I was recently asked by a student, “If I practice 20 minutes a day, four days a week, how long will it take me to be a good singer?” While I love the spirit of this question – a singer taking an interest in their own progress – it’s problematic for me as a teacher. The reason? The process of developing as a musician is individual, and no results are guaranteed. No one can promise you specific results within a given amount of time. There are simply too many variables. So while this question is rooted in good intentions, it’s based upon incomplete understanding of how musical training works.
[The topic of what makes a “good singer” and who gets to make that assessment is going to be saved for another blog post. That in and of itself is quite loaded and worthy of exploration. However, for the purposes of this post, let’s define a “good singer” as one that performs professionally.]
Let’s consider my student’s question from another perspective: “If I go to three basketball practices per week, how long until I can play in the NBA?” In this context, it’s easy to see why I found my student’s question problematic. Training as a musician is incredibly similar to training as an athlete, so I find it an apt analogy. When it comes to sports, most people understand that athletes develop at different rates, because this kind of learning is process oriented.
First in the process, potential must be identified along with some level of natural affinity. Next, the athlete will need to master skills. Dozens of them. Many will be specialized, depending on the position they want to play. To master these skills an athlete will need to seek out coaches, experts and teams that will help them hone their abilities and put them to work in appropriate environments. Finally, an athlete will need to play the game – hundreds and thousands of times – to assess, reassess, revamp, and deepen their understanding of the game and how they can operate most effectively within it. In plain English: MOTOR LEARNING TAKES TIME.
Apart from skills acquisition, playing a sport at the highest possible level requires a dedication that many are simply not able to commit to. An NBA player spends their entire life engaged in regular, regimented training that changes as they adapt. Their lifestyles are built around the sport, and what they need to maintain their physical and mental edge when playing. They practice every day. They train every day. They push through disappointment, pain and failure every day. And they do this not because a coach told them to, but because they cannot picture their life without the game. They are internally motivated.
Even with all those skills, guidance and dedication, luck plays an enormous role. You have to be seen by scouts, be on a team that gives you visibility, and then have a great night on the court when it counts. Making all those stars align at just the right moment in one’s life is indescribably difficult, and no coach can guarantee that it will happen.
These same elements apply to a musician training for a performance career. Learning to master an instrument, including your own voice, requires years of rigorous work, intense dedication, perpetual curiosity and mastery of dozens of unique skills. Musicians are athletes in many, many ways. Though our training focuses on smaller movements and more delicate muscles, it is no less demanding. That training takes time, and no two people develop at the same rate. In other words music, just like sports, is PROCESS oriented.
Those who pursue activities because they seek praise or validation from outside sources tend to be less successful and less happy in their development. It’s a slippery slope seeking external affirmation for something that is process oriented. It can be psychologically damaging and reverses the priority order of the training process. Those who are intrinsically motivated, like the athlete in the hypothetical situation above, statistically have a higher success rate than those who are extrinsically motivated. Since intrinsically motivated people are motivated by their love and enjoyment of an activity, lack of external validation in their field does not deter them from participating. If an NBA hopeful never gets drafted, does that render all their work meaningless? Absolutely not. The same can be said for musicians. Success is never just one thing – it takes a variety of shapes, and changes throughout your life.
So, circling back to my student’s original question. My answer is, I don’t have an answer. There is only a process, and each student must go through it to find their own answers The bottom line here is no teacher can, with any accuracy, give you a timeline for your progress. They cannot promise you success or a career. They cannot guarantee an outcome. If they try, they are selling you a bag of lies. What a good teacher can do is give you the guidance you need to improve and move you in the right direction. The rest is up to you.
