about music when not playing or listening to it, but obvious external involve-
ment probabl yamounted to four to five hours per da y.
The fourth factor, therefore, is the availabilit yof the time and opportunit yto
‘‘indulge’’ the obsession. It ma ybe because fewer societal demands are made on
people with low IQs that the yare ‘‘allowed,’’ even encouraged, to devote their
attentions in this way.
The fifth factor is the complete absence of negative external reinforcement
related to attainment or lack of it. There is, therefore, little possibilit yof a sa-
vant’s developing self-doubt, fear of failure, or an yof the other blocks that
inhibit and sometimes prevent normal or exceptional accomplishment.
24.3.2 Jazz Musicians
It is probable that man yof the world’s musical cultures, particularl ythe in-
formal, nonliterate ‘‘folk’’ cultures, have been breeding grounds for expertise.
Some anthropological work (e.g., Blacking, 1976) suggests that this is true of
indigenous Third World cultures. The jazz culture of New Orleans in the early
part of this centur yma ynot have been greatl ydifferent from those other cul-
tures in man yrespects. Its advantage for us is that jazz rapidl yspread from
New Orleans to become part of mass culture and contributed an entirel ynew
facet to the face of Western culture. Its leaders became cult heroes, and jazz
itself became a subject for intensive academic scrutiny. For these reasons,
we have far more detailed biographical information about jazz musicians than
about the musicians from all of the world’s other nonliterate cultures put
together.
It appears that most of the earl yjazz pla yers were self-taught. Among the
self-taught players who became international names were Bix Beiderbecke, Roy
Eldridge, and Louis Armstrong. Collier’s (1983) stud yof Armstrong is particu-
larl ydetailed, and it allows us to look at Armstrong’s musical development in
some detail as a ‘‘prototype’’ of untutored expertise.
Armstrong spent most of his earl y years in a neighborhood known as ‘‘Black
Storeyville,’’ an area designated for black prostitution. One of the features of
that neighborhood was the continual live music, performed b ydance bands
and ‘‘tonk’’ bands, which often would pla yon the street to attract customers.
Having little knowledge of the world outside, Armstrong had little more than
pimpsandmusiciansasmalerolemodels.Hisfatherhadabandonedhis
mother before he was born. His childhood was one of extreme povert yand
deprivation, and from the age of 7 years he had to work, steal, and hustle to
make mone yfor his mother and himself. At the age of 8 or 9 years he formed a
vocal quartet with some other boys in order to pick up pennies on street cor-
ners. The group lasted two or three years and probably practiced and per-
formed in public two or three times per week. That provided several hundred
hours of improvised part singing, which as Collier observed, ‘‘would have
constituted a substantial course in ear training—far more than most conserva-
tor yinstrumentalists get toda y.’’
At the age of 13 or 14 years, Armstrong was involved in an incident with a
gun and was, as a result, sent to the Colored Waif’s Home (known as the Jones
Home). There the boys were taught reading, writing, and arithmetic, with gar-
dening as a sideline. The home had a band that played once a week around the
572 John A. Sloboda