> the techniques of deliberate practice are most applicable to "highly developed fields" such as chess, sports, and musical performance in which the rules of the domain are well established and passed on from generation to generation
Bummer. I was hoping to find some shortcuts to learning how to play the guitar. I've had one for 20 years now and still can't play it.
I started in 2000. I have a basic competence and can accompany myself and compose pop songs, but I somewhat regret not having put in the time up front in lessons and deliberate practice. I could have had 15 years of compound interest.
That said, I do play every day, or mostly, for love of the game. Life's too short to work or play without love.
Amen to that. My problem is that there are too many things that I do for love of the game. I want to spend more time reading, and drawing, and painting, and carving, and tinkering, and gaming, and gardening, and blacksmithing, and cycling, and motorcycling, and writing, and paddleboarding, and traveling, and catching up on TV, playing boardgames with my kids, going to movies with my wife, and cooking, and skating, and lifting weights, and playing softball, and walking my dog, and working on my house, and calligraphy, and on and on and on...
I had a year like that, 2014. I had four specific goals: write an album of music, create a video game, write a novel, and continue my chronological reread of Stephen King.
By the end of the year, I had written 60 pages and read one of the Stephen King books.
In 2015 I doubled down on music, and recorded 10 songs.
I really want to. Sometimes I do, for a month or two, then I don't touch it for 8 months. I've taken weekly lessons two different times, once for 6 months and once for 3 months. I even bought a guitar that I keep in my office at work. My coworkers come in and play it far more than I do.
I just have too many things that I want to do. If I could afford to retire, I could easily keep busy the rest of my life doing all the things I wish I could do right now.
Five minutes is something you can afford to spend even if you are very busy. Don't give me any more excuses. Instead of replying to this comment, spend the two minutes it would take to get off hacker news and play a few notes.
So I just spent 5 minutes playing a few scales. While I was doing that, I wasn't reading the book I'm almost finished, or writing in my journal, or thinking about side project I have going on, or emailing a friend that I haven't spoken to in a few months, or taking a short walk, or making a cup of tea, or making lunch plans with my wife, or sketching, or desoldering a bad relay in my espresso machine, or generally making 5 minutes of progress on any other hobby or project I have.
Now I probably won't touch my guitar again for another 3 months because the 5 minutes I can spare tomorrow will be spent reading or coloring a sketch I made or some other thing that I enjoy working on. You might point out that I'm wasting my time reading HN, but I get a great deal of enjoyment out of the things I find on HN.
Bummer. I was hoping to find some shortcuts to learning how to play the guitar. I've had one for 20 years now and still can't play it.