I’m guessing you may have heard of “doing your 10,000 hours” somewhere in recent years if you’re at all interested in improving a skill. The idea is generally expressed; do your 10,000 hours and you’ll be a pro at whatever you’ve done 10,000 hours at. Unfortunately that idea is just wrong.
Bro-Science Memes
I remember reading Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers in 2019 and first hearing about the idea of 10,000 hours in regards to the Beatles, violin students from Berlin and Bill Gates. As humans, we like quantifiable explanations. It feels like we have some control and there’s less risk involved when we do.
Gladwell popularised the idea and it’s probably a little harsh to say it was bro-science but he sort of expressed the idea a little too casually. Doing 10,000 hours of something will certainly give you some skills but it won’t necessarily give you an elite talent.
Gladwell was referring to the work of researcher Anders Ericsson who made the observation through many years of research with other scientists into high performing individuals.
Getting To The Peak
If you read his book Peak, you’ll discover that 10,000 hours was actually less a specific requirement and more of a general observation of how long it took musicians to find mastery of their instrument.
I’ve read Peak by Anders Ericsson twice now and it’s always compelling and inspiring. What you come to realise by reading Ericsson’s version is that it’s not the number of hours but, unsurprisingly, what you do with them. This was how he came up with the idea of deliberate practice.
Deliberate Practice
I’ve written about deliberate practice before but it, like 10,000 hours, can be a little misleading. Here’s the description of deliberate practice from the paper “The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance” by Ericsson, Krampe and Tesch-Romer.
“Deliberate practice is a highly structured activity, the explicit goal of which is to improve performance. Specific tasks are invented to overcome weaknesses, and performance is carefully monitored to provide cues for ways to improve it further. We claim that deliberate practice requires effort and is not inherently enjoyable. Individuals are motivated to practice because practice improves performance. In addition, engaging in deliberate practice generates no immediate monetary rewards and generates costs associated with access toteachers and training environments. Thus, an understanding of the long-term consequences of deliberate practice is important”
What Are The Elements of Deliberate Practice?
- Highly structured activities designed to improve performance.
- Exercises that are created to overcome weaknesses.
- Performance is monitored carefully so you can see what your need to work on.
- It is hard and not all that enjoyable in the moment when compared to other activities you do in this area BUT the improvement is the thing that spurs you on.
- There are no immediate rewards and there are costs associated with deliberate practice that irrationally outweigh the immediate rewards.
Put another way, deliberate practice is the stuff you don’t want to do BUT that delivers REAL results. It is the thing that a very small group of people are willing to do and accordingly, there is a very small number of people who achieve exceptional skills and results.
An Honest Profession
“Most kids accelerate their practice fairly quickly … I think of it as a turn inward; they stop looking outside for solutions and they reach within. They come to terms with what works and what doesn’t. You can’t fake it, you can’t borrow, steal or buy it. It’s an honest profession”
Owen Carman – Director of Meadowmount School Of Music (from “The Talent Code: Greatness Isn’t Born It’s Grown”)
The music school above has turned out some of the best string players in the world and they do it again and again over 7-weeks each summer. They comment that they only see crazy genius every 10 years or so and they are the exception not the rule.
The Stories We’re Told About Talent
The power of storytelling has unfortunately conditioned us to believe the opposite. Everyone loves a good “came from nowhere and was a prodigy” story. Robert Johnson’s tale of meeting the devil at the crossroads and receiving supernatural prowess on the guitar after disappearing for 6 months is one such anecdote.
Maybe the simpler answer is he just went away and deliberately practised for 6 months? But I guess that’s not as salacious and won’t sell records.
Research into the field of high achieving individuals has and is showing that talent isn’t a case of genetics (except maybe for activities that require certain physical traits). Talent is about practice and, the right sort of practice.
The Practicing Songwriter
For a songwriter, this should be incredibly encouraging. You can improve and achieve great levels of mastery AND you don’t necessarily need to do 10,000 to achieve it.
Songwriters and music producers pretty much have access to all of the same equipment and tools to make amazing sounding music. There is really a very low barrier to entry to making music. AI music and AI in music is also another “player” entering the market which tweaks the game further.
This means it will be those who master their songwriting and production craft that will create pieces that will stand out in an ever crowded market place. That means you need to practise and practice the right things.
The Takeaway
I know personally that deliberate practice is the way to progress your skills toward mastery, I’ve experienced it. Practising is tough and doesn’t sound very creative. So why do we avoid it? That’s what I want to talk about in the next post.
0 Comments