I follow a lot of subjects and diverse interests but occasionally I catch myself staring at something I thought I knew and realize I’m not quite there.
Like I managed to get Flash Forth running on a microcontroller and a few basics beyond flashing a LED, but never figured out branching and looping in a way that clicks in my mind.
Or, how I follow a ton of science content from various sources, but feel like an idiot trying to talk about it with anyone IRL.
Does anyone else feel a disconnect from something like a digital mind versus analog life?
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Or like consumptive knowledge vs. participatory knowledge or something.
I notice a huge difference between things that I consume alot of content for but don’t engage with, vs. things where I actually try to apply the knowledge. Your brain makes connections in a totally different way when you try to apply the knowledge.
I watched piano tutorials for like a year before I finally saved up for a decent digital piano to play at home. I had tons of little facts and ideas rattling around my head, which were actually very helpful, but completely disorganized. Every time I learned a new piece, some of that loose knowledge would Tetris into place, and things would get a little more coherent.
But there’s always this gap between my pool of ingested information and my ability to do something with it.
I played guitar and bass for a long time from trying to learn online. I learned to copy what people were doing and I learned a lot of theory, but I never really felt comfortable and confident playing. I was passable enough to play with other people, be in some bands, and play some very small shows. It was always a struggle though, and felt more like work than fun.
I got interested in keys, but never bought an instrument because guitar and bass was still hard and I didn’t want another thing to struggle with, and I eventually stopped playing anything for a couple years after my last band stopped playing together.
Fast forward, and I was offered a Rhodes piano that used to belong to my ex father in law before he passed. I got it tuned up, and started playing Twinkle Twinkle, Happy Birthday, and other easy stuff and it went ok for a few months. Same issue you brought up and that I had with guitar. I’d bounce around learning what I wanted to learn at the moment, and be able to play that specific thing, but I didn’t feel accomplished.
I went to go see a music teacher for the first time after playing for about 20 years on my own, and it was life-changing! I knew all these random facts and techniques, but now I see I basically built a house of bricks, but with no mortar to stick it all together. I could pass as a musician, but I was just cobbling bits together.
With a teacher, I now learn the things in proper order to have them make sense. I came into it already knowing A, B, E, K, S, etc, but not the stuff to tie it all together. Now I get to learn in order, and when we get to a new thing, I can feel the bits I thought I knew actually click together and I have all these epiphanies.
I’ve actually learned more in 6 months of a half hour lesson a week than I learned in over 10 years of “teaching myself” online. And, honestly, it can be the blind leading the blind when you’re trying to teach yourself something you don’t know. After all, who corrects you when you’re wrong?
There’s some moments I still get frustrated practicing something new, but my lesson gives me the bits I need to do that week’s practice, and if I still don’t get it, the teacher can focus on what exactly I’ve been but getting next lesson, I’m not in my own to try to figure out what it is.
So to anyone trying to learn music on their own, even if you’re doing ok, it may help to take lessons. Someone more experienced can spot weaknesses you can’t see or don’t know how to fix, or you can learn a new style of music, or whatever.
If you’ve stuck with learning something on your own for an extended period of time, at some point you deserve to spend time with an actual expert. At some point, you’ll get stuck at the point where you don’t know what you still need to learn otherwise, and you could be missing out on a lot.
Great contribution. Reminds me of “it’s not practice that makes perfect; perfect practice makes perfect.” Not exactly the same idea, but related: A good coach can elevate your progress well beyond what you can do yourself.
Exactly. You get my rambling point! 😆
Professor Google is not the best teacher. Gotta educate yourself with books and practical knowledge to get the rest of the way there. Don’t be discouraged, seeing a gap in your knowledge is how you start to learn.
I find coming in low and simmering into a shared Convo is the way. I’m not baiting people or humble bragging, just underplaying my involvement or experience until necessary. Once invited i will dive in with the explicit understanding that I have. Taking a step towards my limit, they should pick up if i hit my limit.
I find physics fascinating and sometimes, I definitely feel like I understand certain topics. I took a lot of physics courses in college despite ultimately majoring in something else and I’ve read a bunch of papers and books. I can’t even count the number of YouTube videos I’ve watched from physicists (especially PBS Spacetime, Dr. Don Lincoln on the Fermilab channel, Sixty Symbols, and now Angela Collier).
But I have not done the math. I don’t understand shit. When I talk to a real physicist, I pretty much immediately get reminded of that. It feels like I have the vocabulary words memorized but none of the actual knowledge.
Also, if any real physicists read this, I am not a crank who is coming up with his own theories. I’m happy to trust that you have done the math and I have my own problems to deal with. Unless I get a bonk on the head, none of you will ever get a letter from me saying I have solved all of physics with 50 pages of gibberish.
I don’t think I see knowledge in a digital vs non-digital sense. People often learn things in different fashions - I’m sure you’ve heard people say they are visual learners vs auditory or something like that. There is some truth to that, but overall it’s easier to remember and retain things when we’re exposed to them in a variety of ways. Teaching someone or explaining something you just learned is a great way to retain things- yes, it may come out all over the place at first, but you’ll often find it becomes easier as you revisit the topic or try explaining it again later. There’s also a difference between knowing something and understanding something. You can watch tutorials on something, but until you start applying that knowledge, it might not feel as tangible. Oftentimes, there’s a point with any knowledge where we hit a wall and mentally spin our wheels trying to understand it- super normal, else everyone would be experts on everything. Overcoming that wall usually means taking some steps back and picking up some pieces of knowledge which we might not have been exposed to previously. This is one of the reasons we’re seeing more education efforts focused on Project-Based Learning.
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