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I ran across a reference to a research paper titled "The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance" (while reading Sports Illustrated!) You can download the original article at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blo ... eview).pdf
The gist is that while studying musicians of varying ability they found that the key to determining their ultimate ability was the amount of private practicing they did. World class violinists accumulated 10,000 hours of solitary practice by age 20, "good" violinists had only 71% of that amount, and violin teachers had less than half as much.

The SI article went on to describe similar studies that seemed to indicate that held true for sports as well as music.

Sobering. I think by age 20 my accumulated practice hours were measured in the hundreds. Must be why I'm not playing Carnegie Hall.

Practice =/= Perfect
Practice = Permanent
Perfect Practice = Perfect

J.c. Sherman wrote:Practice =/= Perfect
Practice = Permanent
Perfect Practice = Perfect

Yes, it is said that to master any skill it takes 10,000 hours of practice. A few things about this concept...

-You must understand your physical and mental talent for the specific skill. The second you hit 10,000 hours of practice doesn't mean that you will all of a sudden be a tuba rock star. That number is different for every person depending on their level of physical and mental talent; you might need 7,000 or 12,000 hours. The easier you 'get' something and the less you struggle to ingrain it within you, the more talent your mind and body has for that task. If things come easy you might not need as much practice, if they do not come easy then you obviously need more time for your body to master the skill. Either way, the next point is very important to grasp, especially for younger folk...

-Kids these days do not want to work hard and expect results immediately (thanks technology!). So, lets do a little math to understand exactly how much investment you will have to make to master your skill.

2 hours of practice X 4 days a week X 1,250 weeks (24 years) = 10,000 hours
4 hours of practice X 5 days a week X 500 weeks (9.5 years) = 10,000 hours
6 hours of practice X 6 days a week X 278 weeks (5.3 years) = 10,000 hours

If you want to be good I would advise busting your *** for many, many hours a day for years! This is something you have to dedicate your life to. There are no shortcuts to being a great instrumentalist.

-Quality of practice. A couple people have hit the nail on the head with this point so far; practice doesn't make perfect, PERFECT PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT. Throughout your practice session if you are not mindful of doing things the right way all the time, all you will be doing is engraining bad habits and wrong techniques with the wrong ideas because it may be easier or less time consuming. This only creates bigger problems down the line and the bad habits spin out of control.

Bottom line: stay disciplined, do things the right way and work REALLY hard. Then one day you might be a great instrumentalist.

Good luck!!

I am currently reading a book, "Talent Is Over-rated" (although I have stalled in reading it, but I have read well over half). I don't have the author's name handy, but I think he is an editor at the Wall Street Journal or some such. The premise is that whatever talent, or natural ability one may have, it really won't get you very far. A less "talented" individual can often overtake a "talented" one by practicing long and hard. And it doesn't apply just to musicians: sports, chess, physics, just about anything. Business; look what his background is.

The young "talented" performers almost always started very young, 3 or 4 years old even, and worked at it daily, with instructors leading and pushing them. Examples: Mozart, Tiger Woods.

He talks about deliberate practice. As others have said, If you are practicing something wrong, you just get better at doing it wrong. You need teachers, mentors, who can help you analyze where you need to improve and figure out how to improve.

Deliberate practice, which is hard work and not much fun, and lots of it can make you a better tuba player. But if you are already a grown-up with a job and a family and responsibilities, where are you going to find that kind of time to put in 10,000 hours? And if you are already 60+, you are likely to never become a tuba super-star, but you can be better than you are.

alfredr (not Roger Bobo, Chuck Dallenbach or any of them others)

There is also an optimal practice time for an individual. I noticed when in college that if I did the required three hours a day, I advanced less quickly than if I did two hours a day; my ability to concentrate both physically and mentally declined after two hours, and I was practicing playing badly. This of course may have turned out differently if IU had not assigned practice rooms in three-hour segments, once a day.

MA

When my colleague, a bit older than me, visited Gábor Adamik in Hungary to consult his tuba playing, he was asked about how long does he practice daily. He said 8 hours a day, and Gábor responded with "Why? All you need are 3 daily."
Another view at it is from a trombone player, former student of my teacher, possible one of two best trombonists in this country. He said that the more you practice while you study, the better, because you won´t have time later...

MaryAnn wrote:There is also an optimal practice time for an individual. I noticed when in college that if I did the required three hours a day, I advanced less quickly than if I did two hours a day; my ability to concentrate both physically and mentally declined after two hours, and I was practicing playing badly. This of course may have turned out differently if IU had not assigned practice rooms in three-hour segments, once a day.

MA

I read a study on over practicing a while back. Basically it said that you can practice hours a day and it leaves your mind with too much new information and it leaves your brain cloudy and fatigued. It also has to do with while you sleep your mind passively re-does your day and goes over information that you found and if there's too much new information your brain can not handle it and forgets what you found that day.

I have a friend who found if he rode his motorcycle for two hours a day he would start getting a lot better at riding as opposed to riding for five hours a day, even though he was getting more practice five hours a day.