Re: [Harp-L] Rostropovich

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> I once read that, even in his seventies, Mstislav Rostropovich practiced 
> at least five hours a day.  One of his students asked him something along 
> the lines of "Maestro, you already play so beautifully, the world 
> acknowledges you as one of the greatest cellists of all time, you have now 
> reached an advanced age, why do you still practice so much?"  He replied, 
> "But I think I'm getting better!"

I occasionally work with the great bassist Putter Smith.  Here in LA you 
can see Putter and his wife VR working in small clubs with Gary Foster, one 
of the great living saxophonists, and I try to not miss those 
shows.  Putter once asked Gary why he always sounds great (seriously, 
always), and Gary told him that he absolutely always practices for three 
hours before ANY gig.  This means that even if he has a 7 A.M. call at MGM 
he gets up at 3 A.M. and practices for three hours, then has breakfast and 
a shower and heads off to his session.

I practice for at least an hour before a gig, on account of I'm no Gary 
Foster.  The point however is your audience shouldn't have to endure your 
warmup, you should already be smokin' when you hit the stage. if you're 
playing a session your producer is going to be thinking about the clock, 
and how to get you out of there as fast as possible, and if you are 
completely warmed up and 'living your instrument' you'll have given your 
best stuff when they say "That's it, we got it."

The pianist Goldowsky, whose son was one of the inventors of the TV, quit 
playing concerts completely because he said they interfered with his 
practicing.

Ravi Shankar reported that his teacher, Usted Allaudin Khan, practiced for 
23 hours and 45 minutes every day.  You have to wonder how he ever fit in 
time to watch Law and Order re-runs.

All that being said, I saw a wonderful video today of Malcolm Gladwell 
speaking at the New Yorker 2012 conference, on the subject of genius.  At 
one point in the middle of the talk he speaks about something called "The 
10,000 Hour Rule," which refers to the hours it takes to really master 
something.  Figure if you practice for three hours per day you'll nail your 
skill in about 10 years.  He says that this has been observed in many fields.

For those of you who have just felt appalled by how much more time it'll 
take to get really, really good at harp than the time you've already put 
in, just remember that only people who love doing what they're doing, and 
are having a generally good time doing it, ever last for the whole 10K 
run.  So expect to have a fine time or you'll quit anyway.  (Harp should be 
fun first and serious as a heart attack a close second.)

Now, alot of us older players will tell you that we were pretty damned good 
before the 10,000 hour mark, but in my own experience I felt that my 
arrogance at least SEEMED more justified after about 10 years of playing.

You can watch the really, really worthwhile Gladwell video at
http://www.newyorker.com/online/video/conference/2007/gladwell

Ken