Does 10,000 Hours Make You an Expert?

I think not, and here's why...

You may have heard of the "10,000 hour rule" made popular by Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers". It basically poses a theory that in order to become an expert in something you need to spend at least 10,000 hours of deep study, which the brain can only really take 3-5 hours of per day. Therefor it could take close to a decade to become an "expert" at a given subject using this model.

I personally think those numbers are arbitrary, and "10,000 hours" seems more like a catchy number than it is a scientific basis for recommended study. I can’t say for sure though. I haven't done scientific research into this subject, or interviewed, followed, or closely monitored a massive sample-size of students working towards a goal of expertise.

I do, however, know the hours I've put in and the kinds of variation I've experienced within those hours. As far as I’m aware (I haven’t read the entire book as I’m really not a fan of Gladwell’s writing), from the amount of interviews I’ve listened to, there seems to be very little importance placed on the situational structure of said 10,000 hours.

“Deep Study” is one thing, but is an individual expected to do that alone with no guidance? what percentage of those hours need to be spent with an actual expert giving instruction where necessary?

Why am I writing to you about this?

I recently posted a video about consistency of practice, and how important just 10 minutes a day with my instrument is to me. It’s somewhat of a challenge I’m posing to anyone who cares to watch the video. Can you practice for just 10 minutes a day and keep up consistency over a long period of time?

This got me thinking about the past 30+ years that I’ve been playing the bass, what my actual accrued number of hours with the instrument might be, and what my goals are moving forward.

I want to keep improving, and I want to do it until the very end. The two things that seem to move the needle the most when it comes to progress are consistency and intent. I have the intent of always targeting my weaknesses, and consistently work on improving those less fluent elements of my playing.

I’m incredibly fortunate to have been around two bandmates this week as I tour and record with Steve Smith’s Vital Information. I’ve been talking to Steve about how he structures his year, balances his touring and recording commitments as he approaches 70 years of age, and still finds time to practice consistently and with the intent of always getting better.

Then in the van this week, I got into long conversations with Manuel Valera about Neo-Riemannian theory. He was hipping me to all these triadic connectivity ideas for voice-leading and harmony, and giving me enough information to work on for another three lifetimes.

Armed with these very recent interractions with tough to quantify the value of an hour when in just 5 minutes Manuel changed the trajectory of the rest of my musical year.

I have long rejected the 10,000 hour premise, as it felt like personal experience debunked that many years ago.

Out of curiosity though, and to see if there might be any correlation between the number of hours I’ve put in and how I feel about my level of play, I’ve been trying to figure out what my number might be over the past 30 years.

In the first decade of playing the instrument I did basically nothing else. Giving myself an uber-conservative 5hr per day average, that wold put me at somewhere around 18,250 hours.

The second decade was spent on the road almost non-stop. With increased travel commitments I would say the average dropped, but not by much. Let’s say from a 3hr per day average I racked up another 10,950 hours.

The past decade has actually seen more hours with the instrument as I made a conscious effort not to tour as much, and practice more. Let’s say with a 4hr per day average I put in another 14,600 hours. That’s a “total” practice time of roughly 43,800 hours.

This is as conservative as I can possibly be, as I know the reality in the first ten years saw over 10hrs per day, day in and day out. Either way, it’s an impossible number to accurately figure out.

All this to say, that after maybe 43,800 hours, I still don’t consider myself an expert.

I also haven’t begun to factor in the effects of hours spent practicing classical guitar for 6 years before I picked up the bass, or any of the thousands of hours spent playing live, recording, working on composition, attending shows, arranging, producing, writing, piano, trumpet, or drums over the years.

Do I know more than the average person about music? sure. Am I perhaps in a very small percentage of people who play at a certain level and retain a larger than normal volume of information about music? That could be.

But the only thing that really matters to me and the music I make, is how I feel. The level of confidence I need when I play, paired with the curiosity for more information, are the two biggest motivating factors to pick up the bass and go to work each day.

More soon,

Janek