Let it be - 10,000 hours & some lessons from the Beatles.

Many of us know about Malcolm Gladwell’s rule of thumb, taken from his book ‘Outliers’, which tells us we need to practice for 10,000 hours to truly master a skill. He talks about the Beatles, who acquired substantial hours of practice in Hamburg, such that by the time they burst into the English consciousness they were already well on the way to their 10,000 hours.

So check out this insight provided by Ringo Starr. Their first big stadium gig during the 1965 USA tour was at Shea Stadium in New York. It was the largest audience ever, a record that would stand for nearly 10 years. It was mayhem, the crowd wild, even with 2,000 security guards! The noise was so great that the Beatles couldn’t hear themselves play. So, how’d they keep in tune? Over to Ringo for the insight - “I’d be watching Johns’ arse and Pauls’ arse to see where we were in the song.” That’s really playing by the seat of your pants. Or referring again to Gladwell’s formula, it shows the benefit of 10,000 hours practice. The depth of understanding such that they could play in-tune live, via perhaps some unconventional sign language.

And yet, does Outliers really capture why the band were so successful? Clearly, there are other factors addressed, such as the serendipity of birth (two musical geniuses grew up in the same area) and societal/economic/technology change at that time (giving them and their socio-economic group new opportunities). But perhaps like all published thoughts, Gladwell left some aspects out.

Some years ago I was working with someone who loved the Beatles. He could talk about them endlessly and authoritatively - their songs, their loves, where they fell apart. He grew up with them. As a Gen Xer I’d wondered if the Beatles were all that good or were they just well marketed. So, I asked. Head? Meet lion’s maw. Lesson – that’s not a question to ask someone who loves the Beatles, Paula!

Ever since then I’ve refrained from asking any other Baby Boomer about the Beatles. So you can imagine that my interest was piqued when I saw a documentary which examined their success.

It made an interesting comparison of the great melodies. It reviewed musical authors from Schubert (who produced volume, but not as many of great quality), Mozart (who was comparable for quality, but not the quantity of the Beatles). The Beatles were considered to have reached an exceptional level both in terms of quality and the quantity of great songs. They are considered to have had over 100 high quality melodies. (There’s a formula, btw).

And that’s the second lesson. I believe we dumb down the ’10,000 hours’ mantra. Yes, anyone would surely be more successful with that much training. However, the real issue is that it enables greatness to be developed such that it can then flourish. It’s not just 10,000 hours. To really be worthwhile there has to be something there to mine, some gift to develop. It can’t just be that they were born at the right time, when young people were starting to have their own independence in a way previous generations hadn’t experienced.

It’s easy to develop a Rule of Thumb. It’s harder to remember the lesson. Don’t be caught out by simplicity.