What the Heck, Important Musicians Rarely Have Formal Training?!

th >:/

Someone told me that Bon Scott, the (previous) lead singer of AC/DC died an extremely gruesome death, so I read his Wikipedia article. What I found was that he was a criminal who spent 9 months in Australian prison, and dropped out of school when he was 15.

Bro is trashhhhh, why is he part of an important, famous, and skillful musical group?! He’s had no formal training, why can he even play music to begin with?

Gun’s n Roses’ “Paradise City” is also an important song. It’s complicated and long. I wondered if the members of that band had any musical education either; turns out not. (lead singer is also a criminal.)

Elvis Presley couldn’t even read music, according to Wikipedia. “Presley, who received no formal music training and could not read music, studied and played by ear.”

Taylor Swift got her first music deal at age 13 or so, so she homeschooled for the rest of high school.

Ariana Grande left school at 13 to play in a Broadway musical, which started her acting career.

Ariana Grande’s inspiration, Ella Fitzgerald, started skipping school in high school after her mother died, worked on the streets, and made her debut at about age 17.

Dr Dre did go to “Chester Adult School,” but kept living with his mom; he worked as a DJ to start his career. Apparently, he doesn’t have a good relationship with women, either, continuing the pattern of criminals as musicians.

Michael Jackson’s Wikipedia page doesn’t mention his education at all. He started singing when he was 6, presumably without any formal training.

The Beatles, the most influential band of all time, went to school like normal people; they didn’t pursue any secondary education for the most part, and what they did wasn’t music related.

My absolute faaaaaaaaavorite singer of all time Alvaro Soler. I think he completed standard education for Japan, but he didn’t go to school for music.

How does this happen? If you’ve ever tried playing music, you know that it’s very difficult. Even singing is hard.

How does one become genre-changing with nobody to teach you the theory?

I don’t know. I think it’s related to enormous amounts of practice. Lots of these people started guitar when they were 8 and sang in church choirs. If music is your hobby, and your talented so your practice is more productive, you’d get pretty good. Once it’s your job, then you easily rack up the 10,000 hours (five years of 40 hour work weeks) you need to make you an expert.

If you were in a band, it seems even harder. Not only do you have to play the right notes, but you also have to do it with a bunch of other guys. Again, I think if you spend enough time practicing, you can get sufficiently good.

But surely it’s harder to become skillful if you don’t know even the basics of music…

If anybody knows, tell me.

Also mysterious: What are the people doing that DID go to music school? Are they all data analysts now? Do they sing in operas? Are they homemakers?

Google says you can be a music director at a church, or teach music. Maybe that’s where they go.