10,000 hours to be an expert drummer?

[Chris Whitten]

So maybe you're right about genetics - though so far scientifically that tree is bearing no such fruit -

To accept the 'tree is bearing no such fruit' I guess you have to accept the method of measuring 'the fruit', or if it can even be measured at all.
I'm really not sure I can buy into that.
I guess artistic pursuits for me are better understood with the heart and less so by mathematical or scientific analysis.
A few months ago I heard about a highly regarded university study on musical performers on a local radio show. The conclusion of the study was that all virtuoso musicians were mathematically gifted.
I'm not sure about that conclusion either.
It's saddens me to see 'talent' portrayed as a negative concept.
My understanding of it is way at the other end of the scale.
Of course it is unquantifiable.
But I always think a lot of young people are talented and I never use the term to separate out an elite person. I guess for me, most musicians at any level have a talent, very few are 'gifted'.
If you want to portray talent as negative, how about this?
Parent doesn't believe in talent, but hard work.
Parent expects child to put in 10,000 hours of work and at the end of it turn into an expert musician (talent/aptitude or not).

[Matt Self (Gaddabout)]

He still seemed to be partially in that early teenage - throw the baseball in the backyard till your hands bleed phase. And in my experience, that is unusually for a player of that age and accomplishment. My point being - what was this kid like at 15!?!?

He's still like that. An acquaintance of mine went over to his house last year and said he was never without sticks and a pad. It was just a constant barrage of drum obsession.

The summer before my junior year in high school I went from a low intermediate rudimental player to a very advanced one. I spent 10 weeks in my garage banging on my parents top-loading deep freezer about 6 to 8 hours a day. I'm guessing that was about 500 hours of intense work. I've practiced 10 times that since then, but I've never had a more fruitful period because I've never had the time to do something like that again.

That kind of intense focus had more to do with wrapping my brain around the motor functions than building up muscle groups. That's usually the biggest hurdle.

[David Crigger]

To accept the 'tree is bearing no such fruit' I guess you have to accept the method of measuring 'the fruit', or if it can even be measured at all.
I'm really not sure I can buy into that.
I guess artistic pursuits for me are better understood with the heart and less so by mathematical or scientific analysis.
A few months ago I heard about a highly regarded university study on musical performers on a local radio show. The conclusion of the study was that all virtuoso musicians were mathematically gifted.
I'm not sure about that conclusion either.
It's saddens me to see 'talent' portrayed as a negative concept.
My understanding of it is way at the other end of the scale.
Of course it is unquantifiable.
But I always think a lot of young people are talented and I never use the term to separate out an elite person. I guess for me, most musicians at any level have a talent, very few are 'gifted'.
If you want to portray talent as negative, how about this?
Parent doesn't believe in talent, but hard work.
Parent expects child to put in 10,000 hours of work and at the end of it turn into an expert musician (talent/aptitude or not).

But isn't that counter-balanced by all the parents that just KNOW their little Johnny is gifted because he hit a home run in little league or figured which end to blow into the trumpet all by himself?

But I get what you're saying and I can see how this knowledge could be misunderstood and thus misused. But... ignorant parents are always finding ways to mess things up.

Overall though I don't see how more knowledge and insight into how we learn stuff can be a bad thing.

As for the term "talent" - I would just rather have it be thought more to represent something that you earn more than something you are given (or gifted). I believe the great "natural" players out there have worked too hard to have so much of their efforts in creating their talent dismissed in favor of crediting some happenstance of birth.

But that's just me, I get that others may feel differently.

dc

[Chris Whitten]

But isn't that counter-balanced by all the parents that just KNOW their little Johnny is gifted because he hit a home run in little league or figured which end to blow into the trumpet all by himself?
As for the term "talent" - I would just rather have it be thought more to represent something that you earn more than something you are given (or gifted).

I think both talent and very hard work are positive things.
I just couldn't bring myself to think of talent as a negative.
As I say, I see some talent at something in everyone.
At the end of this thread, I agree it's hugely important to put in all that hard work to get where you want to be. I'm just honestly shocked something like talent is being targeted as a negative in society.
:-\

[Todd Knapp]

It comes from a political and sociological position that seeks to destroy the notion of inherited merit and right. I understand the inclination and even sympathize to a great degree. That said, it can result in the bizarre (to me, at least) ideology that deep down inside everyone is capable of achieving anything/everything. While a sunny outlook might make things more pleasant around the dinner table, I'm not sure that has any bearing on reality.

I'm with you, Chris, I think we have to recognise the individual talents of people and encourage them, indeed celebrate them. Difference is okay. We simply need to caution against either extreme - i.e. suggesting that everything is simply inborn talent or doing away with the notion altogether and suggesting that everyone is really entirely equal in ability. It's not an easy row to hoe.

I will never be a good hurdler.

[Big Yummy]

If you want to portray talent as negative, how about this?
Parent doesn't believe in talent, but hard work.
Parent expects child to put in 10,000 hours of work and at the end of it turn into an expert musician (talent/aptitude or not).

My sweetie was forced to take piano lessons as a child.  Her father would stand over her every day while she practiced, snapping "1,2,3,4!"  So here's this little kid going through the motions with some old nazi (literally) barking at her because he wants her to be a concert pianist.  When she was 14 she finally said "No more!" and hasn't picked up a musical instrument since.

As crigger pointed out, we learn what we're interested and what we enjoy much more quickly and remember it longer than what we don't.

In her case, nothing would have made any difference.  She has small hands and you don't get to be a concert pianist with small hands.  So are large hands part of "talent"?  I would say not.  They're just part of the minimum requirements for that activity.

How do you separate the minimum requirements from "talent"?  It depends on the activity.  If you want to play in the NHL, you need certain minimum requirements plus at least 10,000 hours of quality work.  (Hockey being the most skills intensive professional sport.) If you want to play in the NBA, you can do that in maybe 1,000 hours if you have outstanding natural attributes.  Similarly, if you want to be a band leader in the american air force, you need certain attributes plus the 10,000 hours.  But if you want to be a fighter pilot, you can do that in less than 2,000 hours, given the right attributes.

So where does drumming fit in?  I've started to think of drumming as something that's all about learning, and doesn't require an unusual amount of physical and intellectual attributes.  At the "expert" level, though, maybe that's not so.

All of this is academic to me, of course.  My big goal is just to become a "competent" drummer.

[Chip Donaho]

To become a fighter pilot I know for a fact it will take and American 4 years at the Air Force Academy in Colorado. I played several gigs at that place while in the Army band. They didn't have a band at that time so we got the job when graduation came around. I also had a booking agent who worked there. We would play an Army band gig, and he tried to set my rock band up in the same location that night.
Cripple Creek was always a great gig. I played more than 10,000 hours during those years and had a great time doing it.  ;D

[Matt Self (Gaddabout)]

Chris,

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest some of what you are seeing is the difference between a European worldview and an American worldview. I know this can be a horrible stereotype and musicians tend to have their views more influenced beyond their borders, but I do think there's something to that here, anyway.

In Europe, there's more of an acceptance that some people are born endowed with things more than others, either born into royalty or money or privilege, but also in art. There's a long history (much longer than the entire history of America) of acceptance that God or nature imprints people with ability and talent in the womb.

In America, our first instinct -- and I'm stereotyping for sure, but I think it's somewhat real phenomenon here -- is to assume ability is something to be overcome. It's not talent. It's achievement.

Now things are changing and I think as America ages we are moving much closer to Europe's point of view, but I also think Europe has undergone some transition the past few years and moved closer to America as countries intermingle cultures. Germany, for example, has a culture of achievement and that has influenced European thought as they are absorbed into the broader environment.

Environment is a big word and I think that's what David is driving home. If you are looking at the big picture, it's hard to imagine whatever innate talent exists being trumped by environment.

I was at another site trying to answer someone's question about how to understand Gary Novak's playing. That's almost impossible. First, his playing is not ultra-distinct like other high caliber players. Second, you can't recreate the environment he grew up in. Both parents were professional keyboardists and he grew up in an environment that made it inconceivable he would be, say, a construction worker. He was exposed in the womb to a high level of music I only first heard when I was approaching my 20s. So when he became earnest about playing drums as a profession he was in high school playing with jazz greats like Kenny Burrell. When I became earnest about it, I was in high school still working on Chapin's first book with no clue how to apply it.

To back up now, it's important that we recognize this discussion is not a new one. Nature vs. nurture has been going on for almost a millennium, and David Hume correctly pointed out our inability to really answer this question by illuminating how man cannot infer causality from perception. In a very real empirical sense, there is no answer to his question without studying case subjects from birth, and that's impossible to do without influencing the subjects just by studying them. So all of our answers to this question -- even with scientific data -- remain incomplete and subject to our imperfect perception.

That's why I hedge my bets on this. I think it's safest to emphasize the need for hard work and taking things seriously among the young while celebrating art as our ancestors did -- as inspired.

[David Crigger]

I think both talent and very hard work are positive things.
I just couldn't bring myself to think of talent as a negative.
As I say, I see some talent at something in everyone.
At the end of this thread, I agree it's hugely important to put in all that hard work to get where you want to be. I'm just honestly shocked something like talent is being targeted as a negative in society.
:-\

I think we may be having some kind of semantic misunderstanding - because none of this as I understand it has anything to with talent being a negative. If anything, just the opposite. To get back to the book in question, I see it as nothing but a celebration of century spanning, culture, race and age spanning phenomenon that is music and the miracle of its universality. More specific to this discussion, it also sets outs (I think) to illuminate the incredible chain of events that goes into the making of musicians - but in a way that is always with the greatest awe of the wonder and rarity of its occurrence.

If this has seemed a condemnation of anything - particularly the spark from which talent grows - then I've clearly mucked up my paraphrasing of this book.

Really little negative here - if anything just a little spotlight taken away from the concept "God given talent". And I really hope what I'm going to say doesn't run afoul of anyone's beliefs.

Whether the raw material we start out is determined by God, genetics or both - from there it is up to the world around you, Mom and Dad, and yourself to take it to the next level. So if we want to look at talent as gift, which I completely agree with - I just think that gift is as much about great parents, support, and encouragement as it is the raw materials.

dc

[Chris Whitten]

I think we may be having some kind of semantic misunderstanding - because none of this as I understand it has anything to with talent being a negative.

Well I can't bring myself to trawl through what has been a somewhat negative thread for me, but on this page alone talent has been linked with 'nazi' parenting, and there has also been the insinuation that talent is similar to royalty or those who are born with a silver spoon in their mouth.
I think for me you're right about the semantics and I agree with Gaddabout on the slight cultural difference.
I accept the nurture argument and the genetic one.
I'm not religious, but I think there's a fascinating mystery why the son or daughter of factory workers becomes an oscar winning actor.
If you look at the subject of troubled teens, I would rather they were told they were talented at something; rapping, car maintenance, basketball, than told to work hard if they want to achieve anything. That seems a positive to me.
It's not about telling youngsters they aren't gifted, it's about finding the talent in everyone, for whatever it is.

Whether the raw material we start out is determined by God, genetics or both - from there it is up to the world around you, Mom and Dad, and yourself to take it to the next level. So if we want to look at talent as gift, which I completely agree with - I just think that gift is as much about great parents, support, and encouragement as it is the raw materials.

That's a paragraph I can very much agree with,
:) :) :)

[MOUSE]

 ::)That does it, i'm staying a novice. I don't have that sort of time left.
8)At least as i slowly progress, i'm having fun playing drums, doing the best i can with what i know ;)

[Louis Russell]

This has been a great thread!  Let me put an aviation spin in the mix if I may.  I had almost 40 years flying experience before I retired and many hours evaluating and testing pilots.  The main criteria for judging experience is hours spent flying and I would agree that most pilots with 10,000 hours could be considered an expert.  In the early stages of pilot training some students seem to have a natural ability to fly but that advantage seems to even out with pilots around the 500 hour stage of flight time.  At some point in time flying transitions from strictly a technical function and more of an art form comes into play, these are the pilots that really stand out in the cockpit.  Someone once said that experience is not what you do but what you think about or attitude or personal changes you experience because of what you do.  I would think that a person who practices drums for one hour a day and then thinks about and evaluates himself will be much further ahead of a person who wails away for several hours a day with no thought about what he has done.

[Big Yummy]

...on this page alone talent has been linked with 'nazi'...

Actually, if you read that post again you'll see that the work ethic was linked to the "nazi parenting".  The parent in this case is an old nazi (but that's just a side note) who felt that by forcing his kid to work hard enough he could turn her into a virtuoso - regardless of talent.

I see a few negative aspects to a belief in talent.  First it diminishes the accomplishments of real masters.  Musicians, especially, are often seen as bums who were born with a "gift", not people who've worked long and hard to master their craft. 

My main complaint, though, is that kids who don't "get it" in the first few lessons are often labelled as "untalented" and given up on.  "Talent", or the lack thereof, becomes an excuse for weak or lazy teachers.

Having said all that, we're not all born with equal resources, physcial, intellectual, financial, cultural, or otherwise.

More specifically, though, some activities (like playing in the NBA or flying a fighter jet) require a very specific set of attributes that most people don't have and could never acheive.  Is drumming like that?

[Todd Norris]

My main complaint, though, is that kids who don't "get it" in the first few lessons are often labelled as "untalented" and given up on.  "Talent", or the lack thereof, becomes an excuse for weak or lazy teachers.

While I'm sure that there are cases where students are blown-off, as a guy who teaches drums to kids, I find that a little insulting to say that as an "often" case. 

I see a few negative aspects to a belief in talent.  First it diminishes the accomplishments of real masters.  Musicians, especially, are often seen as bums who were born with a "gift", not people who've worked long and hard to master their craft. 
...
Having said all that, we're not all born with equal resources, physcial, intellectual, financial, cultural, or otherwise.

More specifically, though, some activities (like playing in the NBA or flying a fighter jet) require a very specific set of attributes that most people don't have and could never acheive.  Is drumming like that?

If I understand you correctly, you don't like the IDEA of "natural talent" playing some role in the equation, but can't deny that it's there?

[Danno]

Here's my take. It is ALWAYS a mistake to try and generalize human endeavor and achievement. 10,000 hours, to me, is basically meaningless.

My 7-year-old grandson wants to be a drummer. So does his 9-year-old cousin (a girl).

Neither of them had played drums before they both finally sat down behind my kit 2 years ago. Joey 'played' like a typical kid, smashing everything, making lots of noise, and putting the sticks down after 5 minutes. Katie, on the other hand, had near-perfect timing, even strokes, and a look on her face like she'd seen God. She played until she got tired.

They were both here a couple weeks ago. Neither of them had played in the intervening two years. Joey's drumming was the same, slam bam thank you drums, but Katie had somehow progressed without having played a lick. She asked me to put some ACDC on, and even though she wasn't playing 'correctly' she was PLAYING. She was so excited afterwards she talked to her dad on the phone about it for an hour. A literal hour.

Something clicks in her head when she gets behind the drums. I was the same way at age 10 when I started - drumming released something inside me. I was a drummer from the start. In my head I knew what I was doing - it was just a matter of having my body catch up to my head.

Genetics - neither of my parents played an instrument. None of my brothers do. I started drumming out of emotional need, not pre-programming.

Music comes from emotion. Mathematics is the base music is laid on and that's all. Comparing music to football, math is just the 100-yard field. The players are the music.

There's only one way IMO that generalities like 10,000 hours would have any meaning, and that's if we truly were all the same in every way AND none of us had emotions. To me 10,000 hours refers to the football field, not the players.

Katie is a drummer. Joey isn't. It didn't take 10,000 hours to figure this out. The first time she hit the drums I knew.

And again, not genetics. I know where her passion comes from, it comes from emotional need. She isn't fooling around behind the drums, she's playing them. She needs the release. And she looks like she belongs back there.

And to call her 'gifted' would be a mistake. Her talent, such as it is, arises from need, not innate ability. She needed a release and found one in the drums. As I see it, she found a way to express herself that she hadn't known existed for her. It's not a gift to be emotionally needy. The only 'gift' part was me hooking her up with a drum set.

[MOUSE]

quote It is ALWAYS a mistake to try and generalize human endeavor and achievement. 10,000 hours, to me, is basically meaningless.
quote


Exactly my point, the when does a novice become a pro, and when can a drummer "cut it" or not! We are all individuals with varying abilities and level of achievement is in the eyes of the beholder.
At 48 i'm still learning, it is still interesting and fun after 28 years, i'm pleased i'm not considered an expert and know it all, as that would be boring and dampen the reason i started to play in the first place ...to have fun.

[Big Yummy]

If I understand you correctly, you don't like the IDEA of "natural talent" playing some role in the equation, but can't deny that it's there?

It bothers me that students are often discouraged from pursuing things unless they do well in the first few lessons.  "If at first you don't succeed, accept that you have no talent and pack it in."

Example:  Students are being selected for a music program.  Someone plays five notes and asks a kid to sing them back.  Then that person tells them they can't sing and dismisses the kid with a rude gesture.  "Next!".  Think about what kind of message that sends to a kid.  (True story.)

Example:  Kids are sent to a room for a tone recognition test.  Kids who do well on it are in the music program.  Kids who do poorly can't get in the music program, no matter how much they want to.  They're told they have no talent and shouldn't pursue music.  So kids who love music and desperately want in the program are rejected, and kids who have been forced to take lessons but hate studying music are put in the program event though they don't want to be there.   (Another true story.)

That kind of stupidity is largely a thing of the past, but a belief in "natural talent" (and one's ability to recognize it) contributes similar behavior.

There's also a lot of leeway as to what an "expert" is.  If you're genetically cursed with relatively poor hand-eye coordination and you don't have a great sense of balance, you're not "talented" enough to become an expert in hockey, right?  Well, a few coaches, trainers, talent scouts and sports journalists might disagree with that..

To be an "expert" musician doesn't necessarily mean becoming the shining star of a particular genre.  It could mean being an excellent and versatile technician, a great teacher, a great arranger, a great manager...

Just because a kid can't sing "do re me" the first time you ask them doesn't mean they're not talented.  And even if they are untalented, it doesn't mean they can't become an expert.

[Chris Whitten]

You seem to have a very individual view on this.
I don't know anyone, or have heard of anyone, who characterizes 'virtuoso musicians' as 'bums' who are merely exploiting a gift.
And you are taking bad teaching practices and using it to bash the concept of talent.
I don't know how many people accept talent in sport, but when I was in school 40 years ago I was constantly passed over by the sports department. I didn't even get to kick the ball 5 times in front of a teacher, to use your analogy. They just took one look at me.
OK, I loved football and have enjoyed watching sports all my life, but I was never going to be good enough for the school team.
That rejection hasn't damaged me.
I guess it's one of life's lessons.

[Big Yummy]

I didn't even get to kick the ball 5 times in front of a teacher, to use your analogy.

So, is music like football?

[Chris Whitten]

So, is music like football?

It is if you are talented.