Outliers<\/a>", no.\u00c2\u00a0 Innate talent, pure desire, they’re not enough.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, Mozart started writing music when he was six, but he didn’t compose a masterwork until he was twenty one, after he’d put in 10,000 hours of practice.<\/p>\nHow can you have accumulated 10,000 hours worth of practice if you’re not even close to twenty one?<\/p>\n
Turns out that’s the rule.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ve got to have 10,000 hours of practice under your belt to be truly great, to be world class.\u00c2\u00a0 How many of today’s acts have this\u00c2\u00a0 kind of history?\u00c2\u00a0 No wonder today’s live acts rely on production, they’ve barely been on stage, never mind performing for 10,000 hours.\u00c2\u00a0 Like the Beatles.<\/p>\n
The Beatles went to Hamburg five times between 1960 and 1962.\u00c2\u00a0 They played eight hours a night, seven days a week.\u00c2\u00a0 Winning over an audience that didn’t speak their language, that was more interested at first in the strippers.\u00c2\u00a0 The Beatles gigged 270 nights total in Hamburg.\u00c2\u00a0 By time "I Want To Hold Your Hand" broke in America, in January of 1964, the Beatles had performed live over 1,200 times.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s more times than many of our so-called stars have ever gigged.<\/p>\n
Greatest guitarists of all time?\u00c2\u00a0 How about Duane Allman.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only did he practice while watching television, he even brought his guitar to the bathroom!\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, you’ve got to have talent, but you’ve got to PRACTICE!\u00c2\u00a0 How much practicing have today’s musicians done?<\/p>\n
Maybe that’s why jam bands do so well on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 You might not like their material, but they can play.\u00c2\u00a0 Going to a Widespread Panic show is not like seeing Miley Cyrus.\u00c2\u00a0 The band may not look pretty, but their music can stand alone.\u00c2\u00a0 It draws people in.\u00c2\u00a0 They developed over all those years, all those gigs.<\/p>\n
How about Elton John?\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t dream of being a star, he just wanted to be in the business.\u00c2\u00a0 But he cut demos and wrote incessantly.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where he became incredibly good.<\/p>\n
You might not like Diane Warren’s songs, but the reason she has so much success is because of how dogged she’s been. Knocking on doors when she was new and not that good, and working at her craft incessantly, year after year.\u00c2\u00a0 Max Martin wrote "…Baby One More Time", Britney Spears just sang it.\u00c2\u00a0 Michael Jackson’s an incredible performer, but his great records were done with Quincy Jones, who’d spent so much time in the studio, never mind composing himself.<\/p>\n
So, when you e-mail me the music of some new act and I don’t respond, am I hearing something, or should I put that NOT hearing something?\u00c2\u00a0 Kind of like Gladwell’s book "Blink", I’ve been listening to music incessantly for years, I know what’s great.\u00c2\u00a0 And what you’re sending me isn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 Because those acts want stardom, but they just haven’t invested in their careers by practicing enough.<\/p>\n
By time the Beatles left Hamburg they were so good, so tight, they could hold any audience.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s a skill you learn on stage, it can’t be perfected in front of a mirror, not even in a garage with your buddies.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a different charge at a gig, the energy, the distractions, the adrenaline, you’ve got to DELIVER!\u00c2\u00a0 How many of today’s acts truly deliver?<\/p>\n
Those English musicians played American blues records again and again.\u00c2\u00a0 Jimmy Page wasn’t only in the Yardbirds, he’d played a ton of sessions before Led Zeppelin.\u00c2\u00a0 And speaking of sessions, John Paul Jones was legendary for his work.\u00c2\u00a0 Is it any wonder Zeppelin was so great?\u00c2\u00a0 Or the Eagles…\u00c2\u00a0 Glenn Frey and Don Henley played in bands before they backed up Linda Ronstadt on the road, they honed their chops in Aspen, they didn’t compose their magnum opus "Hotel California" until five albums into their career!<\/p>\n
Maybe today’s acts just aren’t good enough.\u00c2\u00a0 Not because they lack talent, but they lack practice.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what Gladwell says.<\/p>\n
He quotes the study of K. Anders Ericsson of students at Berlin’s Academy of Music in the 1990’s.\u00c2\u00a0 He found the world class soloists had practiced 10,000 hours by the age of twenty.\u00c2\u00a0 But what is even more fascinating is that Ericsson couldn’t find any "naturals", who were world class without practice, and he didn’t find any "grinds", people who practiced yet weren’t superior.<\/p>\n
There are some amazing producers in today’s music business.\u00c2\u00a0 As well as great songwriters.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve honed their chops for decades.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s no wonder their compositions rule the charts.\u00c2\u00a0 Because the acts they’re writing for are relative newbies, they don’t have the chops because they haven’t put in the time.<\/p>\n
But, it gets worse.\u00c2\u00a0 Clive Davis has famously said he doesn’t want his proteges to write.\u00c2\u00a0 The business has focused on good-looking people, who might be able to sing.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, with today’s studio wizardry\/trickery, ANYBODY can sing.\u00c2\u00a0 So, no one focuses on getting it perfect, even Mariah Carey doesn’t sing live, and few focus on writing their own songs.\u00c2\u00a0 Therefore it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy…today’s acts don’t write their own material because it’s not treasured by the industry and therefore it’s the so-called hacks who have all the talent.<\/p>\n
The public was rabid, for a sustained period of time, for the Beatles.\u00c2\u00a0 People recognized greatness, developed over years of practice.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas today everybody’s just a flash in the pan, because after their momentary hit written and produced by the usual suspects, there’s nothing left.\u00c2\u00a0 You go to hear the hit, you don’t go to see the act.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe the public is much smarter than we give it credit for.<\/p>\n
As for punk rock…\u00c2\u00a0 The Ramones didn’t rise from nowhere.\u00c2\u00a0 They were one of the giggingest bands of all time.\u00c2\u00a0 Most people didn’t even know who they were until they’d recorded four albums.\u00c2\u00a0 You learn a lot going back to the studio.\u00c2\u00a0 How can we expect today’s acts to be comfortable when they’ve barely ever recorded in professional circumstances, and furthermore the sessions weren’t in their control!<\/p>\n
Brian Wilson didn’t write "Good Vibrations" for the first Beach Boys album.<\/p>\n
Aretha Franklin sang gospel and had a string of albums on Columbia before she broke through on Atlantic.<\/p>\n
The lasting successes, the ones cleaning up on the classic rock circuit, the acts people want to see over and over again, didn’t arise overnight, they paid years of dues before they ever broke through.<\/p>\n
I’m not saying you’ve got to be old to make it, maybe you just have to be doggedly focused.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only on making it, but rehearsing, getting it right.\u00c2\u00a0 The music industry has lobbied against this.\u00c2\u00a0 It has not encouraged its stars to practice.\u00c2\u00a0 It just wants people who are willing to be manipulated, who are willing to do anything to make it.\u00c2\u00a0 This has nothing to do with musical talent.<\/p>\n
Maybe the conventional wisdom is right, today’s kids do have a short attention span.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, they play videogames for hours, they surf online for days on end.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why your teenager is a computer expert, why he can run your machine at what appears to be light speed.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s second-nature to him.<\/p>\n
But working hard, practicing playing music to make it is not second-nature.\u00c2\u00a0 It has not been encouraged by our industry.\u00c2\u00a0 We don’t reward practice, we just reward desire and good genes.\u00c2\u00a0 And Gladwell posits again and again that genes are not good enough.<\/p>\n
What’s the old saw?\u00c2\u00a0 That Bruce Springsteen would have been dropped after his first album today?\u00c2\u00a0 Same deal with Bonnie Raitt and so many of the legends?\u00c2\u00a0 It took them years to hone their skills, to not only write and record great music, but perform it too. Actually, both of those acts developed on the road.\u00c2\u00a0 Where are developing musicians supposed to play today?<\/p>\n
The audience knows something the industry does not.\u00c2\u00a0 That today’s music just ain’t got the same soul.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather than being heartfelt confessions by professionals beholden to no one, tracks are cookie-cutter confections created by cynical journeymen beholden to the dollar.<\/p>\n
Maybe the Net will allow acts to grow and develop on their own.<\/p>\n
But don’t ever confuse greatness with the kid who used his Mac to write songs and then post them on MySpace.\u00c2\u00a0 MySpace is a great wasteland.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody can write, few do it well.\u00c2\u00a0 What makes people think anyone with a computer can compose great music overnight?<\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Are today’s bands any good? The business is focused on these young "prodigies", like Britney Spears.\u00c2\u00a0 The acts are getting ever younger, and the rationalization is that kids buy music, and that anyone over thirty, maybe even twenty five, is too old for the target demo to relate to.\u00c2\u00a0 If you don’t believe the Jonas […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-outliers","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1535"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2342,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1535\/revisions\/2342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}