Ref: http://beststudentviolins.com/PedagogyTech.html#29
New! FAQ Question
(29) How long will it take me to get really good at the violin?
This question is one of the most "frequently asked" of any. It takes
about five years to get into the violin, and that is with a good
teacher and a great deal of work. Ten years, however, seems to be the
normative time that it takes to master any skill. See the materials,
below, borrowed, (waiting to get permission), from Peter Norvig's
Teach Yourself Programming in Ten Years
Researchers (Bloom (1985), Bryan & Harter (1899)*, Hayes (1989),
Simmon & Chase (1973)**) have shown it takes about ten years to
develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess
playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano
playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and
topology. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a
musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to
produce world-class music.
In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with
a string of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964.
But they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg since
1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great
critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967.
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) thought it took longer than ten years:
"Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a
lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price." And Chaucer
(1340-1400) complained "the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne."
Hippocrates (c. 400BC) is known for the excerpt "ars longa, vita
brevis", which is part of the longer quotation "Ars longa, vita
brevis, occasio praeceps, experimentum periculosum, iudicium
difficile", which in English renders as "Life is short, [the] craft
long, op****tunity fleeting, experiment treacherous, judgment
difficult." Although in Latin, ars can mean either art or craft, in
the original Greek the word "techne" can only mean "skill", not "art".
* Bryan, W.L. & Harter, N. "Studies on the telegraphic language:
The acquisition of a hierarchy of habits. Psychology Review, 1899, 8,
345-375
** Chase, William G. & Simon, Herbert A. "Perception in Chess",
Cognitive Psychology, 1973, 4, 55-81.
|
