Virtuoso? More like "lazy so-and-so"

It is said that in order to be a virtuoso in something, you have to practice whatever it is for 10,000 hours. That would make you “world class” or put you into the top 1% in that field, or something like that. In other words, make you a virtuoso. As of this August, I will have been formally studying jazz piano for two years, and while I have not tried to keep track of every single minute that I play the piano, I have tracked the majority of the time that I spend practicing, playing, taking lessons, rehearsing with bands, etc.

Now understand, I have no delusions here. 10,000 hours is a long, long time. To put it into perspective, if I were practicing piano as a full time job - that is eight hours a day, five days a week - it would still take five years to become a virtuoso. If (for example) I worked at it full time, and worked twenty hours every weekend as well, it would still take three years, four months to reach 10,000 hours.

Folks, I can’t even SIT at a piano that long, much less sit at it and play something. (I’m ashamed to admit it, but since school ended, I’m pretty sure I haven’t played ten hours all together. I just haven’t felt like it.)

Given that, the fact that I’m pretty close to having five hundred hours under my belt is actually pretty amazing. If you throw in my plonking around time, plus some of the time I had as a kid learning to play the organ, I’m probably up around two, maybe three thousand hours total. Still, a long stretch to the 10,000 total.

It is entirely possible that I won’t play ten thousand hours of jazz piano in my life. If I do somehow stick to it and play, say, five hundred hours a year (two hours a day, five days a week for the entire year ... yeah right, not likely), I’ll be 65 when I reach the virtuoso total.

What’s the point? I’m not sure, but I think the point is that I need to set manageable, near-term goals, or the title of “virtuoso jazz pianist” is going to fairly and completely elude me.

Only 9500 more hours to go. Let's shoot for two hours today, anyway.