suggesting that practice does not merely correlate with achievement, but causes it.
Anders Ericsson, at Florida State University, approaches the topic of musical expertise as a general problem in cognitive psychology. He takes as a starting point the assumption that there are certain issues involved in becoming an expert at anything; that we can learn about musical expertise by studying expert chess players, athletes, artists, mathematicians, as well as the musicians themselves. The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players and master criminals, this number comes up again and again. Someone would do this amount of practice if they practiced, for example, roughly 20 hours a week for ten years. Of course, this does not address why some people do not seem to get anywhere when they practice, and why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others. But no-one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.
The ten-thousand-hour theory is consistent with what we know about how the brain learns. Learning requires the assimilation and consolidation of information in neural tissue. The more experiences we have with something, the stronger the memory/learning trace for that experience becomes. Although people differ in how long it takes them to consolidate information neutrally, it remains true that increased practice leads to a greater number of neural traces, which create stronger memory representation.
The classic rebuttal to this theory goes something like this: ‘What about Mozart? I hear that he composed his first symphony at the age of four!’ First, there is a factual error here: Mozart did not write it until he was eight. Still, this is unusual, to say the least. However, this early work received little acclaim and was not performed very often. In fact, the only reason we know about it is because the child who wrote it grew up to become Mozart. And Mozart had an expert teacher in his father, who was renowned as a teacher of musicians all over Europe. We do not know how much Mozart practiced, but if he started at age two and worked thirty-two hours a week (quite possible, given that his father was a stern taskmaster) he would have made his ten thousand hours by the time he composed his first symphony. This does not mean that there are no genetic factors involved in Mozart’s greatness, but that inborn traits may not be the only cause.
The development of the silk industry
The discovery of a baby mammoth
What makes a musical expert?
* individuals with absolute pitch: people who can identify or sing any musical note correctly without help
Anders Ericsson, at Florida State University, approaches the topic of musical expertise as a general problem in cognitive psychology. He takes as a starting point the assumption that there are certain issues involved in becoming an expert at anything; that we can learn about musical expertise by studying expert chess players, athletes, artists, mathematicians, as well as the musicians themselves. The emerging picture from such studies is that ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert - in anything. In study after study, of composers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players and master criminals, this number comes up again and again. Someone would do this amount of practice if they practiced, for example, roughly 20 hours a week for ten years. Of course, this does not address why some people do not seem to get anywhere when they practice, and why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others. But no-one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time. It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.
The ten-thousand-hour theory is consistent with what we know about how the brain learns. Learning requires the assimilation and consolidation of information in neural tissue. The more experiences we have with something, the stronger the memory/learning trace for that experience becomes. Although people differ in how long it takes them to consolidate information neutrally, it remains true that increased practice leads to a greater number of neural traces, which create stronger memory representation.
The classic rebuttal to this theory goes something like this: ‘What about Mozart? I hear that he composed his first symphony at the age of four!’ First, there is a factual error here: Mozart did not write it until he was eight. Still, this is unusual, to say the least. However, this early work received little acclaim and was not performed very often. In fact, the only reason we know about it is because the child who wrote it grew up to become Mozart. And Mozart had an expert teacher in his father, who was renowned as a teacher of musicians all over Europe. We do not know how much Mozart practiced, but if he started at age two and worked thirty-two hours a week (quite possible, given that his father was a stern taskmaster) he would have made his ten thousand hours by the time he composed his first symphony. This does not mean that there are no genetic factors involved in Mozart’s greatness, but that inborn traits may not be the only cause.
The development of the silk industry
The discovery of a baby mammoth
What makes a musical expert?
* individuals with absolute pitch: people who can identify or sing any musical note correctly without help