The Saturday Morning Post: How Do You Get To Carnegie Hall

There is an old story about a young musician visiting New York City for the first time, he was excited to see the sights, but especially excited to see Carnegie Hall.  Only the best musicians play at Carnegie Hall and the young man's dream was to someday be one of them.  He saw an older man wearing a tuxedo carrying a violin case on the sidewalk and assumed correctly that the man was a professional musician.  He asked the man "how do you get to Carnegie Hall?" The old man replied, "practice, practice, practice." 

With any art, you get better, when you practice your art.  Some researchers say that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill. Looking back over time, tradesmen apprenticed or 5-10 years, 10,000 to 20,000 hours at 2,000 hours a year. 

To master your art, you have to work at it. This probably means producing years of work, that leaves you wanting to do better.  We learn and develop our skills not by being perfect, but by being imperfect and continuing to work at it.  All too many give up, when the work is not good enough. Every musician who plays the stage at Carnegie Hall, spent years playing music that would not get them on the stage at Carnegie Hall, and learning from it, and continuing to play and practice. 

Not that all of us will be great artists, but we can all be better artists, to get there we need to follow the old man's advice, practice, practice, practice.