Can an Old Guy make it to 10,000 Hours? A rhetorical question

[ashepps]

Thanks Alan, but it is a constant struggle. I’m currently in a bit of a slump. They happen from time to time when i wonder why am I doing this. But this is precisely what the 10000 hour goal is for: to provide a long term goal to help overcome the valleys and peaks and keep going. Right now I’m just going with it and taking a bit of a break. Do others have slumps? How do you overcome slumps?

====================

Rick,

You are doing it right, you have a goal in mind and except for a few exceptions you are staying on track. As for your slump, I just came out of one about a month ago that started when I got my iPad for Christmas and I spent so much time learning how to load my PDFs on the Pad (it is a great gadget though) that I did not feel like playing the guitar at all and got a bit nervous.

What I decided to do is to just start on a piece or two that I really liked and could play, but needed some more work. Doing this got my enthusiasm back and all is fine now. These were not truly classical pieces either, but just something I had been working on and really liked.

This is the first time this has happened to me in the last 4 or 5 years of my restarting guitar (since 1980). It worked for me, maybe it can work for you. I have no other suggestions for this one!

Good luck with whatever you do, but you have come a long way and you are achieving your goal. Whatever, but don't give up, I am sure a lot of others are rooting for you and jealous just like me!

BTW, what I said about the iPad is true. I could have read the instructions properly, but in any even I now have all my music on the iPad (12.9") and love it, no more papers scattered around the family room! My wife loves it too!!!!

Good luck with your restart,

Alan

[dta721]

Rick,

Skimming through this 11-page thread, I don't know if anyone suggested a companion in your journey, AKA a teacher? If not, perhaps you can try to meet a few teachers locally and discuss your goals/objectives, then choose to work with one?

Speaking of goal of 10,000 hrs, it's the destination, not the journey, and I think what happens along the way should be enjoyable. Otherwise, it is pointless.

I'd say a teacher whom you like working with will assess and provide you with a realistic goal, also with constant encouragement along the way, so that such slump if any can be quickly overcome, and your journey will be much more joyful!

Dave

[Rick Beauregard]

I think if you’ve been around Delcamp long enough you know THE most often repeated recommendation is get a teacher. And I agree. A key part of “deliberate practice” is to get feedback from a qualified teacher. I don’t think that having a long range goal, the destination, precludes short term objectives or having fun along the way. But during these inevitable periods where it’s not so much fun, the destination can keep you putting that one foot in front of the other and not quitting. Works for me at least. I also set objectives on a monthly, weekly, daily basis, and even for each 45 min session. A goal without a plan is just a Dream. A plan without a goal is just wandering.

In fact the point of this thread is that teachers need to help their students connect to a long range goal more effectively. If mine had done this when I was 7 I might have had a long music career. But it was all about technique and scales and endless etudes. Help your students connect to the magic. It often doesn’t just happen. Otherwise no one would ever quit.

Sometimes a “slump” is just the universe telling you to take a break, slow down or clear your head. Or maybe it’s just too hot to practice for a while.

[Rick Beauregard]

I saw this

C3072454-C3B6-4961-B54D-89F7FE9C0AE5.jpeg

in another post viewtopic.php?f=41&t=116615&p=1299058#p1299058

I don’t know the source but it is interesting. The point was that it takes different people a different amount of time to reach certain levels of proficiency. It is related to how much time you put in. Kind of a breakdown of the 10,000 hour concept. The levels of course are subjective. But more time = get better.

What’s implicit here is that quality of your practice time is also a factor. It may be implicit too that talent is a factor. But maybe if you just spend that much time and love it that much, you’ll get better.

[Sean Sirpkowski]

I did a quick math... at an hour daily for 6 days a week, which is more than this middle-aged working man can probably spend on a new hobby, one would need 32 years to hit the 10,000 hours. I guess there's hope... on my deathbed

Seriously though, there's this saying (joke?):

Q: What's the best time to plant a tree?
A: 20 years ago

Q: What's the second best time to plant a tree?
A: Today

To all those fellow peeps pushing much more than 20 or 30, I say, screw the math. There's a lot of fun to be had, whether we hit those magic thresholds or not! Good luck to all of us!

[simonm]

...
I don’t know the source but it is interesting. ...

Here: http://hubguitar.com/articles/how-long- ... arn-guitar
The next page is "how to avoid distractions"

[Rick Beauregard]

To all those fellow peeps pushing much more than 20 or 30, I say, screw the math. There's a lot of fun to be had, whether we hit those magic thresholds or not! Good luck to all of us!

Fun to learn a new skill. Fun to play for others. Fun to do it well. Yes I agree!

There’s a big gap in time and ability between 2500 and 5000 hours, where I sit now. I feel I have a very long way to go to be considered “expert”. Based on some of the pieces I’m working on I guess you could say I’m “advanced”. I think I’m more an advanced intermediate maybe until I can play these advanced pieces with and fluidity.

I like the tree analogy. As I said to someone years ago who questioned whether she should go back to school as a 40 something who argued she’d be almost 50 before she got her PhD: You’ll be 50 whether you get your PhD or not.

[Rick Beauregard]

...
I don’t know the source but it is interesting. ...

Here: http://hubguitar.com/articles/how-long- ... arn-guitar
The next page is "how to avoid distractions"

Thanks for sharing this simonm. For those who follow this post, this is a good article about the 10,000 hour theory. A couple of my takeaways:
It takes grit
You can get good in time even if you don’t have talent
Talk to me about talent once you’ve reached 10,000 hours

To a young person 10,000 hours seems like an impossibly long time, relative to their concept of time so far. But to an old guy, it seems like a blink on an eye. But as I’ve said before, I wish I knew at age 7 that it was about not quitting more that about talent.

So if you’re in your 20’s don’t quit. Have fun. Keep practicing. Good luck!

[Judy Verbeeten]

Rick, thank you for those articles. I dunno. I can't say that I agree with the perspective of some of the other posters. I am more inclined to go along with T.S. Eliot who opined that"[t]he journey, not the arrival matters.”

At my age, I am never going to reach the 10,000-hour mark, but I know I will enjoy the trip along the way (including all the roadblocks, detours and stumbles), notwithstanding the irrefutable fact that the 10,000-hour destination will remain eternally elusive, and in fact, stubbornly unobtainable.

Judy

[Rick Beauregard]

I am more inclined to go along with T.S. Eliot who opined that"[t]he journey, not the arrival matters..

Judy

Greetings Judy,
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say I think that’s what he meant to type.

[ashepps]

Rick,

I thought I mentioned the old adage of "it's a journey" and if I did not I meant to. I totally agree with Judy on this and I feel that is what I am doing. However, setting your sights such as you have you have greatly surpassed a lot of guitarists and me for!

Keep up what you are doing, I mentioned that I have gone back and started on some major popular themes and I like it immensely (later in life). I "changed the tune" a bit and helped me out of my doldrums.

Cheers,

Alan

[MassiveBeard]

My story starts when I retired in 2014. After working 50 years I reflected that, all that time and I don't feel I have ever mastered anything of value. I started music at a young age, but convinced myself I had no talent, so I quit. Then took up guitar at 30 and took some classical lessons. After a few years balancing job and family I quit.

Your story really resonated with me. I had a similar experience. I work in IT and with the way the field is you basically master skills that become obsolete in 3-5 years as new tech replaces old. While its not a bad job, at 31 I didn't feel like I was a master of anything, so I bought a classical guitar (Fender CG-21S) and started half-ass taking lessons and practicing far too little. Well as life happens, we had a baby, and my focus shifted to him, and the guitar was packaged up and put on a shelf.. for 17 years.

So at age 48, I started taking lessons again two months ago. If I can stick with it, and I don't see why I couldn't at this point in my life, I think I could hit 10,000 hours by sixty years old. I'd like to be able to play asturias by 60, so 12 years from now. It feels like I have a mountain of work ahead of men, but the steps so far have been rewarding.

-MassiveBeard

Edit: Just did the math, I think it would take me closer to 15 years to get to 10k hours, 3 hours a day practice average would be a challenge. But one can still try.

[Robert Drechsler]

I'd like to be able to play asturias by 60, so 12 years from now.

Looking forward to see a Video

[Rick Beauregard]

.

Good luck Massive. You have plenty of time even if you can only do an hour or less a day. Just keep it up.

Another motivator for me was a RadioLab podcast about death. It was said we die three times. Once when we stop breathing and brain function, once when we are out in the ground or cremated, and last when the last person on earth with memory of us dies. But if you leave a legacy you live on. Like Tarrega, Sor, Segovia.

[Rick Beauregard]

Quick update on my progress to 10,000. Today I reached another 100 hour milestone. I now have 6300 to go. As I reach these objectives I try to think of rewards, besides the music itself, to celebrate each step. When I hit 2000 hours I got my new guitar "Solidarity" made by Delcamer Steve Ganz. That was a big one. Back in July I bought a KNA pickup (very reasonable), the kind that sits under the strings on the bridge, and traded my Marshall for a Fender Acoustamatic amp. I'm happy with both, and I'm not really a fan of amplified classical guitar. I mounted the pickup on my Dauphin. Sometimes I'll reward myself with new sheet music or books. My ritualistic changing of the strings every 100 hours is also rewarding. I am using Dogal Diamante low tension strings now to see if the D string buzz I developed with the Savarez Corum sets goes away. So far so good. I might try extra soft next.

This past 100 hours included learning Barrios' great piece, Julia Florida. I've learned to play it but with lots of bumps and not ready for performance yet. I'll keep working on that. I also took some time off, including a great sail to Desolation Sound and back. Now I've begun D07 lessons on the Spanish forum and am learning Bach's BWV 998 Prelude. Fugue and Allegro? See me in another 5000 hours. Watch this space.

One thing that has added to my enjoyment of playing is an informal monthly get together we started recently with fellow NWCG Society members, and fellow Delcampers, luthier Steve Ganz and Hotsoup. The Blaine Guitar Circle, or really Trinity. We have no agenda, no pressure, just try to play for each other, encourage, have a beer and some brats, and conversation. Thanks Steve for taking the initiative to get us together.

I asked to be a "student tutor" on the forum to give occasional feedback or tips to students of the online lessons in D01-5.: my small way to give back to JFD and the mods who maintain this great place. Thus the slightly modified bold type on my name, above.

After a hot and muggy August, fall has arrived with a vengeance in the PNW and rain and practice weather are here! Bring it!