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Why time seems to pass faster as we age

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Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#201

Post by yoyohello13 »

Madmallard wrote: post #147
larve wrote: post #118

One thing I love about the speedup of time is that picking a compounding habit (say, doing something for 10 minutes each day) feels like having an almost instant pay-off. "Oh wow 3 years already passed" -> "Oh wow I got pretty good at this thing I picked up just yesterday" I picked up biking during the pandemic, and 3 years later I have legs of steel, 10k miles under my belt, and people know me as "the bike guy", whe…

It kinda sucks that you learn much slower when you’re older though. I’ve been practicing piano an hour or two a day for 7 months and I don’t really feel like I’ve improved at all. I was intermediate when I started and I am taking professional lessons. Mid 30s here.

I don't know, I think standards are just higher as an adult. When I was a teenager, I thought I learned things quickly, but in reality I was still a novice. Now that I'm older I don't feel like I pick things up more slowly, but I definitely am more aware of how much work it takes to be good at pretty much anything.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#202

Post by jasonfarnon »

deminature wrote: post #191
Madmallard wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kinda sucks that you learn much slower when you’re older though. I’ve been practicing piano an hour or two a day for 7 months and I don’t really feel like I’ve improved at all. I was intermediate when I started and I am taking professional lessons. Mid 30s here.

Piano requires adaptation in the corpus callosum of your brain to coordinate two-handed playing - it takes time to develop. Competent players have usually been playing for years to a decade before they're at a level of public performance.

My anecdotal experience is that someone who starts at 25 and plays until 35 will be a shadow of a 15yo who started at 5. Are there concert pianists who started late, say post-puberty? I think maybe jazz, but the standards are pretty different.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#203

Post by khazhoux »

codethief wrote: post #193
Madmallard wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kinda sucks that you learn much slower when you’re older though. I’ve been practicing piano an hour or two a day for 7 months and I don’t really feel like I’ve improved at all. I was intermediate when I started and I am taking professional lessons. Mid 30s here.

The other day, I heard about this lady that started playing the piano in her 60s when we she retired. Fast forward to 20(?) years later and she's giving professional concerts and everyone just assumes she's been playing the piano all her life. In other words: Keep it up, you'll the reap the fruit of your labor eventually!

> In other words: Keep it up, you'll the reap the fruit of your labor eventually!

No, you won't necessarily reap the fruit of your labor. You will certainly improve, but most of us will face a hard upper limit with diminishing returns as an adult.

I've played trumpet and guitar since age 13. I started learning piano ~10 years ago, age 40. But even after a decade with thousands of hours of practice, I still can't "natively" read bass clef. I still mis-read G as E, e.g., if I'm not actively paying close attention. Where I could sight-read treble clef basically perfectly since I was a kid, I'm still clumsy on bass clef after 10 years of learning as an adult.

Just like learning a new language.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#204

Post by Madmallard »

navane wrote: post #161
Madmallard wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kinda sucks that you learn much slower when you’re older though. I’ve been practicing piano an hour or two a day for 7 months and I don’t really feel like I’ve improved at all. I was intermediate when I started and I am taking professional lessons. Mid 30s here.

You might need a teacher. Biking is all endurance, piano involves a bit more.

I do have a professional teacher, if that was not clear.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#205

Post by Madmallard »

larve wrote: post #178
Madmallard wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kinda sucks that you learn much slower when you’re older though. I’ve been practicing piano an hour or two a day for 7 months and I don’t really feel like I’ve improved at all. I was intermediate when I started and I am taking professional lessons. Mid 30s here.

I'm not sure how it applies to learning, but for any activity based on consistency and quantity, I find it wild how quickly time seems to shrink and "writing 500 words a day" seems to overnight turn into "I wrote 100k words in the last 3 years". My goal at this point in life (42) is not really to get better at stuff, but just focus on doing what I like and want to be doing, while leading a stable life.

The interesting thing with that is the only way people really master things is when they just like what they're doing enough to put up with the difficulty of getting to that level.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#206

Post by khazhoux »

julienmarie wrote: post #187
boredemployee wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

learning curve of the piano is crazy. and if you stop playing you go back to zero really really fast

I quite disagree. Started to learn extremely young (3 years old) and I guess my relationship with the instrument became second nature. I feel there is a kind of threshold that you cross at some point and then, the skill becomes part of you, forever engraved. You know you're there when you can play the piano without a piano, just in your head and in the tingle of your muscles. When you do not need a rational stage lik…

Similar with me and trumpet. I started in 6th grade and was very serious about it through high school. Put the trumpet down for probably 25 years. Then I got the bug in me again and started practicing and getting my chops back. In almost no time, I was once again an "advanced trumpet player" -- solid tone, good range, etc. My fingers are a bit less nimble and out of shape, but the core tone is there. That instrument is --as you say-- part of me, forever engraved.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#208

Post by Barrin92 »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #202
deminature wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piano requires adaptation in the corpus callosum of your brain to coordinate two-handed playing - it takes time to develop. Competent players have usually been playing for years to a decade before they're at a level of public performance.

My anecdotal experience is that someone who starts at 25 and plays until 35 will be a shadow of a 15yo who started at 5. Are there concert pianists who started late, say post-puberty? I think maybe jazz, but the standards are pretty different.

Most children who start to learn instruments at some point just stop doing it. Kids who actually turn into concert pianists undergo rigorous training that is effectively a full time job. How many adults at age 25 have even attempted that? Just in financial terms, how many adults have spent the resources on themselves that the parents of highly competitive kids do?

Most adults who pick up skills just don't do it in a deliberate way. When I moved to Japan for work I thought as an adult it'd take me years to acquire a new language. But the company I worked for got me professional training and I hunkered down about 2 hours per day and in ~14 months I did much better than I thought was possible.

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#209

Post by spurgu »

jasonfarnon wrote: post #202
deminature wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Piano requires adaptation in the corpus callosum of your brain to coordinate two-handed playing - it takes time to develop. Competent players have usually been playing for years to a decade before they're at a level of public performance.

My anecdotal experience is that someone who starts at 25 and plays until 35 will be a shadow of a 15yo who started at 5. Are there concert pianists who started late, say post-puberty? I think maybe jazz, but the standards are pretty different.

One aspect of it is that the 5-15 kid has a ton more spare time. And when practicing is able to be more immersed, not bugged down by real life chores and problems like the 25-35.

Personal history: I started playing guitar around 18 and at ~25 I was way ahead most of my 18-20 year old peers who had started way younger. And I was a jazz snob since like 20.

I did learn the basics of piano and reading music when I was around 7 but never played actively, but it might've helped that I didn't start from scratch at 18. But I was immersed once I started - music was literally all I did in my spare time aside from doing drugs. :D

I'm now in my 40s and have been learning piano for the past 2 or so years. I think I've been progressing quite fast, but it's easy since I already know what to do, it's just another instrument (the challenge is mainly the hand coordination).

Re: Why time seems to pass faster as we age

#210

Post by erererereere »

This post is extremely speculative and the author stretches the CS analogies way, way too far, but the gist is reasonably accurate. Time does pass faster on average as you get older because our brain doesn't bother to record repeated experiences.

But guess what? That means that all you have to do to make time pass more slowly is bring more novelty into your life. I can say from personal experience that the year I spent living abroad seemed to go on forever. Every single day was filled with new experiences. There was a huge amount of continuous novelty and learning and growth. It was really nice. I need to move to a new country again.

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