would this imply that there is no reason i keep practicing as I will not be able to reach any decent goal not even when I am 70?
always practise correctly and deliberately, 1,5 hours of smart practice replaces a whole day of mindless fingerwork.
What is smart practice?
Something as primitive as "mistakes" is simply banned from practice because it is litterally wasted time and energy.
what do you mean? i'd like to ban mistakes from my practice, but I dont do it on purpose!
P.S.: Of course, repetition also makes sense, but I rarely use it just to memorize a piece; rather to develop endurance in awkward stuff. Cyprien Katsaris, one of the best virtuosos of our time, advises 45 minutes of UNINTERRUPTED scales and passages and another 30 minutes of UNINTERRUPTED octaves and chords.
I would suspect that for the majority of us such a regimen would result in cumulative trauma disorders (CTDs) likely ending our playing careers permanently. I also suspect that for most of us the point of diminishing returns is not 45 minutes, but 5.
What kind of mistakes do you make?
wrong piano key, wrong finger, or finger slipping out of the keywhat else?
to OP, please go back and actually read the book. Author aimed to show there was a correlative relationship with those whose achievements were at the level of 'experts' in their field, or indicative of a high level of "mastery", had in common that they had on average, more often than nots, 10000 or more hours honing craft.
Rather than preaching 10,000 hours as the single element, it was intended to discourage considering talent the crucial element, and he makes that case well. Really 10,000 hours should be considered a "necessary but not sufficient" condition.
P.S.: Really good coaches will simply reject such students. Unfortunately, for piano playing, there are no tests to make a prediction, but you cannot make a genius out of just anyone, that's for sure and all good teachers know that.
I'd agree with you if you said anyone at any age. It may be that if you start young enough and the person has no inherent limitations (like subtle brain dysfunctions, etc.) that you can. Of course that assumes three things: young enough, basically normal, AND world class teaching.Well, two out of three aint bad.
What causes you to sound the wrong piano key? Is it the complexity of both hands or do you have an unclear picture of which key it should be?What causes you to pick the wrong finger? Is it the complexity of both hands or do you have an unclear picture of which finger should be playing right now?What do you mean by "finger slipping out of the key"? What happens just before? How do you correct that?
I think the 10,000 hours rule was arrived at by asking students at prestigious music schools who had achieved mastery how long and often they practiced. The stupid article I read claimed being a Genius was 'merely' a matter of doing 20,000 hours.
I'd have thought the criteria for being a genius was to have been able to do it in 1,000.
I wonder who teaches that and where or how you can learn that.
Very often though, people who are not genius(if we consider how people often define genius) are the people who try to define genius. Therefore I actually doubt there is a defined thing such as genius. If anything, a genius is one who does not try to define everything not needed to be defined. One who believes in his own mind and thinks the way he wants to think and is the one he wants to be. Therefore I am tempted to ask most people: Are you a genius? Have you ever been a genius? Then how do you know so much about being a genius?Now, I am not a genius I guess, so if my definiton of it is correct, you might as well take it as nothing
So perhaps if the lessons are excellently graduated, efficient, completely devoid of common mistakes, poor posture, bad fingering, and so on... maybe 10,000 hours doesn't really apply.