I’ve been reading the book Talent is Overrated by Geoff Colvin. In it, he describes the kind of deliberate practice you have to do to get good at something. This is extremely important! If you’re doing anything new with a learning curve, you can vastly accelerate that learning curve with the right kind of practice.
I’m learning to sight-sing (sing directly from a musical score) despite playing no instruments and having no musical background. Not only do I have to learn to sing, but I must learn to read music, to hear pitches, to match pitches, etc. It’s a very difficult learning curve for me, at a time in my life when I’m many years away from the last time I tried to learn an entire skill set from scratch. Here’s how I’m using deliberate practice to accelerate my learning.
First of all, I have to deal with the fact that sight-singing is skill-based. No amount of intellectual understanding can help me get it any faster. I need to drill. I drill every day. It is very clear that daily drilling separated by sleep cycles builds capability. There’s a measurable improvement every day in my skills. That’s neat. It’s frustrating only because there doesn’t seem to be any shortcut. The results only show up when I put in practice time during the day with sleep in between.
When I notice a chronic problem in my practice, I design an exercise for that particular problem. For example, there are certain intervals I just can’t remember. So I plunked out little made-up songs (with words and imagery) 30-seconds long on my keyboard that emphasized the troublesome intervals. Then I listen to them for 20 minutes each day until my brain starts to memorize them.
Learning to sing intervals is trickier because I have no outside source of feedback to know if I’m doing it right. Often, I’m not. To the extent possible, I use a piano for feedback. I sing slowly with a piano keyboard, and concentrate on listening to the external sound of the keyboard and of my voice, rather than my internal imagination of what the note *should* sound like. I’m gradually becoming able to sing most intervals.
One intermediary skill in learning to sing intervals has been to explicitly develop comfort singing a note when it sounds dissonant. If a note is playing and I’m supposed to sing a major 7th above it, I have to hold that note even if it sounds a bit jarring to my ear. So paradoxically, I’ve had to develop the skill of singing a note even when my ear tells me it’s out of tune. Because it’s in tune, it’s just a dissonant harmony.
My next step is to work on stretching the range where I can hear and sing intervals. I’ve discovered that I’m essentially tone deaf below G. I never noticed before, but I can’t even tell which notes are higher or lower in that part of the keyboard. Unfortunately, drilling that one seems to require an external keyboard. For reasons I don’t understand, my iPod keyboard doesn’t produce the same confusion that an external keyboard does. When I get my hands on the right equipment, my next set of self-drills will all be around developing that part of my range.
Next time you are learning something new, don’t just practice; practice deliberately. Design exercises to stretch yourself where you’re having trouble. You’ll find if you stick with it, it’s possible to learn much more quickly than you ever though possible. (And no, it doesn’t feel any easier. You just make faster progress through the uncomfortable parts.)
This is a timely (for me) article. Just this morning, I was thinking that I need to actually devote some time and thought into those philosophy books a friend loaned me, because I’m a complete dunce when it comes to that topic. It will take time, effort, and very delilberate thinking/reading. Thanks for the additional inspiration to get going on this!
Great article Stever. The metacognitive (buzz word for the day) process of reflection and adjustment is one of the most difficult to master. As you point out, it is relevant to any new skill; it also applies to the skill of academic learning. Many people go through life without ever reflecting on the learning style that is most effective for them (and working to learn in that manner).
This may well be a product of the traditional school model of “do the assignment how I say and if you don’t learn it is your fault.” This was even to the point of left-handed people being forced to write right-handed. We’ve come a long way (I hope).
I really enjoy the way you are able to take complex subjects and make them concrete, workable, and efficient.
Keep up the great work,
Chael
I first learned about learning styles when I was 14, and consciously decided to start trying different learning styles to learn stuff. In effect, I taught myself to learn how to learn. As far as I can tell, it worked pretty well. I’ve learned a lot, and I can synthesize between subject areas quite rapidly. (My align-your-life day yesterday was an application of system dynamics, psychology, and entrepreneurship concept!). Oddly, I’m still a very literal thinker, I just have enough breadth that it gives me the ability to get outside the boxes I might otherwise get trapped in
I recommend a computer program called Sing and See. I am an a cappella singer and singing with the piano is not a good method to ‘tune’ notes. The human voice has more range between the notes that are played on the piano and this space is used for tuning.
Sing and See looks AWESOME! I’ll have to check it out! Thanks!
I play several instruments, and I used to hang out with a lot of excellent musicians, and I can offer the idea that music is not so much an auditory activity as a physical one. Calibrate where you feel the notes and their relationships to one another and you’ll have an easier time of it.
Having been a music major in college for a short time , sight sinigng was difficult. I had the misucal background but I practiced two hours a day and three month later did very well, but it was with a piano to help me hear and a coach. It was the repititon that helped. Good luck.
Richard, I’ve found that the repetition is, indeed, critical. When I practice daily, I get better. When I don’t, I don’t. What did your practice consist of? I’ve been practicing auditory interval recognition, vocal interval generation (sing a major 7th up from this note…), written interval recognition, and written major/minor recognition. I rarely practice all on the same day because the full battery of skills takes a long time.
Read “Ways of the Hand” by David Sudnow (coincidentally, past faculty at MIT in the social sciences- he’s passed now)- may be out of print, but worth the hunt.
THE MOST ASTOUNDING BOOK ON LEARNING HOW TO PLAY THE PIANO with no musical knowledge. Sudnow went on to teach his method at Steinway in NYC.
The book is about how he taught himself how to play the piano, with all the exercises, and no shortcuts that you describe.
Wow! “Ways of the Hand.” I owned that book back in the mid-1980s. I never read it, though. I remember it very vividly because I carried it around for a few years planning to read it but somehow never did. I wonder if I can find it again. Hmm…
Great article, Stever. I am slowly starting to realize that creativity is a muscle that also needs practice and development. It’s not enough to wait for inspiration or to over analyze something; I just have to do it! I love your work and hearing your perspectives.
Thanks for the pointer to “Talent is Overrated”. I’ve been keeping up with French, but not making progress. Now I know why. Learning zone, here I come.