Thousand Hours...

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plaamook
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09 Dec 2017

In some other locked thread round here some chap qualifies his knowledge by mentioning that he's got literally 1000's of hours on Reason.
Ok.
This got me thinking... one hour a day will produce 1000 hours in about 3 years. So I figure I've got to have over 10,000 hours on Reason without batting an eye. Prob more like 20,000- 30,000. My productivity fluctuates so it's hard to say.
Someone out there once said that you need to put in 10,000 hours into something in order to achive mastery.
Now I reckon by this way of measuring there must be a lot of masters around here. Some admittedly more masterful than others. Maybe that's why you get the odd fight break out. This town just isn't big enough for this much POWER!!! or something like that.

Anyway, just an amusing thought.
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plaamook
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09 Dec 2017

plaamook wrote:
09 Dec 2017
In some other locked thread round here some chap qualifies his knowledge by mentioning that he's got literally 1000's of hours on Reason.
Ok.
This got me thinking... one hour a day will produce 1000 hours in about 3 years. So I figure I've got to have over 10,000 hours on Reason without batting an eye. Prob more like 20,000- 30,000. My productivity fluctuates so it's hard to say.
Someone out there once said that you need to put in 10,000 hours into something in order to achive mastery.
Now I reckon by this way of measuring there must be a lot of masters around here. Some admittedly more masterful than others. Maybe that's why you get the odd fight break out. This town just isn't big enough for this much POWER!!! or something like that.

Anyway, just an amusing thought because 1000's sounds like a lot but in reality it goes by pretty quickly. And if the 10,000 hour rule is accurate you're probably a master at quite a few things. Like writing pointless threads or not being able to spell your own language for example.
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plaamook
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09 Dec 2017

Or hitting the quote tab instead of the edit tab...
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CaliforniaBurrito
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09 Dec 2017

There's a little misconception with that 10k rule with people thinking they progress just because they spend a lot of time doing something. For example, if somebody spends thousands of hours making hip hop beats with NN-XT Combinator patches, they're not going to be very masterful IMHO. I would even say this is on the border of madness - doing the same thing repeatedly. They have to truly apply themselves to mastery in order for that 10k theory to work out methinks.

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plaamook
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09 Dec 2017

Agreed. You need to push out side of your own boxes a bit. But then it depends. There's something to be said for doing one thing very very well. Even if it's preset hiphop nnxt loops i guess.
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CaliforniaBurrito
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09 Dec 2017

plaamook wrote:
09 Dec 2017
Agreed. You need to push out side of your own boxes a bit. But then it depends. There's something to be said for doing one thing very very well. Even if it's preset hiphop nnxt loops i guess.
True. There is composition, arrangement and mixing theory that I imagine can progress over time. Reason mastery is like that dude Hydlide though. :D

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TritoneAddiction
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09 Dec 2017

This is a tricky subject but an interesting one too. I think I agree with what's been mentioned here already. There are many things in making music with a DAW that will affect the end result. Learning your DAW is just a small part of it imo. I mean sure one could be a master with Reason, knowing all the techincal possiblities within the program but that doesn't mean anything unless you can actually make interesting music with it. I don't care how complicated your cable routing is if it doesn't sound interesting. It's a tool, nothing else.
For me there's quite a list and all these things have an impact on how my music turns out. I'm not sure how many hours I've spent on each, but if you put all of them together it's A LOT of time.


Being able to play one or several instruments (at least on a basic level). It's not absolutely neccesary in order to make good music but it will most certainly affect the way you write music.

Theory, scales, chord progressions etc. Sure you can guess your way through and stumble upon cool things every now and then even if you have no idea what you're doing, but the chance that you will luck out everytime is very small.
I've heard many people saying something like: "I don't want to learn theory because I don't want to make the same note choices everyone else is doing". Well it just so happens that most people saying that pick the most obvious unoriginal note choices because whether they know it or not they are used to hearing them and the theory is there for a reason.

Song writing. Just writing lots and lots of stuff and you're ideas will over time get better, hopefully :)

Mixing. I'm still working on this one and I view every new song as practise. As long as the mix is good enough to the get your point across and nothing too annoying is standing in the way of the music then it's acceptable imo.

Sound design. Everything from learning to tweak a synth to experimenting with distortion and reverbs. Also picking the right choices of sounds and instruments for your track, even if it's just presets.

Arrangement and song structure. This is a big one and I think a lot of people skip this one unfortunately. There are many ways to do it, but you have to know why you're doing it. I would advice anyone to do some sort of research on song structure other wise your music will most likely suffer for it. It doesn't matter if you can write one cool 10 second sounding loop if you can't put together a full track. Well actually you can build your whole song around one idea as long as the arrangement moves the song foreward in some way. But again you have to know what you are doing.

Developing your own taste and opinions. It's good to take advice from people and learn from the masters in their field, you totally should, but in the end it's your music and your art. "You're not supposed to do this or that". "This plugin is better than that plugin". Who cares? Try it out for yourself and make up your own opinions.

Knowing your DAW, synths etc. To be honest I think you can get a lot done with a very basic understanding of these things as long as there is some sort of vision for the music itself. At least that's how it is for me. I probably should expand my knowledge here though.

Creativity and self discipline. One is very free and the other side is very rigid. I'm sure this is different for everyone, but I can't get anything valuable done unless both sides are there working together.
I think you can learn to develope both sides. I try to be very non judgemental when the creative side is working. Everything is allowed even if it sucks. The disciplined side gets shit done and decides what's worth keeping and what gets thrown away.

I'm sure there are even more things but this is what I thought of for now.

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Zac
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09 Dec 2017

For me it's always been about keeping it fun. I love my hobby when i get inspiration. I have had periods of ambition and set myself somewhat false goals thinking that achieving them would make me happy.

The truth is everytime i post a song i get a bit down. It's a small loss. I love letting them go but forever wonder whether I'll find pleasure in making the next one.

Sure id love to make some money from my hobby but i think if i ever went down the rabbit hole too far id lose all the fun. Or maybe I'm making excuses? Dunno. But if it's not fun i won't do it.

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CaliforniaBurrito
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09 Dec 2017

I've always wondered if each aspect of music production should be 10k hours instead of lumping everything into a 10k time period. :twisted: An interesting thing to note about electronic music production is you're pushed into wearing different hats. Tritone's list would amount to 90k hours. Knowledgeable people in this community are either lukewarm or they specialize in something. Hydlide is pretty close to mastery IMO and he isn't even here! The only thing I've mastered is jacking off and screwing off my time despite all of 60+ projects I've done this year. :lol:

No shade to NN-XT Hip Hop dudes. I was half-asleep getting ready for work when I wrote that. They used to call me Ace back in my high school hip hop days. :cool:

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CaliforniaBurrito
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09 Dec 2017

Zac wrote:
09 Dec 2017
The truth is everytime i post a song i get a bit down. It's a small loss. I love letting them go but forever wonder whether I'll find pleasure in making the next one.
I don't feel down when I post a song because I'm still riding the creative high and I usually have fun with a few beers. The comedown hits me the next day though and I can't even bear to listen to the track. The pleasure for me comes with the drive in trying to make the next one to be my best one.

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TritoneAddiction
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09 Dec 2017

CaliforniaBurrito wrote:
09 Dec 2017
I've always wondered if each aspect of music production should be 10k hours instead of lumping everything into a 10k time period. :twisted: An interesting thing to note about electronic music production is you're pushed into wearing different hats. Tritone's list would amount to 90k hours. Knowledgeable people in this community are either lukewarm or they specialize in something. Hydlide is pretty close to mastery IMO and he isn't even here! The only thing I've mastered is jacking off and screwing off my time despite all of 60+ projects I've done this year. :lol:

No shade to NN-XT Hip Hop dudes. I was half-asleep getting ready for work when I wrote that. They used to call me Ace back in my high school hip hop days. :cool:
I used to see myself as a guitarist during the time I studied music. I learned to play my instrument, music theory, ear training etc. Nowadays I mainly see myself as a song writer, but it's been very helpful for me to have that background. As you mentioned being an electronic musician you have to wear different hats and you have to look at the bigger picture and for me that's so much more fun. It's hard, but fun.
I think it's good to learn a little bit of everything regarding music but like you said you can't be the best at everything. You're going to find your strengths and build your work around those.

My list was pretty long, but to be fair most things fall under the activity of writing/producing music in a DAW so they all blend together whenever I write new music. The only things I would seperate from that is learning to play an instrument and music theory. But that's just me. Even those two could be practised during song writing depending on your way of working.

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CaliforniaBurrito
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09 Dec 2017

TritoneAddiction wrote:
09 Dec 2017
As you mentioned being an electronic musician you have to wear different hats and you have to look at the bigger picture and for me that's so much more fun.
Fun...sure...but also very technically "left brain" at times. Sometimes I envy the guy at the bus stop playing saxophone or the beach bum strumming away on a guitar! Focused musicianship taunts me; I certainly don't think of noodling with melodic riffs on a USB controller as musicianship but maybe others are easier on themselves.

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plaamook
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14 Dec 2017

CaliforniaBurrito wrote:
09 Dec 2017
Focused musicianship taunts me; I certainly don't think of noodling with melodic riffs on a USB controller as musicianship but maybe others are easier on themselves.
I gave up on all that. I just consider myself a sound designer fundamentally and carry on. I do't even tell people I'm a musician. Fars I'm concerned I'm not. What am I then? Who cares. Listen to my music and see for yourself.
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avasopht
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18 Dec 2017

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10000 times."

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ejanuska
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19 Dec 2017

You can hold a guitar and play three chords for 10000 hours but that doesn't make you a guitar master.
Practice with a disciplined approach is where improvment is sourced from.

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selig
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19 Dec 2017

ejanuska wrote:You can hold a guitar and play three chords for 10000 hours but that doesn't make you a guitar master.
Practice with a disciplined approach is where improvment is sourced from.
Indeed, Gladwell says 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” is required.

But that’s just one man’s opinion. There is recent evidence to suggest Gladwell was wrong, and suggests that practice accounts for a small fraction of the eventual success:
http://www.businessinsider.com/new-stud ... ule-2014-7

Also, there is evidence that mental practice is as good a physical practice. In Maxwell Maltz’s “Psycho-Cybernetics”, he recounts a study of college aged students that showed that physically practicing free throws for 30 min a day vs mentally practicing free throws for 30 min a day produced similar increases in accuracy. That doesn’t necessarily negate the idea of time spent, but it DOES suggest that the idea of “deliberate practice” may mean different things to different people (and be as effective in either case).

So basically, even if you’re stuck on an airplane, you can still practice your instrument - no excuses now! [emoji6]


Sent from some crappy device using Tapatalk
Selig Audio, LLC

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CaliforniaBurrito
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19 Dec 2017

PRO TIP: You can add listening to reference tracks to your timesheet. :D

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