The Light at the End of the Tunnel

The process by which we learn a new skill is still something of a mystery to scientists. I've been reading this book recently: The Genius in All of Us. It's quite a cheesy title for what is a very interesting book, about the respective roles of genes and environment in shaping our abilities as we grow. One thing that's clear from reading it is that there is still so much that is unknown about exactly what it is that makes us so different from each other in the things we can and can't do, and the extent to which we're able to practise those abilities.

It seems, according to the author, David Shenk, that much of what we believe to be determined by genes, such as intelligence, talent and personality traits, are shaped much more by our environment and experiences than we are aware. Mr Shenk cites numerous example of people who are believed to have God-given gifts, who in fact won their supreme achievements through favourable environments and sheer bloody hard work.

Yet exactly what's happening in the brain during the period of learning and honing those skills, and how the brain responds to what's happening in the body, is nowhere near clear to those working on those mysteries. What is known, is that prolonged periods - the current thinking is 10,000 hours - of dedicated practice of the desired skill will result in mastery of it. It's important to note that it must be the right kind of practice. Mindlessly going through the routine won't do it. It must be the kind of practice where the person either pushes themselves or is pushed constantly into new challenges. Never complacent, the student must reach constantly beyond his grasp.

This was brought to my mind today as I was watching my son doing his Sunday Repetoire performance. Every Sunday he'll play through all the pieces he's learned, using a lucky dip of lolly sticks with the song titles written on. For some reason, things fell into place today. He remembered and used most of the little polishing points that he's learned for each song, which for him is something of an unusual occurence. Usually he rather unthinkingly plays them through if he isn't prompted to try to remember.

What's got me puzzled is: why today? What was different about today that helped him to concentrate more? Or was it just that the penny had finally dropped, after practising those points so many times; that something had slotted into place in his brain; that enough hours had been done? When I figure out the answer to that I'll be phoning those scientists up.

We're currently working on a Kurtag book for reading. I have to confess that I'm a Philistine when it comes to this. I just wait for the pain to end and try to smile. My son is learning to read Let's Be Silly which occurs about halfway through this performance:

This is how it looks on the page:

Of course, my son loves to be silly, so has great fun with this. I appreciate our wise piano teacher's understanding of how to make music appeal to young children, but what about the parents, that's what I want to know. What about the parents?

Progress report

We're having good times at the moment. It's a school holiday here in the UK, which means that we can have piano time in the morning when my son isn't tired after a long school day. He concentrates much better, gets less frustrated and is more interested in what he's doing. We've also got a new practice sheet that shows a spider in a web!

As you can see, the practice points go around the outside and a portion of the web gets filled in as each point is covered. There are lots of flies caught in the web but the ones that are free are fighting for their friends with missiles!

We're working on learning the minor scales at the moment. My son learns them by starting with the first note, then working his way up by listening to what sounds right. As a non-musical person, it's quite amazing to me how one set of notes will sound right and even one out of place sounds wrong. I know there's an explanation for this but the fact is that even without knowing why, we can all independently and without having been taught, agree on what sounds correct and what doesn't. Humans are a quite remarkable species.

Bobby McFerrin demonstrates this to audiences regularly:

An added interest to practice is my son's teacher's use of this site: http://www.dropbox.com/ She uploads video demonstrations of practice points for her students to use. It's extremely useful to view these during piano time. Of course there's the novelty of doing something a bit different, but my son's piano teacher is the one who can play the piano, I can't. It's so much easier to simply show him a video than try to explain what the desired goal is.

I was really disappointed not to be able to get tickets to this:

World-renowned concert pianist Lang Lang invited children to audition to play in a special concert of fifty grand pianos on stage at once. Five hundred children sent in videos of themselves playing and one hundred were chosen. The title of the endeavour was 'Lang Lang Inspires'. I imagine all those children participating and watching the event will be enormously inspired to continue with their learning and enjoyment of music.