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After 15 years of practice..

sivers.org

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Re: After 15 years of practice..

#71

Post by josh33 »

hyperbovine wrote: post #58
adammichaelc wrote: post #8

He's really good. http://sivers.org/mp3/DEREK_SIVERS-Ready_to_Live-1997-01.mp3

He definitely has the technical fundamentals down, no argument there. Nevertheless, his vocal timbre and overall style don't appeal to me; he sounds exactly like what he says he is: somebody with an average voice who learned to sing well. I can think of a half dozen really jaw-dropping vocalists--the people who make me rue my mediocre singing genes--who I am certain did not work nearly as hard or as long to get where…

And frankly, were it not for differences in talents and interests, the world really would be a boring place. I've said it elsewhere, but it is the unique combination of our talents that gives us the opportunity to contribute something truly unique (and potentially valuable) to the world. I would argue that Derek contributes more value to the world through fantastic writing and the ability to capture truth from the world around him and illustrate it through word than his music ever did. But that's just my perception, so maybe my reality is different than his.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#72

Post by georgieporgie »

jobeirne wrote: post #51
cowmoo wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Yes it takes practice to become a good singer, but any number of hours of practicing poor technique won't do much good." Yes, this is true and oft-repeated mantra on YC News. But it begs the question, how does one practice the "proper" technique (I mean after all, doesn't everyone want to follow the correct form of shooting hoops/strumming a guitar chord, but most people don't have a dedicated shooting coach/guitar…

You're not using ``begs the question'' properly.

That's interesting. Apparently, I've never seen the correct usage, or somehow didn't pick up on it if I did.

Also, it seems that there is disagreement as to whether the use really was incorrect or not. Modern usage and all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Begging_the_question

Either way, I just learned something new.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#73

Post by shin_lao »

zefhous wrote: post #18

I think there's truth to this, but I also disagree strongly with the idea that if you're not good at something you haven't practiced enough. Especially in certain fields — music, design, and programming all fit I think — there is a huge amount that many people just seem to get or not. I have a degree in music, so I've seen a lot while I was in school. Yes, some people can work really hard and eventually get it, but I…

Anybody "normal" can reach a decent mastery at anything given the proper amount of work.

Some people need less work than others because they learn faster.

However, more often than not, people who are very good at something threw an incredible amount of time at it. An amount far greater than anybody is willing to spare.

You're gifted when you reach levels that only few other human beings can.

When you "suck" at something, you're just not trying hard enough.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#74

Post by brazzy »

Am I the only one who gets an XML parsing error (using Firefox 3.6.3)?

Page specifies content-type "application/xhtml+xml", might even be valid XHTML, but contains some spurious characters (1e773) at the beginning.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#75

Post by tomjen3 »

megablast wrote: post #11
johngalt wrote: post #7

Note how people went straight from assuming he "just didn't have singing ability" to "you're lucky to be born with singing ability" It's suprising how often years of hard work is trivialized as "luck" or "inherent ability".

You see this a lot on tv, where people survive a plane crash and thank the lord, rather than the pilot and engineers. Or are cured of cancer and thank god, rather than the team of surgeons and years of hard working medical scientists.

Or lies praying in a hospital.

Interestingly these people rarely, if ever, start taking cancer drugs in a church.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#76

Post by 10ren »

I listened to the first song. The arrangement really lets it down (guess it's a demo), and I think the verse backing is identical to part of the James Bond theme. But the singing is amazing (which was the point), and I couldn't help but dance to the chorus.

I included my negatives so I could conclude: it's easy to criticize, but hard to make people dance.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#77

Post by sivers »

brazzy wrote: post #74

Am I the only one who gets an XML parsing error (using Firefox 3.6.3)? Page specifies content-type "application/xhtml+xml", might even be valid XHTML, but contains some spurious characters (1e773) at the beginning.

Ooops. Sorry. Fixed now!

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#78

Post by meric »

abstractbill wrote: post #6

When people say "X is a gift, you were lucky to be born with it", they're probably trying to give themselves an excuse to not put in the effort needed to get good at that thing.

Behind that stellar job interview were weeks of preparation. Behind that unforgettable 2 hour movie were millions of hours of work. Behind that elegant half hour piano performance were tens thousands hours of practice. Things you see look easy. They only look easy because the people behind them spent so much effort on it. It's not an excuse; People just know so little about something that they fail to see how much effort it takes to master it; And only because they couldn't do it of the bat, they say its "talent".

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#79

Post by Sukotto »

sivers wrote: post #57
Sukotto wrote: post #53

Three points 1) This sounds a lot like the "Deliberate Practice" espoused by the (imho excellent) Study hacks blog http://calnewport.com/blog/?s=deliberate+practice 2) Also similar to Steve Yegge's recommended approach to learning to type. (another great read) 3) Is it just me or is the silvers.org site a gold mine of great ideas? Like this, for example: My vision of the road to mastery: - start with the fundamentals…

Thanks! That bit you quoted is from the book "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitzkin, so I can't take credit for it. Great book. Really inspiring. http://sivers.org/book/ArtOfLearning Writing good essays/articles is something else I really aspire to, and definitely put a lot of work into. I've been studying my favorite essays by Paul Graham, Harry Beckwith, Seth Godin, and even Robert Fulghum. Those are the tops I've…

Oh. I thought that was your notes after reading that book. Didn't realize you were copying out passages of interest.

My bad.

Re: After 15 years of practice..

#80

Post by TobiasCassell »

MikeCapone wrote: post #15
megablast wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe, but I don't think that most people who say this are trying to belittle their idol, rather complement them on the fact that they have a greater skill than others. That no matter how much time someone else puts into it, they will never be as good. And there is some truth to this. You are born a good jocky, most people couldn't train hard to be that small.

I'm not saying it's always conscious, or that this applies to everything. But I think it has a lot to do with how you see the world, and whether you have what Carol Dweck would call a growth mindset or a fixed mindset . I wrote about this a few years ago: http://michaelgr.com/2007/04/15/fixed-mindset-vs-growth-mind... I think it applies to many things, and too few people are aware of the distinction.

Upvoted for the Carole Dweck reference.
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