There should be a saying like "A tool is not the task" similar to "A map is not the land." As professional tool makers it can be easy to replace the task with a tool in theory, but that's not reality. In a similar vein I think that's why there are so many devs making game engines instead of games.
Perhaps you're looking for this? https://strangestloop.io/essays/things-that-arent-doing-the-...
Maybe? This seems to be more aimed at procrastination. Making map or a tool is still doing a thing, just not the thing.
I'm a jazz musician, and my kids are both professional classical players. I've asked them why they don't learn to play jazz. My daughter described pretty much what Glass is saying here. She calls it "fear of sucking." She knows what good jazz improvisation sounds like, and trying to make herself do it is pretty discouraging. Not that there's anything wrong with loving and playing classical music, which is a factor to…
I picked up Violin as an adult, have done recitals, and I suck. Being able to suck and find joy in something anyway even if you're not top nth percentile is a valuable life skill.
So many things in life are better if you can get past that fear of not being good. Because very very few people can skip the stage where they are not good. (I'd be comfortable saying nobody. But there is always somebody, it seems.)
I am playing for quite a while... Had private lessons with a coach to practice solo guitar, and general understanding for a couple of years. Before that around 10 years or more as amateur, now it's been 3 years since I spoke to a guitar coach last time. I play every day, I do my solos, I play blues, I don't need chords. But it's hard. Just don't underestimate how hard it is - to be able to play any solo by ear. I gue…
You're getting dunked on a little bit in the replies, but your point of view is important for people to read. Not everyone is capable of learning every skill, and practice is necessary but insufficient. I've been on and off trying to learn a foreign language for decades, and it just doesn't click, no matter what I try (formal lessons, immersion, book study, apps). I used to have the "Just practice, bro" attitude, but I've done a 180 over the years and I have a lot of empathy and understanding now when my own kid complains "I just can't learn this."
I am playing for quite a while... Had private lessons with a coach to practice solo guitar, and general understanding for a couple of years. Before that around 10 years or more as amateur, now it's been 3 years since I spoke to a guitar coach last time. I play every day, I do my solos, I play blues, I don't need chords. But it's hard. Just don't underestimate how hard it is - to be able to play any solo by ear. I gue…
This is a great way of phrasing it -- ROI. My mom is a violin teacher and when I asked her if I could learn, she said "no, you don't have the hands for it". She recommended something like guitar would be better for me.
Not everyone can do everything, nor is everything a good return on investment. If you tell people they can do whatever they want, you are effectively wasting their time. Better to give them some useful advice, e.g. your fingers are better for the guitar, rather than insisting everyone can do everything.
This brought to mind a quote from Ira Glass: > Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your…
I was at a dance hall the other day, and this young lady came floating in. It's hard to describe how she walked - just like she was effortlessly gliding. It looks easy, but anyone else would look like a moose trying it. It's the result of a lifetime of ballet dancing. Probably 10,000 hours, at least. I was just in awe.
Another incident: I was stepping out of my ride to the airport, and noticed another woman pulling her luggage out of the trunk of a car. I remarked "I bet you're a ballet dancer." She said "nope, I'm an ice dancer!" Funny I could tell just by the way she wrangled the luggage.
You will improve what you practice, possibly. This is advice for learning to play by ear. I was given the exact opposite advice by my classical guitar teacher in college because I was playing one thing and hearing something else. Sometimes, practice makes you worse or is a waste of time at best. If I could give better advice, it would be to be brutally mindful of what you are playing. Record it, and hear what is there. If it isn’t painful, you probably aren’t practicing.
Is there any quick test I can do to see if I can innately determine tones like this? If I fail said test, I can know that I'm not cut out for guitar.
There are a bunch of ear training quizzes online and I believe also YouTube videos.
I don't think this is a general requirement for learning the guitar. It's just one aspect. For most people whether you can hear that something is a 3rd or a 5th shouldn't impact their ability to play songs and have fun on the guitar. A sense of rhythm is maybe more important. If you can whistle a tune or sing along anywhere close to a song you're probably ok.
Obscure "learn it by ear" guitar story... Upon hearing Eruption for the first time, the story goes that Tony MacAlpine learned to play the finger tapping section by PICKING IT because he didn't know finger tapping was a thing. Only after seeing Van Halen in concert did he realize what Eddie was doing. If memory serves me right, I read this in either Guitar Player or Guitar World magazine back in the late 80s or early…
Similarly, Ben Travers didn't have a delay pedal, so learned to pick the delayed parts on Pink Floyd's "Run like hell" when he was younger, since taken to ludicrous speed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1CY0_HG8J5M
Sting famously learned to play bass using this sort of technique with music on LPs, lifting the needle and dropping it back a bit in the track over and over again as he gradually worked out the notes and fingering. Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing.
> Probably almost any method is effective at learning guitar, as long as it includes the key factor - time spent practicing. There are a few pedagogical points here to keep in mind: first, there are local maxima in terms of learning something like guitar where you get bad habits and the only way to progress is to undo them. Also, different ways of learning have different values in terms of what goals you're aiming to…
> first, there are local maxima in terms of learning something like guitar where you get bad habits and the only way to progress is to undo them.
I'm not convinced for guitar. Some of the fastest and most famous guitarists had shockingly bad technique.
As long as you're not injuring yourself, practice and determination pretty much overcomes everything.