I picked up my guitar for all of 3 minutes before work and I FELT it. It was out of tune and has a little buzz that I should get looked at if I even knew where/who/how, but in spite of all that, I FELT it. And it felt good. I need more of that.
The new buzz around the web today seems to be that it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert at something. Apparently that's 5 years of 40 hours/week. Damn. At the rate I'm going I'm pretty screwed. But then again, I don't supposed you have to be an expert at something before you start doing it. Indeed, you HAVE to start doing it to become an expert!
More reason to take more classes, at the same time, to really dive in. But I'm scared, I'm way behind with my ONE class, I don't know how I'd keep up with 2 or more! Not to mention I don't know how I'd pay for them. If I sell my car that will pay for this one and my next one, but after that?
I'm SO loathe to go into debt in such a big way again. I still have $600 more left from my B.A. that I'm letting sit because it has a lower interest rate. And it's not something like going to get my nursing degree where you KNOW there's a need for nurses and you're guaranteed to get a job that'll pay it back. For all I know I'll take a bunch of classes only to find out that I suck, or am mediocre at best, and that I should stick to promoting the real talent.
Seriously, how terrifying is that, to throw a huge bunch of money at something when I have absolutely no idea of the outcome? It's like gambling! I suppose on the one hand it's like a vote of confidence in myself, that I DO deserve it and I DO have something worthy of developing, and that THIS is the path to get to it. I know that a bunch of people I admire have gone down this path before, but it's not like a magic wand either, I have to to do the work. So that's the question - do I have the confidence and the drive?
4 comments:
You can do it! RAR!!!
Thanks darlin! You're my best cheerleader!!
So, that 10,000 hours thing. It's from Malcolm Gladwell's new book, Outliers. And Gladwell got it from his somewhat selective study of success and genius. And it's such a convenient round number that it strikes me as highly suspect. But his larger point stands: success comes from the steady accumulation of advantages. And skill at anything comes from doing it. A lot. Buried further down there, though is another matter: genius and success are not automatically linked. Plenty of people have been one but not both. Bill Gates has been trotted out a lot as a particular example from the book, because he's a good example of the kind of success Gladwell defines. Gates really had a lot of things in his favor: access to a computer, time to spend on it, parents who pointed him in the right direction, and a lot of luck. There's smarter programmers and luckier businesspeople, but Gates represents a spectacular confluence of advantages which have really added up.
Anyways, my real point is, forget the 10k hours thing. There's another, similar, rule in music, that an act takes 7 years to get really established enough to succeed nationally. Forget that, too. The important thing is, ENJOY PLAYING MUSIC. If you enjoy it, you'll keep doing it and get better, regardless of everything else.
So, in regards to the classes, the important question is, will knowing more give you more tools to enjoy what you are doing and express yourself better? Because if the answer is a strong yes, forget about the financial payoff. Do it because you want to know more, not because it will help you sell your music. If you enjoy the music, and other people enjoy the music, the rest can follow from there. But it really, really does start with providing your audience with something they can enjoy and connect through.
geesh, I needed to hear that. thanks. probably going to respond more in my next post...
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