Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Does it take 10,000 hours to master the piano?

Musically, no. Technically, I think so. I estimate that I've practiced about 7,000 hours, and I feel technically able to play almost anything, but I don't feel up to some things musically yet. For example I know I can most likely play all the notes of Hammerklavier up to speed, but I know for a fact that I wouldn't be able to make much musical sense of the fugue right now. I think musicality comes from a LIFETIME of work, and that's about 80% of piano playing right there.

I think it's at least reasonable(although I strongly disagree)to claim that the right kind and number of hours of work is the critical aspect doing something at a certain high level. But trying to assign some number of hours, especially to something so incredibly vague as "mastering the piano", I find to be unreasonable and nonsense.

So, looks like everybody's on the same page, except Gladwell.

Where does stuff like that come from, anyway? There are things that are measured in hours, like, how much community service you get sentenced to or, more relevantly, how many hours you need to put in before qualifying for this-or-that -- like, needing so-and-so-many hours of field experience (or whatever) to be qualified for a license in whatever. IMO it's a bit of an irrelevant cop-out for that kind of thing too, because more to the point would be how competent the person has become, and like with piano playing, that wouldn't necessarily correlate with the number of hours. But I suppose that for many endeavors, it's not a bad way to get a handle on the thing, and hopefully they have additional processes to make sure the person actually knows what he's doing.

Maybe it's from that kind of stuff that people start thinking of how many hours it takes to "master the piano." But I think it's completely inapplicable. And I wonder if Gladwell himself had any idea of what "master the piano" means. If he did, he's ahead of me on it.

I wouldn't agree with those descriptions entirely but those milestones are surprisingly accurate when I think about it. Someone mentioned the 10000 hour thing to me a few months ago, and when I crunched the numbers I figured I was at about the 7500 mark or something. I definitely feel like 10000 is when I will feel extremely comfortable with the piano technically. Right now I can play anything, but harder things don't always feel solid and controlled, and I feel my fingers hitting the edges of keys a bit too often.

Yes, if you're lucky.

I'm with you, Mark_C - I have no idea what "master the piano" even means. To me that sounds like there is an end game, a place you come to when you have "Arrived", and I just don't think that is possible in a musical instrument. At least not for me. Perhaps some people just want to learn to play a certain Chopin Etude, or some other benchmark they've created to define that they have mastered the piano. But what happens once you do that? Do you stop, or create another benchmark for yourself to achieve? For me, it's all about short-term goals: what piece do I want to work on, what areas do I need to improve, etc. And I have a huge laundry list of them so when I complete one thing there's a few to go in it's place after that. So this whole idea of "mastering" just doesn't exist for me.

Try mastering.... the 'raising of a child'...not to mention teaching a child. Gladwell got the idea from Bill Joy who I believe picked a random number out of the air.

Anyhow, an opinion on the chart idea. Perhaps a student would like to devise their own.

My goal is 10,000 songs.

rada

I hope I never master it. I might move on to mastering something else.

Well said. I've thought that's exactly a big part of what I love about it. There's always more to reach for, and....maybe this is masochistic but we're hardly ever totally happy with what we've done.

That is both the sad and happy truth of being a musician, isn't it?

Regards,

When my clock, with which I am counting my practise hours, reaches 12, then it always starts at 0 again.
Each time that I start to think for a moment that I improve, I finally only better understand how bad my playing still is and that the journey will last even longer than I before estimated it to for sure still last very(!) long.

Most of my performing in recent years has been at the amateur competitions. There was only one time that I was really happy with how I played in any round, and my feeling seemed to be confirmed because I made the finals. Recently I went back and listened to the recording. It stunk.

I think the idea comes from research by K. Anders Ericsson, which has been discussed here before. Eventually, we'll all master the concept, because of spending 10K hours on it here.

“Outliers” was truly awful. Just another self-help/motivational book pretending to be science based.

To quote Professor Steven Pinker "The reasoning in 'Outliers,' which consists of cherry-picked anecdotes, post-hoc sophistry and false dichotomies, had me gnawing on my Kindle.”

Even Ericsson himself has his barge-pole out. He is distancing himself well clear of the BS from these Talent books/articles. From his faculty site....

The Danger of Delegating Education to Journalists


No magic numbers folks!

ROFL.

Of course whether or not one believes the kind of evolutionary psychological precepts as Mr. Pinker speculates upon amounts practically in effect to be some kind of religion...

Personally I cannot trust anyone who without iron-clad proof

I think there's a "meta point" here. It takes a LONG TIME to be able to play the piano well. Plan on practicing every day for 10 years, just to get started, and a lifetime of daily pracctice.

Many people get frustrated after a year of lessons. The "10,000" number is a useful reminder of the type of commitment it takes.

I agree. I also think that the kind of rough "predicted progress chart" attempted by the OP is a useful thought exercise.

We can't say anything definitive or categorical about how much (and when) progress can be expected and predicted for a reasonably intelligent and diligent student.

That doesn't mean, though, that we can't say anything.

I wonder if it's not safe to say that after you've devoted 10,000 studious hours of practicing, you'll be a pretty solidly talented and capable pianist? I'm not sure that there's any official virtuoso certificate or rubber seal of phenomenal talent. Is it necessary to have one?

If you want to be good at playing piano, then by all means, be on your way to your ten thousandth hour :-) I imagine you won't regret the time you've put in after the 10,000 mark. Not sure if there's a lot more to the conversation than that (imo).

I don't think it is, because it depends on some basic ability to begin with. Not everyone could become good with that amount of work or even with any amount. BTW I would quibble a bit with your saying "talented," because I don't think of talent as something that comes about from any amount of work but something that 'just is.' In fact, I think that's a word we could use for what someone needs to have in the first place.

But I think the rest of how you put it -- "pretty solidly capable" -- is a real good handle on this whole thing, a whole lot better than "master the piano" and more meaningful to try to discuss. I'd agree that for someone who has enough of the basic "talent," or whatever it is that you need in the first place, 10,000 hours would do what you said, and in fact I think we could say the same of a much lower number.