18,200 Repetitions Per Month

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Mr.Gumby
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by Mr.Gumby »

You have to absorb the ´pulse´ and ´lift´ and ´lilt´ of the music. The ´Nyah´. Not just the notes.
That's exactly it. It seems stating the bloody obvious but cannot be emphasised enough.

Not sure I am fully on board with the accent analogy though. There's nothing in Irish traditional music that can't be learned, in the dance music anyway. There are plenty of examples at this stage of people not born into the tradition making a fist of it. Mind you, you may need to work a bit harder at some things than someone born into it. But with wide and intense listening an a fair bit of immersion there's really nothing to stop you, if you put in the work.
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by Loren »

Mr.Gumby wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:10 am
You have to absorb the ´pulse´ and ´lift´ and ´lilt´ of the music. The ´Nyah´. Not just the notes.
That's exactly it. It seems stating the bloody obvious but cannot be emphasised enough.
I believe we are all in violent agreement on this point :pint:
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by PB+J »

I feel like a lot of what passes for talent is "just appetite for practice."

But I also feel like musicians who are better than me, which is most musicians, have the appetite for practice but also give themselves "permission."

"I'm not going to play that, I'm going to play this."


The kind of musician who is technically accomplished but leaves you cold has the first part but not the second. The better musician gives themselves permission to speak freely. They might range far from a tradition or they might not, but they speak freel and with confidence in their own voice
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by marshwren »

Ah, you're right, the accent thing is a stretch; I could have made it better, but it still wouldn't have been a perfect fit-- just an anecdote that came to mind. I should probably be more careful with a type of analogy I claimed to be leery of in the same post that I made it in! I still think it's very possible to spend a lot of time reinforcing the wrong things if you're not careful or clued in, or just listening carefully.
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by david_h »

Thanks for the expansion Loren. With that background information I see the the video as making similar point to the '10,000 hours to mastery' idea. One month's worth of however many years it takes and so, it appears, directing the discussion to the process rather than the end result.
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by david_h »

Mr.Gumby wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 8:10 am Mind you, you may need to work a bit harder at some things than someone born into it. But with wide and intense listening an a fair bit of immersion there's really nothing to stop you, if you put in the work.
That seems compatible the language analogy. Don't both require the ability to hear, or have someone tell us, when something is not quite right? As long as I can hear my music doesn't sound right, or my accent in a foreign language is appalling, I can progress. Do some of us get to a point where we can no longer hear the errors and stop progressing however much immersion we have?
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by Loren »

That seems compatible the language analogy. Don't both require the ability to hear, or have someone tell us, when something is not quite right? As long as I can hear my music doesn't sound right, or my accent in a foreign language is appalling, I can progress. Do some of us get to a point where we can no longer hear the errors and stop progressing however much immersion we have?
What you are describing is a skill set, observational skills.

Over decades of being a student in group classes, in multiple and varied (physical) disciplines, and all the years of teaching, a few things have be come really clear to me:

1. People’s powers of observation vary widely, and a great many watch but fail to see, listen but don’t hear.

2. The proportion of people with keen observational skills is trending downwards at an astonishing rate.

3. It can be REALLY difficult to get people to observe what is important in the sense of what you are trying to direct them to observe, because most people seem to observe with extreme prejudice. By that I mean they are looking or listening for what THEY want to see or hear, what THEY have already concluded is what you’re intending them to focus on, or what THEY think is the important aspect of a what is being demonstrated/played.

People are then also convinced they’ve observed whatever you just demonstrated, despite the fact that they completely missed it because they were focused elsewhere, be it on some other aspect of what you were doing, or on their own thoughts, or some other distraction.

Sometimes there’s a warping based on their preconceptions.
“Did you see/hear what I did?”
“Yes”
“Repeat what I did.” And they give it back differently.
“Is that what I showed you”?
“Yes.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes?”
:lol:

I’ve found there’s a simple test for this: For a physical skill I ask “Tell Me, can you see a clear movie in your mind of me demonstrating that movement?” I already know they won’t be able to because if they could they would be able to replicate what I did. Any time someone can see the movie, they have observed and can replicate, or at least get in the ball park to the point where they can start refining, which then relies heavily on comparison skills, but we can’t go there just yet.

So with music it’s obviously the good old teacher plays a phrase and you sing in back, or as we used to quip back in my drumming days, if you can say it you can play it. However if you can’t sing back a musical phrase (lack of perfect pitch aside) then you didn’t accurately observe the phrase. In other words, your observation skills are holding you back, but people often mistakenly chalk it up to lack of musical aptitude, or some other issue.

At this point we could talk about which subset of observational skills in particular are holding the student up: Difficulty identifying relative pitches? Rhythm? And so on.


This is getting long so I’ll just touch on the comparison skills piece briefly. So whether it’s music, language, or movement, once we gain some mental clarity (another topic) through accurate observation, we proceed to gross aping of the thing we are trying to imitate. We have a bunch of neuromuscular familiarization and patterning to do in order to start getting into the ball park of the “ideal” or model that we are using to copy, but very quickly we need to bring strong comparative skills to bear on the challenge. From repetition to repetition we must observe, compare, and determine the differences between our performance and the model we are attempting to copy. This is hard work, and the closer you get to mimicking the thing you are trying to copy exactly, the more difficult it becomes to see/hear the ever smaller differences, until you are either successful, or you give up or fail because your observation and comparison skills weren’t up to the task. Alternately you could simply decide you’ve reached the point of diminishing returns and say enough is enough, even if you could continue to refine.

With things like music and language accents, it’s often a combination of weak observational and comparison skills, couple with the “good enough” mindset. In most cases it’s not like fighting, rock climbing, or flying aircraft where there are serious consequences to motivate you to clean up the rough edges.
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by david_h »

Loren wrote: Wed Apr 14, 2021 4:29 pm With things like music and language accents, it’s often a combination of weak observational and comparison skills, couple with the “good enough” mindset. In most cases it’s not like fighting, rock climbing, or flying aircraft where there are serious consequences to motivate you to clean up the rough edges.
Knowing ones limits can have good survival value.

Underestimating them by too much can reduce useful experience.
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Re: 18,200 Repetitions Per Month

Post by Mr.Gumby »

I may as well leave this here, if you're into that sort of thing:

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It's new and you can do worse.
My brain hurts

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