From lists@oceanbeach.com Mon Dec 03 14:31:12 2012
Subject:Re: Is there any upgrade out there to improve my (lack of) playing s

Malcolm Gladwell may sell a lot of books but I'm not a fan. He tends to take one small idea and extrapolate it well beyond reasonable means. The sad reality is that we've all been blessed with varying amounts of innate talent (for which there is no substitute), which is polished by hard work and practice. Assigning an arbitrary number of hours to that is just stupid, in my opinion. He has some good ideas but some pretty vapid ones too.

There will always be players who can play circles around you, and there will always e players much worse than you. And there are plenty of players with fantastic chops whose style offends you. It's all part of life's rich pageant. The main thing is to keep chugging along and try not let let the bad nights get you too down.

> The general rule of thumb, well documented in Malcolm Gladwell's book "Outliers", is that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice to master a complex skill like playing a musical instrument at a pro level.