shove your 10000 hours!

I have just been reading the superb and very readable biography of the Beatles by Craig Brown. I had until now fallen for the line peddled by the 10000 hour crowd that it was the hours and hours of drudgelike performing they did in Hamburg that made them the super musicians they became. Not a bit of it! After a lacklustre first perfomance they were told by the manager to 'make a show'. So Paul, George and John started to lark about- insulting the audience, sometimes fighting each other and most interestingly seeing how long they could stretch songs out for. Once they managed to stretch out a Ray Charles number for an hour and a quarter. Only Pete Best sat dutifully plugging away, his face set and sour. The others were...playing. And it is in play that we progress at any art form, not dutiful practise like some kind of robot. Learn to play, for therein lies experiment and interest and life! and to play for 10, 100 or 10000 hours is no big deal at all....