WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?

Bertie

@Rapier232 said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

Surely there is also a talent/aptitude element involved?

No matter how much I trained/practiced could I ever beat Usain Bolt in a race? His natural ability would never be challenged by any training regime.

I think it might be the case with instruments. I know young people that can play better than I can even dream of doing. Playing with ease, things I struggle with. And they can’t have practiced more hours than me because they haven’t been alive long enough.

Another problem I see is that Teachers are generally people that are naturally good at their subject, and find it difficult to teach someone who doesn’t have their natural skill. Experience helps certainly, but it’s still tough. At school I was useless at Maths. Still am. No matter how my teachers used to try to explain things to me, using every method they knew, I could never grasp their meaning. The point of that example is that the good young trumpet players I know, tend to have ‘mathematical brains’. I wonder if that lends itself to natural talent/ability aspect of Trumpet playing?

Sorry, too long to explain here, but "talent" doesn't exist. Aptitude is something relative not general. Someone could play high easier than us, or faster, or cleaner articulation. But usually, no one is born a "better" trumpet player.

I could tell some stories about Wynton's youth (my teacher is Wynton's cousin), but all of you know all allready. Most people still think he was born so a good player.

Focus (passion, motivation), stress (yes...), right environment, right information (right teachers/mentors), grit, self discipline, ambition and realistic goal setting. That's "talent".

Bertie

I am always having this kind of discusion in Germany. Germany is a "talent" focused country. The kids have it or don't. That's unfair.

I explain always that "talent" is a journalist's word, for people who doesn't understand how music (or sports or anything requiring complexer brain neuroplasticity) works. As said before, "Talent" is the sume of too many components and the majority of them are not inherited, but they part of environment. When looking for kids best options, look for what really absorve their attention. That's the best guess.

Did you know that many kids that were told by teachers "you don't have the talent for the trumpet, maybe try another instrument" were probably up stream players?! The teachers were in old times not so good informed as now.

I'm not a chops doctor nor a troubleshouting teacher, but I have a lot succes with both young and adult students who were jus told "to quit" by other teachers. You have to have patience and analyse where the problems, the frustration and the possible ways of improvement are. Every person is a world. That said, in most cases, the problem is mental. A teacher or themself thinking, they can't play. That makes me very sad.

I was part of a study abot focal dystonia in brass players here in Munich (my wife is neurologist). I was in the control group (that's the healthy ones) and they scanned my brain. If you practice music for more than 3 hours a day, from 7 to 10 years long, your brain (connections firing, amount of neurones, fat Myelin placement) has changed so much, it doesn't like like a non musician brain. It's pretty beautiful to look at it. I got it in DVD.

Neuroplasticity is key. Only sad thing about it, it get slower with age. But you can still always improve! It takes just longer!

(sorry for the length)

Dr GO

@Kehaulani said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

Yeah. It's like walking in the desert and stubbing your toe on a little pyramid shaped stone pile. You decide to dig it up and, to your amazement, it widens. You do this the rest of your life, discovering that you have been uncovering the Pyramid of Cheops. That's what mastery work looks like.

So your are saying, that is what it takes to develop great Cheops!

SSmith1226

@Dr-GO said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

@Kehaulani said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

Yeah. It's like walking in the desert and stubbing your toe on a little pyramid shaped stone pile. You decide to dig it up and, to your amazement, it widens. You do this the rest of your life, discovering that you have been uncovering the Pyramid of Cheops. That's what mastery work looks like.

So your are saying, that is what it takes to develop great Cheops!

Check out at 2:43. Is that what you mean?

Now get serious!

tmd

@ROWUK said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

To become an expert, you need exceptional talent first - talent to keep your eye on the ball, talent to hear differences, talent to understand the differences and above all talent to know what we don't know.

I know that 2000-10000 purposeful repetitions gives us a "professional" level of repeatability for a specific task. I am not sure that we can assign hours however.

Bingo!!

No amount of practicing, be it ten thousand or ten million hours, can make up for a lack of talent. Practicing is useful for acquiring and refining skills, but not for creating talent.

Of course, you need to practice to refine your talent. But I'm not a big fan of the 10,000 hour rule, because it assumes you can create talent, where talent does not exist.

Mike

Dr GO

@tmd said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

Of course, you need to practice to refine your talent. But I'm not a big fan of the 10,000 hour rule, because it assumes you can create talent, where talent does not exist.

Mike

Like Dr. Mike, you mean doing a CAGE screening on yet another ER patient for the 10,000th time hasn't made you an expert at diagnosing substance abuse disorder!?

Dr GO

@tmd said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:
Practicing is useful for acquiring and refining skills, but not for creating talent.

Mike

True, but getting out there in a performance environment, with nurturing band mates... that will help in the talent development department. I do believe that talent development is not only a mental set point but motivational. Do not underestimate the power of the brain. Synapses are ALWAYS being established and I truly believe talent can be developed through experiential activation.

Kehaulani

@Dr-GO said

So your are saying, that is what it takes to develop great Cheops!

So, you can read between the lines?

There are all kinds of things that go into making a great musician and I think I know what Bertie is referring to, but I can attest personally that there are those who just don't have it and are not the victim of bad teaching. I'm not so arrogant to think that what I can't overcome with a student couldn't be overcome by another teacher. But I've also got enough experience to recognize some people that just have deficiencies.

I also take exception to the urban myth that for most teachers, playing came easy and therefore can't understand certain deficiencies in certain other players. There are most certainly those. But, all natural-playing teachers aren't stupid. They can learn over time and with experience, insightful teaching pedagogy and apply that to their teaching.

Rapier232

@Bertie

Well, for what it’s worth, I was a National Police Firearms Instructor for 20 years. I taught people with absolutely no experience whatsoever from basic level all the way to very advanced close protection and hostage rescue teams. I found some people, including me, were absolute naturals at all shooting disciplines. Others found the skills difficult and some found them impossible and failed to reach the necessary standards required. So I’d disagree, natural talent/ability does exist, and those with it will out perform those without.

Kehaulani

@Rapier232 said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

@Bertie

Well, for what it’s worth, I was a National Police Firearms Instructor for 20 years. I taught people with absolutely no experience whatsoever from basic level all the way to very advanced close protection and hostage rescue teams. I found some people, including me, were absolute naturals at all shooting disciplines. Others found the skills difficult and some found them impossible and failed to reach the necessary standards required. So I’d disagree, natural talent/ability does exist, and those with it will out perform those without.

That's funny. I recalled that, as an enlisted man who had never held a firearm in my life, I scored an A.F. Rifle Marksmanship Medal the first time out and, years later, after never having ever shot a handgun, I also earned a Side-Arm Marksmanship Medal. Likewise in your experience, while I was shooting there were others that just sucked at firearms no matter how hard and how often they tried.

Vulgano Brother

I learned Zen practice from my shampoo.

"Lather, rinse, repeat."

barliman2001

@Kehaulani said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

@Rapier232 said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

@Bertie

Well, for what it’s worth, I was a National Police Firearms Instructor for 20 years. I taught people with absolutely no experience whatsoever from basic level all the way to very advanced close protection and hostage rescue teams. I found some people, including me, were absolute naturals at all shooting disciplines. Others found the skills difficult and some found them impossible and failed to reach the necessary standards required. So I’d disagree, natural talent/ability does exist, and those with it will out perform those without.

That's funny. I recalled that, as an enlisted man who had never held a firearm in my life, I scored an A.F. Rifle Marksmanship Medal the first time out and, years later, after never having ever shot a handgun, I also earned a Side-Arm Marksmanship Medal. Likewise in your experience, while I was shooting there were others that just sucked at firearms no matter how hard and how often they tried.

I can only second that, as a qualified Shooting Instructor in sports. I've trained many a beginner, starting them off on small-bore pistol. Most of them became decent, if not remarkable, shooters. Safe to bring them on the range after a couple of months or so. A few became top shooters within weeks. I took a team of four of these rookies to our regional championships. First competition for every one of the four. And we took the cup by a wide margin. Second came a team of grizzled veterans who had been doing this sort of thing for decades.
And then there was one exceptional guy who took to shooting within half an hour. Never had any connection to firearms before. He had learned all the safety rules before (as every one has to have before they are first let loose on the range with a "hot" gun) and scored bull's eyes on the first go, with both eyes open. Later, we discovered that he was a natural two-handed shooter as well - able to hit two targets yards apart, with a gun in each hand, at the same time. In civilian life, he was a karate instructor and organist at the local church.

When we discovered about his ability with firearms, he founded a security business and now owns twenty-nine armoured vans for bank cash transfers, has 90+ employees and has been tasked with add-on Personal Protection duties for state visits. Proudest moment of his life was when the Secret Service approached him for assistance during President Obama's visit to Germany...

Bertie

As I said, there is lot of confusion/discussion about this topic.

Some of you didn't understand me right on.

I got my experience, but I'm speaking mostly about data from serious studies and bibliography.

My personal experience with my students and myself is too long a story. I only can tell you short: It works. All the time. 100 %. But you need the right Info, get rid of some older concepts, observe without prejudice and lots, a mean loooots of patience and love for what you're doing or trying to do.

As I said, please check the two "talent" book by Daniel Coyle (as an Intro) and get then the books from Ericsson and others. There's a lot of them. And if you got the time and understand "the language" get the studies from scientific and medical papers.

In the trumpet world, most of the "Chicago school" ideas and specially the Pedagogy of Prof. William Adam is right on the spot.

Check also what Tom Hooten (LAPhil) and Chris Martin are saying. And of course, Hakan.

This post is deleted!

Dr GO

@Vulgano-Brother said in WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO BECOME AN EXPERT?:

I learned Zen practice from my shampoo.

"Lather, rinse, repeat."

So THAT explains a lot, Zen boy:

Rapier232

@Bertie

Maybe it’s just that ‘they’ can’t quantify talent.

Bertie

Obviously, one can not quantify a mythos.

Nor mastery, by the way, there is always something new to learn.