Re: 2000 hours - YIKES

["Barry B. Bean" <bbbean@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003 07:29:05 -0800 (PST), Mike Due wrote:

><quoting Mike Will's website>... I've seen the number 2000 hours cited as how
>much time is required to be reasonably proficient at blues harp playing,
>and that seems to me to be as good a number as any."
>
>Holy Hoener's Batman! That's a lot of lip-locking on the old brass blower!

Its about 5 and a half years of playing an hour a day. Not all that long in the big scheme of things.

>So I'm curious, and have a quicky 2 question survey:
>
>1) How long had you folks played the diatonic before you played in front
>of an audience (or were moderately proficient enough to do so)?

What I thought was "moderately proficient" when I started was different from what I consider "moderately proficient" now. I wince when I hear some of the 
performances I taped when I started (in my teens). At that point, I'd been playing piano for 8 or 9 years, sax for  3 or 4 years, and harp seriously for a year or 
two. At the time, I thought I was "moderately proficient". When I hear the tapes now, I think the proper description would have been "barely competent."  
I'd been playing seriously for 5 or 10 years before I got to a level I'd describe today as "moderately proficient" or professional. 

>2) For you master harpers, how long did it take you to get to the point
>where you could play in third position or higher, play overbends, use
>tongue-blocking, etc.?

What constitutes a "master harper"?



- --
Barry B. Bean
Bean & Bean Cotton Company
Peach Orchard, MO
www.beancotton.com
www.beanformissouri.org