Oh, but then you’re making a 5th category for “everything music related” :)
Ok, MAYBE someone who has already become an expert in a musical instrument and in music in general can become an expert in another musical instrument in 6 months if studying that full time, but am not at all sure about this.
So far I’ve been learning one musical instrument for 3 years, another for a year and another for a year. And I quite far from becoming an expert in any of them. Also, I doubt that you can productively practice it full time or even 4-5 hours a day because in my experience more practice per day gives diminishing returns—whether it’s because of muscles getting tired or because of brain capacity or because of boredom I don’t know.
Well, ok what I am sure of if that you have no experience in music, then becoming an expert in 6 months in any single instrument is impossible unless you’re born as a genius. This is how it is in my experience and this is what observe among musicians around me—nobody gets good quickly.
Oh, but then you’re making a 5th category for “everything music related” :)
I think the greatest skill transfer to music will be expert level performance at any other physical skill, but as I say here, I do think muscle memory is going to transfer less well than other things.
So far I’ve been learning one musical instrument for 3 years, another for a year and another for a year. And I quite far from becoming an expert in any of them.
I would be very surprised if you are anywhere close to 6 months of full-time deliberate practice in those 3 years? Also, do you have expert level performance in any other physical skill?
Perhaps related: I suspect there’s also a skill transfer from music to computer programming. Specifically, I’ve observed a few musicians to have a much easier time learning programming than I expected for an adult with no prior programming experience.
This might have something to do with —
Comfort with patterns, iteration, and structure. If this is the thing, I would expect knitters and fiber artists to have some of the same advantage; I don’t know if they do.
Comfort with deliberate practice itself. Many new programmers get frustrated with the amount of practice and heedfulness it actually requires to get good. Trained musicians are accustomed to acquiring skills and methods through deliberate practice.
A nexus between music, programming, and math. (One of the musicians I’m thinking of also was a math major.)
Also, do you have expert level performance in any other physical skill?
Nope
I would be very surprised if you are anywhere close to 6 months of full-time deliberate practice in those 3 years?
So, a year has 255 working days. So half a year is 255⁄2 times 8 = 1020 hours of working time if we assume 8 hours per day. Yes, I probably do have approximately that amount of practice under my belt, maybe a little more. Also I’m not sure that 8 hours of deliberate practice per day for half a year in music learning is possible and is good for you.
So, a year has 255 working days. So half a year is 255⁄2 times 8 = 1020 hours of working time if we assume 8 hours per day. Yes, I probably do have approximately that amount of practice under my belt, maybe a little more. Also I’m not sure that 8 hours of deliberate practice per day for half a year in music learning is possible and is good for you.
A year has at least 300 working days, and a day has at least 10 working hours (more like 11), at the time investment level I am talking about here. The 6 months is meant as a lower bound if you tried really hard, not as the thing that you would get if you worked a normal 9-5 and took two weekend days on this. So the right number I was anchoring on is more like 1800.
Oh, god, sorry, I also just remembered. You might be thinking of “professional level” or “expert level” as the kind of absurd thing that people aspire to when they want to be orchestral musicians. Like, get a job for nothing else but their musical skill.
I think in the case of musical instruments the skill thresholds are much higher than I was thinking here.
Because there are so few jobs for being a professional concert musicians, I think the lengths people have to go to to reach that level are much higher than what I meant here for “professional”. Like, I was thinking of the level of “professional” as “went to a top university for an undergraduate degree in a specialization and then ~2 years of work experience” not what I think is standard for professional music careers, which I think tends to be “start at the age of 5, practice as a half-time job almost all the way through your teens, and engage in deliberate practice all-throughout, then transition to full-time in your early 20s, all-throughout with extreme training regimes”.
I don’t actually quite know how this world works, but my model is definitely because supply for full-time musicians so vastly outstrips demand, that the competition here is much harsher, and the usual terms will be confusing.
Then my model definitely doesn’t predict you would reach expert-level performance in 6 months of deliberate practice! That’s like the whole point of the model!
Oh, but then you’re making a 5th category for “everything music related” :)
Ok, MAYBE someone who has already become an expert in a musical instrument and in music in general can become an expert in another musical instrument in 6 months if studying that full time, but am not at all sure about this.
So far I’ve been learning one musical instrument for 3 years, another for a year and another for a year. And I quite far from becoming an expert in any of them. Also, I doubt that you can productively practice it full time or even 4-5 hours a day because in my experience more practice per day gives diminishing returns—whether it’s because of muscles getting tired or because of brain capacity or because of boredom I don’t know.
Well, ok what I am sure of if that you have no experience in music, then becoming an expert in 6 months in any single instrument is impossible unless you’re born as a genius. This is how it is in my experience and this is what observe among musicians around me—nobody gets good quickly.
I think the greatest skill transfer to music will be expert level performance at any other physical skill, but as I say here, I do think muscle memory is going to transfer less well than other things.
I would be very surprised if you are anywhere close to 6 months of full-time deliberate practice in those 3 years? Also, do you have expert level performance in any other physical skill?
Perhaps related: I suspect there’s also a skill transfer from music to computer programming. Specifically, I’ve observed a few musicians to have a much easier time learning programming than I expected for an adult with no prior programming experience.
This might have something to do with —
Comfort with patterns, iteration, and structure. If this is the thing, I would expect knitters and fiber artists to have some of the same advantage; I don’t know if they do.
Comfort with deliberate practice itself. Many new programmers get frustrated with the amount of practice and heedfulness it actually requires to get good. Trained musicians are accustomed to acquiring skills and methods through deliberate practice.
A nexus between music, programming, and math. (One of the musicians I’m thinking of also was a math major.)
Nope
So, a year has 255 working days. So half a year is 255⁄2 times 8 = 1020 hours of working time if we assume 8 hours per day. Yes, I probably do have approximately that amount of practice under my belt, maybe a little more. Also I’m not sure that 8 hours of deliberate practice per day for half a year in music learning is possible and is good for you.
A year has at least 300 working days, and a day has at least 10 working hours (more like 11), at the time investment level I am talking about here. The 6 months is meant as a lower bound if you tried really hard, not as the thing that you would get if you worked a normal 9-5 and took two weekend days on this. So the right number I was anchoring on is more like 1800.
Oh, god, sorry, I also just remembered. You might be thinking of “professional level” or “expert level” as the kind of absurd thing that people aspire to when they want to be orchestral musicians. Like, get a job for nothing else but their musical skill.
I think in the case of musical instruments the skill thresholds are much higher than I was thinking here.
Because there are so few jobs for being a professional concert musicians, I think the lengths people have to go to to reach that level are much higher than what I meant here for “professional”. Like, I was thinking of the level of “professional” as “went to a top university for an undergraduate degree in a specialization and then ~2 years of work experience” not what I think is standard for professional music careers, which I think tends to be “start at the age of 5, practice as a half-time job almost all the way through your teens, and engage in deliberate practice all-throughout, then transition to full-time in your early 20s, all-throughout with extreme training regimes”.
I don’t actually quite know how this world works, but my model is definitely because supply for full-time musicians so vastly outstrips demand, that the competition here is much harsher, and the usual terms will be confusing.
Then my model definitely doesn’t predict you would reach expert-level performance in 6 months of deliberate practice! That’s like the whole point of the model!