Growth over time...

[mark737]

I have been taking lessons as an adult for the past 5 years and would rate myself a hackish early intermediate player. I practice everyday and have only missed about 10 day in the past 5 years. I log my hours and I'm at 3200 hrs. I'm starting to feel some real progress the past few months with a much more fluid approach to my playing. My question after all that background info is:

With the same work ethic, will I be twice as better in 5 more years? 3 times better in 10 more years. I'm just curious as to how playing improvement works over time. I'd love to hear from other dedicated students and their experience over time.

Thanks for any input.

Mark

[beginner1011]

Discipline beats anything and can make you much much better!

[pianoplayjl]

Not only that it also depends on how hard you work and the dedication and effort you put into practice. You may practice 8 hours and achieve nothing significant or you may practice 1 hour and achieve a goal.

[loops]

This is an interesting question to me because when I started I thought, I'll give it five years, and then at five years I thought, well, it will take another 5, and now I'm at 9 years and thinking, well, I need to keep going!! One "problem" is that I work full time and this involves travel. Another "problem" is that my idea of what "being good" is, is an ever increasing level of expertise. So, I'm just about playing things that students starting a music degree might be playing (which reflects the hours that I can put into it), but without the chance to go on to spend three years (or more) full time at Uni to really get over the various humps I'd like to get over, such as developing fluent sight reading, composition skills, and some deeper repertoire.

It's said that becoming an expert takes 10,000 hours. I worked out that university education for my profession was about that many hours (BSc, MSc, PhD, so not counting high school) and looking back now that was just the beginning of being an expert. So after 10,000 hours I was an expert in the tiny area of my PhD, and it's now expanded to be broader and deeper, some 20 years later.........

Progression doesn't feel linear, it feels like there are humps and bumps, sudden improvements and suddenly hidden abilities seem to "come on-line". In hindsight, it does get faster, bt at the time it always seems so slow

ah well

[countrymath]

Not only that it also depends on how hard you work and the dedication and effort you put into practice. You may practice 8 hours and achieve nothing significant or you may practice 1 hour and achieve a goal.

True. I used to practice 10-12 ours a day without planning. Now I practice 2-2,5 hours with planning and i learn a lot more