Anders Ericsson, a Swedish psychologist, first proposed that in order to become a master of something you have to put in 10,000 hours of focused practice. This theory was later popularized by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Outliers. The idea is that anyone can achieve greatness if they just put in some solid time to perfect their skills. However, there have been many detractors of this theory over the years. Many people argue that Mozart wouldn’t have been able to put in the proper 10,000 hours of focused practice in order to write his first symphony by the age of eight. Of course, there are some that have done the math and say that it is plausible. Well, according to a recent study, that whole 10,000 hours of practice thing could be a bunch of turkey.
A new meta-analysis states that the 10,000 rule simply doesn’t exist. Authors of the new study at Brain’s Idea undertook the largest literature survey on this subject to date. They compiled the results of 88 scientific articles representing data from some 11,000 research participants. Their findings: Practice, on average, is just 12 percent of skill mastery and subsequent success.
Alright, I don’t know about all that.
Brain’s Idea writes. “Stop believing in it. Sure, practice is important. But other factors (age? intelligence? talent?) appear to play a bigger role.”
But even though this was the largest study to date, it wasn’t the first. After Outliers came 
out there were a lot of people calling Bravo Sierra (that means “bullshit”). The Guardian even commented on the Ericsson theory by saying, “There is nothing magical about the 10,000 figure, as Ericsson said recently, because the best group of musicians had accumulated an average, not a total, of over 10,000 hours by the age of twenty. In the world of classical music it seems that the winners of international competitions are those who have put in something like 25,000 hours of dedicated, solitary practice – that’s three hours of practice every day for more than 20 years. Ericsson is also on record as emphasizing that not just any old practice counts towards the 10,000-hour average. It has to be deliberate, dedicated time spent focusing on improvement.”
Look, I understand where they’re coming from in all this. I certainly think that there are some people out there that are born with a predisposition and a talent towards something. There are people that can naturally pick up math faster than most. There are some people that can naturally sing better than other people. But that’s not to say that focused practice and determination won’t give you a leg-up in the game. I know that this isn’t essentially what the article was saying, but I wanted to throw that out there anyway.
There are certainly a wealth of people in the world that have had the drive and determination to master their skills at something.
I know that I still enjoy practicing to this day. It’s one of the few things that I can do and see immediate results at the end of a practice session. It’s not like going to the gym and lifting 40 pound dumbbells for weeks on end and never seeing improvement. When I break out the metronome and start practicing an exercise I can see and hear solid results after about 30 minutes.
Practice is all about solving problems.
Is there a section in that one Dream Theater song you’re having a problem playing? Then take that one section, break out the metronome, slow it down, and practice it slow until you can gradually speed it up.
That being said, I don’t think practicing at guitar or bass for 10,000 hours will make you write better songs. It’ll certainly make you into a better musician but some of the most technically gifted guitarists in the world still can’t write actual songs. There is something to be said about also listening to music as much as your practice it. Maybe you should also listen to 10,000 hours worth of music as well as practicing 10,000 hours on your guitar neck.
Whether the 10,000 hour rule is baloney or not, it has entered into the public consciousness.
At it’s core is the belief that serious, focused, and determined practice will show results. I don’t think any study will ever topple that.
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Hey, have you gotten a chance to swing on over to YouTube and check out my band’s new lyric video? It’s super sweet and awesome and I’m proud of the work we put into it. By all means, swing by and see what we’ve put up.
