Hi Kehaulani,
The 10,000 hour rule just doesn't wash (It's been debunked so many times, I can't count all of them. Just Google it.). It took me at best 30 hours of concentrated effort to train my dog to understand and do commands ( however, for those who own a dog, training never stops). What I think is slipping under the radar, is that people with skills like Elmer are often driven to play, almost like a compulsion. People like that do not see the trumpet and what it takes to be good as an enormous amount of hard, concentrated work. They are like a child compelled to play with a new toy and if they aren't playing the trumpet, they're thinking about trumpet. They just can't leave the trumpet alone. There are people on this site that know exactly what I mean and for those that don't, that's okay. Trumpet, for a few, is a drug. Most people do not want to face the dragon of practicing and only practice when they have to. However, for some people, practicing the horn is a drug and their dragon is figuring out how some piece or piece of a song goes.
