How long?
Jon Harl (student, friend and fine harmonica customizer) and I were discussing the challenges of technique on the harmonica yesterday... specifically bending. The discouragement level can be high for new students and we both agreed that it takes experimentation and perseverance. Due to the fact that students can't see what an experienced bender is doing, nor what they're doing to in response to my directions, it literally takes thousands and thousands of experiments and reps to develop the skill. We spoke of Edison's famous quote of how many filament materials he had to experiment with to achieve the practical result he was looking for. I mentioned that it's all relative. If the student gets lucky and finds the right movement of the tongue quickly, then it was easy for them... if the students finds that right spot after months and months of experimenting, then it was very difficult for them. Either way, experimentation is the key... as well as to not give up on something you have passion for.
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=747226
"It is difficult, if not impossible, to prove that someone didn't say
something. But I believe the alleged quote that often appears online
is a pithy version of this actual quote:
"After we had conducted thousands of experiments on a certain project
without solving the problem, one of my associates, after we had
conducted the crowning experiment and it had proved a failure,
expressed discouragement and disgust over our having failed to find
out anything. I cheerily assured him that we had learned something.
For we had learned for a certainty that the thing couldn't be done
that way, and that we would have to try some other way."
The quote above comes from an interview with Edison that was published
in the January 1921 issue of American Magazine."
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bledison.htm
"Thomas Edison's greatest challenge was the development of a practical incandescent, electric light. Contrary to popular belief, he didn't "invent" the lightbulb, but rather he improved upon a 50-year-old idea. In 1879, using lower current electricity, a small carbonized filament, and an improved vacuum inside the globe, he was able to produce a reliable, long-lasting source of light. The idea of electric lighting was not new, and a number of people had worked on, and even developed forms of electric lighting. But up to that time, nothing had been developed that was remotely practical for home use. Edison's eventual achievement was inventing not just an incandescent electric light, but also an electric lighting system that contained all the elements necessary to make the incandescent light practical, safe, and economical. After one and a half years of work, success was achieved when an incandescent lamp with a filament of carbonized sewing thread burned for thirteen and a half hours. There are a couple of other interesting things about the invention of the light bulb: While most of the attention was on the discovery of the right kind of filament that would work, Edison actually had to invent a total of seven system elements that were critical to the practical application of electric lights as an alternative to the gas lights that were prevalent in that day."
