Not All Practice Makes Perfect

Argh, I wish I could find a citation right away but having trouble in search - while I get the example (memorize X amount of numbers) and discovering there's an upper bounds is understandable. But what I had in mind was a musical instrument, in that there are a finite number of notes and how those notes can be played in a harmonious fashion. The study I saw, or think I did, showed that when performing a music solo some musicians were able to turn off the 'active' part of thinking about the notes to play. It was some different mental channel. That would, to me, explain how a guy like Freddie King could play a song like Hideaway for 45 minutes with his band and people would enjoy it.

Quite a cool article. Lots to consider. Phrase around my 'woodshed' was always "Practice makes better" though because perfect and guitars don't really ever align.

Oh, you're very welcome. This paper sent me down the rabbit hole: after graduating as an incompetent Electronics Engineer, I thought about the essence of competence and I stumbled upon this article. I'm always happy when I find a resource that addresses an abstract idea I'm thinking about but can't formulate for two main reasons: it always opens a door -if it has a name, it can be searched effectively- and it always amazes me how come I didn't think of it before.

For instance, after graduation, I read a book titled "How to Study in College". Why didn't I ask such an obvious question before. I learned many things, one of which is the Cornell Note-taking method.

I've always been interested in how to search for, acquire, and keep knowledge, how to apply it, how to manage it, and how to track its evolution -mental breadcrumbs, which idea lead to the other?-

So it got me interested in how memory works: how we forget, how we remember, and what to do about it. It led to Hermann Ebbinghaus and "spaced repetition". I wasn't satisfied, though, for I wanted to know the underlying brain processes. The neuroscience behind it. This led me to Hebbian Theory and the concept of Long Term Potentiation. (The Brain from Top to Bottom - http://thebrain.mcgill.ca/) which frankly blew my mind to a thousand shards: memory viewed in terms of ions. (Here's a very nice video from Carleton College "Neuroscience - Long-Term Potentiation" : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vso9jgfpI_c) and here's a good presentation by Carleton's Dr. Matthew Hollahan: ("How We Can Improve Memory": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXX58QhNfjc)

In the meantime, I put a name on the discipline: Cognition/Cognitive psychology, etc..

That was good, but I still wanted to think about it in a "meta" way. Some overarching theme or discipline that englobes other things I might be missing. After some time, though, I stumbled on "metacognition", and here's where it's truly amazing how the mind works: How didn't I make the connection before between "cognition" and "meta-cognition" even though "meta" was the very word I used to think about it. It's the very thinking about thinking and was humbled because I missed such an obvious link. I have already met that word before and read about it, but it didn't "click" until that very moment.

This has also driven me to think about "learning" in a larger context: learning organization and learning countries. Why are some countries more evolved than others, etc. (Which led me to a book titled "Why Nations Fail" (again, how on Earth did I miss such an obvious question). How can we make poor countries better, or asked from another perspective: in a post-apocalyptic world where all countries are the same, what would we do to rebuild civilization? How to bootstrap civilization? Can we take those steps and apply them on difficult countries. (Bill Gates was on Jimmy Fallon and the latter asked a marvelous, in its form, question: How do you solve a poor country?).

It got me thinking about the necessity of having some conditions A and B present to have X and those conditions being absent in poor countries, you can't have X. It then got me thinking about it backwards: Given C and D, can we get Y that's either a substitute for X or something at least better than nothing. First thing that popped in my mind was the Apollo 13 carbon dioxide filter hacking. After some time, I stumbled across an article titled "The Genius of the Tinkerer" [http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487039893045755037...] and it appears there is a company called "Design that Matters" that does just that. It also was interesting to see the Apollo 13 feat mentioned. Steven Johnson has also some talks on Youtube and a book titled "Where Good Ideas Come From".

Anyway, the point is you never know where a piece of content can lead to and it can be frustrating to forget some of those references or the title of an article.

Here are some useful resources, too:

[Book]: The Complete Problem Solver - John R. Hayes. [Book]: Make it Stick, The Science of Successful Learning - Peter Brown et al. [Video]: Study Less, Study Smart - Marty Lobdell (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlU-zDU6aQ0).

This happens in learning new languages as well , often speaking quickly the wrong way is counter productive. Speak very slowly at first and focus on being correct

That seems surprising. It's not like there's a discrete threshold between "able" and "too fast". I'm not a violin player, but just about anything I can play slowly on a bass or piano, I can also play quickly, given enough practice, even if it means I can only initially play it at quarter or third speed with a metronome. Aside from some virtuouso performances, I think any beginner/intermediate player with a decent ear and headphones/sheet can play any piece at quarter speed. It seems like muscle memory is one of those things you really can achieve through mindless repitition with good technique, while theory requires a lot more focused practice.

edit: Okay, disregard that, the above comment is completely different and I guess I agree now.

I literally said the same thing to my wife after reading this article out loud to her.

"I guess I will have to buy the book!" Laughing as I assumed there was a book.

I will likely research this topic further whether there is a book or not.

Slightly related, I'm trying to learn how to read faster. My first goal is to become an average reader in terms of speed. My wife is an elementary teacher with a master's in remedial reading. I'm going to see if she can help me.

One issue that she noticed with my verbal recitation is that I stumble when reading sentences with conjunctions.

Now I have something to work on and fix which I hypothesize will increase my speed, and likely comprehension, and should reduce my chances of stopping and rereading sentences.