Two-in-One

I love music. It doesn’t love me the same way. But it’s okay, unrequited love still has its benefits. Okay, this is a half-meant joke. Seriously. :P

My grandmother used to teach me and my ate how to play the piano when I was six. Only Ate learned it well. I know how to play Happy Birthday and Love is All That Matters, I am proud to say; it was like hearing an epic, monophonic cellphone ring tone, though.

At age 12, we were taught to play flute in class. It took me long to memorize the notes. And it took me longer to learn finger coordination. Still, it almost always sounded like a mono ring tone.

At age 13, my father taught me and my brother how to play guitar. No, not monophonic this time; but still not good enough.

Age 14, I learned to play the xylophone. This one seemed basic to me. All I has to do was strike the bars gently enough to make a “good” sound. Monophonic? Yes, again.

It is really a tough task to play music. You need to attend to the tone, the pitch, the sound in its overall; to your finger movements, to your speed in playing, and to proper timing. You integrate your auditory system with your motor and visual systems. A very exhausting task, at least for a novice like me.

And perhaps I have always remained a novice in playing instruments. I remember Malcolm Gladwell, in his book Outliers, emphasized the 10,000 hour rule to success. He said it does take that amount of time in order to gain more than just mastery at a particular field. And how many hours have I already spent in practice? Honestly, less than 36 hours all-in-all I guess.

***

10,000 hours. What does this amount of time do?

If a year has 8,766 hours, then it would take more or less a year and two months to become a pro; that is, a year and two months of continuous (take note, literally CONTINUOUS) practice. Now, that may be too much, but for someone driven by strong passion towards something, spending 10,000 hours would not be unworkable. Sadly, with all the acad stuff I need to attend to, I could hardly even spend an hour a week to play any instrument!

***

Music is indeed one field wherein the number of hours of practice is crucial in acquiring mastery. Musicians, according to several studies mentioned in D’Ausilio, Altenmuller, Olivetti Belardinelli, and Lotze (2006), provided demonstrations of the effect of intense trainings on sensory and motor primary cortex representations. Auditory-motor integrations, achieved when auditory sensations are continually associated with particular motor movements (i.e., pressing a piano bar to hear the “Do”), are strengthened with greater training time.

Associations between the auditory map and the motor map are so reinforced to the point that activity in one of these maps causes activity in the other. As an example, a study demonstrated that tapping of a violin concerto resulted in activation of the auditory cortex even in the absence of its sound.  Also, when pianists were asked to passively listen to music, primary motor cortex activation was recorded (Lotze et al., 2003; Haueisen & Knosche, 2001; both in D’Ausilio et al., 2006).

D’Ausilio and colleagues (2006) have shown that training even only for 30 minutes enhances intracortical facilitation in the brain. Even greater time spent practicing musical pieces were shown to lead to corticospinal facilitation; that is, about five days. Both physiological activities explain why musicians training on a particular piece feel as if they are being ‘driven away’ by the music. Motor excitability also was higher when musicians listened to the rehearsed piece than to non-rehearsed one.

If for at least five days of training an already strong physiological, psychological, and behavioral associations could be established, how much more could 10,000 hours of training cause?

***

I am now 19. I can play the piano, the flute, the guitar, the xylophone. But hardly had I been good at any one of them. This is a one-way-love. And now I understand, that to realize fully how much music loves me, I have to spend more time with it. 10,000 hours to be exact.

PS. Thank you for the music! :)

D’Ausilio, A., Altenmuller, E., Olivetti Belardinelli, M. & Lotze, M. (2006). Cross-modal plasticity of the motor cortex while listening to a rehearsed musical piece. European Journal of Neuroscience, 24, 955–958.        

Gladwell, M. (2008). Outliers: The Story of Success. USA: Hachette Book Group, Inc.