10,000 hours

I was going over a few old music-related articles I have kicking around my place in the hope of finding inspiration for a REALLY good band name and came across something I used to be quite interested in. I remember reading about Malcolm Gladwell's book 'The Outliers' a couple of years ago that expanded upon the notion that it takes 10,000 hours practice in some certain area to become an 'expert'. It struck me at the time that it was encouraging to think that if I wanted to become say, a skilled guitarist, the only thing that stood in my way was a sustained period of hard graft. Another author I found interesting was Daniel Levitin and his book 'This is Your Brain on Music' which argued (what I had long believed) that musical talent isn't merely innate, but is something that can be significantly improved through targeted and appropriate practice. Great musicians aren't simply born, they have had to put a lot of work into their art. The Beatles and even Stevie Wonder are held up as examples. It also aims to explain why people are attracted to musicians, something I have to be thankful for over the years! Although Levitin is one of those 'pop theorists' that garner a lot of media attention these days by providing quick, easy-to-understand assumed answers to tough questions, taken together, the two provide some thought-provoking concepts.

Think about the things in your life so far that you have spent 10,000 hours doing (keep it clean, Craig!). At 28, I'd need to have been doing these things for an average of an hour a day at least to reach that mark. Does that make me an 'expert' scholar, reader, conversationalist, listener, perhaps even singer? Obviously that's a huge simplification, something both Gladwell and Levitin have been accused of. Surely HOW you practice is as important as HOW LONG you do it for. Just think of those 30+ years experienced teachers you had at school who had simply been doing the wrong thing repeatedly for their entire career. I get the feeling I could continue to mess around on guitar or with my Korean for 10,000 hours the way I currently am without getting significantly better at either. It'd be nice to imagine some mental countdown we could perform for ourselves as we edge closer to expertise (whatever that is), but obviously it isn't quite as simple as that. As far as my band-name-hunting was concerned, the best I came up with was 'These Glorious Illusions' or 'The Dopamine Fiends' so I think 'Dead End Friends' is still the best suggestion on the table.

Not much longer to wait now until I get the chance to do a bit of showing off, ass-shaking, saying lame things over the mic and, of course, singing! For those of you in Seoul at the minute, we'll be playing at Woodstock in Itaewon tomorrow night (Friday, 22nd) from 11pm for about an hour. We just have 11 songs in mind for the set so I have been making sure I know them inside out. No matter, I'm sure I'll muddle something up on the night anyhow. Only a couple of weeks later we'll play our first 'full' gig at Rocky Mountain Tavern in Itaewon (Saturday, November 6th) and I'm going to start booking other gigs right up until New Year's Eve over the next week or so. It has taken us longer than we had hoped to get up and running since U R Seoul's final gig, but hopefully now we're finally back in the game. I certainly hope so. Without a gig, weekends feel a bit empty and pointless to me, if I'm being honest. That might be a bit sad, but things tend to feel very repetitive just going to the same places or doing essentially the same thing (drinking) in vaguely different places. It sometimes gets to the point where you can play too much, but having 2/3 shows a month to look forward to really keeps me in good form. Although it can be a bit guilt-inducing always bugging friends to come to shows, those big nights are genuinely fun all round and bring a wider circle of friends together in one place better than anything else I can think of here. Once we get a name finalised, I'll be setting up a facebook group to help promote gigs, share photos and videos, etc. Please join up and support our new venture.

Predictably, my week off work is absolutely flying by so I better get on and do a bit of work on my dissertation background reading, get ready for my Korean class at 2, go over these song lyrics a few more times, and maybe have one last stab at arranging things for the Korean Grand Prix this Sunday (my attendance looking more doubtful by the day). I had been hoping to write this blog last night, but personal circumstances dictated otherwise. Perhaps I'll go crazy and blog again later today.