As shared by Jason Kottke, this is a photo of the Quarrymen in 1957, better known as the band that would eventually become The Beatles.
What’s maybe the most striking to me about this picture is that it’s seven years before they actually came to America. These three guys were playing together for probably five years before pretty much anybody had heard of them, even just in England.
I’ve been reading Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, and in one chapter he talks about the fact that it takes about 10,000 hours to become a true expert at something, to the level of what we call genius. It’s very common to think that some people are just born with genius, and while everybody is a little bit different, it’s clear when you look closer that there is a common thread between all of them: practice.
Indeed, if you add up the sheer number of hours that this band played in Germany, staying up all night on stage and taking pills, as well as the hours of playing back in England, you find that they had spent about 10,000 hours playing music before they actually became a hit band. And at that point, they started recording a series of albums of a quality no other band has ever matched.
I’ve always thought they were just prodigies, but apparently you need a ton of practice, too.
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