I feel this article uses a lot of words to say something very simple.
I've always found motor skills very interesting. I'm naturally good at symbolic reasoning but pretty poor at motor learning. For symbolic reasoning tasks, like maths or programming, I just roll stuff around in my head and get better at it. But motor skills I have to physically practice and there is an inaccessible (at least to me) level of unconscious processing where improvement takes place. E.g. performing a handstand is conceptually trivial (stack your weight over your hands) but actually doing it is another matter. In learning to handstand I found I have gradually become more aware of my body's position when upside down but the process of doing so just happens without any conscious oversight. I do handstands and the next day I'm magically better at them.
Anyway, for learning about learning motor skills I've been enjoying the Perception & Action podcast: https://perceptionaction.com/ One key take away is importance of exploring the movement space. In a musical context this would be, I think, jamming. Take a theme and explore. In the context of handstands this would be different entries, movement within the handstand, other related balancing (e.g. headstand).
Yeah, I kinda plateaued like that for a few months and got frustrated to the point of giving up. Always the same-ish songs, same-ish patterns, same-ish things to train on and progress was somewhat limited or stagnant even. Then I started to take part in a weekly creative challenge to pick up some given drum patterns and create some weird riff around it and it's a great mind changer.
It's a great and fun mind changer and confidence builder. You learn: You can kinda do something cool. And suddenly technical training isn't something to do for a vague goal of being "a better guitarist" or "a better bassist". Suddenly, I have ideas in my head I cannot express because I'm not good, fast or precise enough. So I need to improve my rhythm counting and improve my precision with 16th notes. Or music theory isn't something to learn "because you're a better musician then", but because that knowledge results in finding more interesting melodies easier and quicker.
I’m kind of a jack of all trades and consider my motor learning skills to be equivalent to my symbolic reasoning skills - not that I’m excellent at either.
The thing about motor learning I like the best is just “getting better with time” despite not practicing. This would be kind of a muscle memory concept over long periods of time.
Whereas I don’t feel that really happens for symbolic reasoning
Yeah. I feel this article has been assisted by AI.
TLDR:
Apart from the focus aspect, it mentions deliberate practice, but doesn't go into identifying what practice that is, expect sayingfocus on your weaknesses.
Yeah, I also thought the article had been AI-generated. Super shallow and low-effort, and it seems like the other articles on that site aren't any better. Avoid.
> it’s essential to be aware of potential drawbacks: Potential burnout…Risk of tunnel vision…Diminished spontaneity…
Add repetitive stress injury to that list. Professional pianist here - woodshedding is a necessity under tight deadlines but always involves repetition- and not of the easiest parts of the work being learned. Repetition and difficulty-induced tension are injury-producers.
Part of effective woodshedding in practice involves knowing when to move on to the next section.Any of these signs, move on. Interleaved practice is more effective in terms of long term skill retention than endless blocked practice.
Heh, I'd just call it practicing ... I mean, it's pretty much a very common way to practice for every serious musician I know (apart from practicing in a group setting, of course).
Woodshedding is definitely "just" practice but at least in jazz it does have a certain connotation. Like a single musician probably has a few different practice routines depending on their goals at the time and woodshedding is implying deep focus on a passage or specific application of a technique. Rather than like, playing through whole songs or running scales or whatever they might also do another time.
> My buddy and I were just talking about this, how it seems like the art of woodshedding’s taken a backseat these days. Many newbies hitting the live scene, don’t bring that polished vibe.
Gave me an odd vibe (especially that comma after scene).
And of course the author's own description, right next to these sentences:
> Hey there! My name is Andrew, and I'm relatively new to music production, but I've been learning a ton, (...)
A lengthy blog post stating the same basic points in multiple, overly repetitive ways. Very little substance.
Maybe instead of music this person is learning about content churn for the modern web.
Warning: I thought everybody understands by now that autoplaying audio/video content is turd behavior, but the page in question autoplayed an annoying video at maximum volume and positioned the controls where they're hard to find several pages down... >-/
TA;DR
I've always found motor skills very interesting. I'm naturally good at symbolic reasoning but pretty poor at motor learning. For symbolic reasoning tasks, like maths or programming, I just roll stuff around in my head and get better at it. But motor skills I have to physically practice and there is an inaccessible (at least to me) level of unconscious processing where improvement takes place. E.g. performing a handstand is conceptually trivial (stack your weight over your hands) but actually doing it is another matter. In learning to handstand I found I have gradually become more aware of my body's position when upside down but the process of doing so just happens without any conscious oversight. I do handstands and the next day I'm magically better at them.
Anyway, for learning about learning motor skills I've been enjoying the Perception & Action podcast: https://perceptionaction.com/ One key take away is importance of exploring the movement space. In a musical context this would be, I think, jamming. Take a theme and explore. In the context of handstands this would be different entries, movement within the handstand, other related balancing (e.g. headstand).