, Van Cliburn, Andres Segovia, Chet Atkins and other highly successful musicians and you will no doubt find they spent thousands of hours practicing before they became the best at their instrument.

I doubt that some of the revered rock players of today are at that level, but they have certainly invested a lot of time to become as adept as they are. Bottom line is the average person is just not willing to invest the time and patience it takes to become even moderately adept at guitar. Many people have learned, after buying a guitar, that it wasn't as easy as it appears. The guitar winds up gathering dust in the closet.

The point of all this is that if a person truly wants to learn, and has the patience and motivation, there are many great aids available now to speed up the process. But none of them will take the place of good, old fashioned practice. In the end it comes down to investing your time. The more you are willing to invest, the greater will be the return in improved skill. The learning curve also shortens greatly by working one on one with a teacher, and playing with other musicians.

Very, very few of us will ever invest 10,000 hours in mastering our instrument. But you will be surprised at how far even one hour practice each day can take you. If you are patient, you can develop a truly enjoyable skill.