The 10,000 Hours Theory

While some may argue that professional musicians were born with the talent, others claim that talent comes from practice...LOTS of practice. While Dan Levitin acknowledges both sides of this coin, he asserts that in order to be an expert musician, one must put in at least 10,000 hours of practice. This is the equivalent of practicing for 3 hours a day over 10 years. The 10,000 hours theory is supported by many different experiments across a wide variety of fields- not just music.

This process can be made easier, according to Levitin, if you care about what you're doing. Learning requires memory and when you're learning a piece of music, the brain will tag certain memories of the piece (ie how you play certain sections or how the piece works harmonically) as "important" if you emotionally attach to sed memories when you practice. Also, if you like the piece you are working on, you will be more likely to pay attention to the smaller details. Levitin does also acknowledge that some people might practice more or less efficiently than others which obviously plays a role in all of this.

One idea of my own is that latent learning  may be involved in becoming an expert musician. In fact, it probably is. In laymen's terms, latent learning refers to when you absorb a certain idea or concept "subconsciously" at one point but it is expressed much later. For instance, you probably didn't consciously "memorize" how to use a hammer to hit a nail. Yet, if you were presented with a hammer and a nail now, you'd immediately know what to do. When playing pieces of music a particular way, you may have never formally been taught to "lean into" a certain note or to be in a certain position when playing a piece. Yet, you've seen the piece done this way in your past and now it seems to be instinctual that that's just what you "do" when you perform the piece.  Again, I would not say for sure that latent learning is responsible for this but it is an interesting idea nonetheless!