Dangerous Music Theory, Talent Explained, and Practice Matters
The Illusion of an Instrument
I had a roommate in music school that drove me nuts.
No, I'm not talking about the one who never emptied the trash in the bathroom we shared. I'm talking about the stud who could pick up any instrument and sound ridiculously good even if it was his first time playing it.
Listening to him play was both mesmerizing and maddening.
While I spent hours honing my skills on one instrument, he'd waltz into a room, pick up something he's probably never seen before, and BAM – he's tearing it up like Jacob Collier. What the hell?
Talent? Nah, that's too easy. It's something deeper.
In the video below, pianist and educator Hal Galper explains:
“If the signal from the brain is strong enough, the hands will do ANYTHING to respond.”
- Hal Galper
Watch the entire lesson. It's under ten minutes and is chock-full of musical truth nuggets:
The Dangers of Music Theory
Music theory is essentially putting a name to a sound.
It's about giving an abstract concept, like a musical note, a concrete label. But be mindful not to get so caught up in the name that you lose sight of the actual sound. There's a Buddhist story called “Finger Pointing at the Moon” that illustrates this well.
In the tale, a student and a teacher were looking at the moon.
The student, mesmerized by its beauty, became fixated on the teacher's finger pointing at the moon. The teacher then said,
"Don't mistake the finger for the moon. The finger is a guide, not the truth itself."
The teacher urged the student to look beyond the finger and directly perceive the moon itself, to see reality without being caught up in concepts and labels.
In the same way, the label or theory should never become more important than the music itself.
The name is a guide, a way to describe and understand, but the sound should always be the priority. The theory should help you connect with the music, not distract from the direct experience of it. It's a balance between understanding and hearing, where hearing the music always takes precedence.
After all, we experience music with our ears.
What Happens When You Don't Practice
Last week, a story about philosopher Gregory Bateson’s daughter caught my eye.
She once asked her father, “Why does my room always get dirty but it never just gets clean?” This innocent question masks a deeper concept: entropy.
In a broad sense, entropy refers to how systems naturally tend towards disorder or randomness over time.
It's a fundamental principle of thermodynamics. Just as a child’s room seems to naturally get cluttered unless someone (usually a weary parent) intervenes, so too do systems in nature lean towards chaos without external efforts to organize them.
Similarly, mastering a skill, like a musical instrument, requires constant effort. Without it, the skill descends into chaos.
Pianist Ignacy Jan Paderewski aptly said, "If I don't practice for one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the audience knows it." His words remind us: mastery is threatened by neglect.
In short: go practice.
Stop Practicing
Well, not exactly...
Apparently, the secret to making faster progress on your instrument is taking micro-breaks while practicing.
Neuroscientist Andrew Huberman explains:
I stumbled upon this gem just last week, so I haven’t fully tested it out myself. But if you're itching for the science behind it, check out the study right here.
Alright! That's it for this week's newsletter edition of Musical Truth Nuggets. Until next time...
Happy shedding,
Jeff