It is not important, how many hours one studies one thing. But it is very important how effectively practice time is used. One first has to learn & understand how music is about, including the theory. Next one has to learn & understand how practice time is to be divided for the certain purposes:
developing the hearing sense developing technical skill including secureness, developing tone quality, developing endurance, developing musical taste through musical literature, means developing musical knowledge developing the ability to read, understand & play music at the spot, even never seen the part before & never heard the piece before. If the time is divided properly and if practice is done with most possible concentration upon the matter, one should be able to study the horn or trumpet or any other brass instrument to arrive at a high professional level, just with three hours studying daily for five to six years. 300 days a year (vacations & days without the horn, ill leave etc. counted) by three hours daily makes 900 to 1000 hours (gigs count also positively), that by 5 years makes 4.500 hours, by seven years 6.300 hours. Count the extra hours of preparation by just reading the musical literature, preparing parts, writing out parts by hand or PC, hours spent in the library, fixing the horn, well, there you have the 10.000 hours. Be happy you have not to study as much as string players or wood wind players, who have to spend uncountable hours preparing their reeds, not to speak about pianists. If one does not consider the points I mentioned above, one has the never ending problem, needing to "hammer in" every single part, just mechanical trying & trying & trying again. What a waste of life time. If you study, using your brain, your advancement will be much faster and you will have remaining tie to rest, for sports, for socializing, etc. Do not forget studying art history in general, try to study Italian & rudimentary German to understand the masterworks better. If you have a very good teacher, NEVER question his advice. But if you might find a better solution or a better trick, making a passage easier, demonstrate it to your teacher, who will like your effort. But, again, never question your teacher !! ####################################################################################### Am 18.03.2010 um 06:03 schrieb Kit Wolf: > I've heard this too, though I feel slightly uncertain about the idea of it > being a hard and fast rule. > > I guess there are two points here: one is how much practice an 'average' > person has done. Almost by definition, a master is somebody who is > exceptional and to my mind the 10,000 hour rule simply reflects the fact > that most amateur musicians never put in this many hours - or at least, > not within a short period of time. > > The other is how long it takes to reach a steady state of accomplishment, > where a level of diminishing returns is reached. Surely this must vary for > different endeavours? It takes less time to play noughts and crosses to an > excellent standard than chess, for example. I also once read that airtime > stopped being a good marker of pilot ability after the 250 - 1000 hour > mark. > > I don't find it hard to believe it takes 10,000 hours to play the horn > well, though. Perhaps more..? > > Kit > >> That's interesting. Too bad I'm pretty sure I practiced the horn for >> 10,000 hours (took it 40 years ago) but I'm not close to achieving >> "true mastery" :-( >> >> Daniel >> >> >> On 17Mar 2010, at 14:54 , Steven Mumford wrote: >> >>> One of the most significant factors is what scientists call the >>> "10,000-hour rule." >>> When we look at any kind of cognitively complex field -- for example, >>> playing chess, writing fiction or being a neurosurgeon -- we find that >>> you are unlikely to master it unless you have practiced for 10,000 >>> hours. That’s 20 hours a week for 10 years. The brain takes that >>> long to >>> assimilate all it needs to know to achieve true mastery. >> >> _______________________________________________ >> post: [email protected] >> unsubscribe or set options at >> https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/c.j.l.wolf%40newcastle.ac.uk >> > > > -- > Sometimes my Email program gives the wrong return address. If you have any > trouble replying to me, use '[email protected]' and not 'n802...' > > Sorry for any confusion > > _______________________________________________ > post: [email protected] > unsubscribe or set options at > https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/hpizka%40me.com _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at https://pegasus.memphis.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
