[erasmuse]

No no. The routine is a space for unstructured improvement. Nor is there such a thing as repetition in learning. Every attempt at gaining skill is at least slightly different and is made under at least slightly different conditions. Progress being the slow accumulation of mastery over many details. If it feels dull then either a plateau has been reached or the ambition itself is an unworthy one and should be abandoned in favour of something else.

[jonathanstrange]

I don't believe this is true, or at least it depends on the kind of thing you're learning.

For example, when you want to become an outstanding guitar player, you'll need to go through many, many hours of dull and definitely boring training in order to perfect your playing technique. Without that training, you can become a good or a creative guitar player, but not a genuine master.

I presume that it's similar with many other instruments and related skills like archery, gymnastics, dancing, or skateboarding.

[kitotik]

Counterpoint: I can’t imagine a guitar player, dancer, skater, basketball player, mechanic, or whatever, actually achieving greatness without having spent a significant amount of time ‘just playing around’.

I’ve heard plenty of guitarists and classical músicians who were extremely technically proficient with their instrument, but only other musicians would appreciate them.

If Joseph Campbell had not pursued this relatively ‘unstructured’ way of honing his craft, and stayed within the regimen of traditional academia, I highly doubt this thread would exist because Joseph would have only been known within the small academic circles. He transcended.

When you have put in the monotonous work of practice, playtime only gets more exciting.

[CuriouslyC]

Active engagement in what you are doing is a sign of arousal and dopamine release, which are critical in learning. If you're "going through the motions" or you're bored you are going to learn very slowly, if at all.

If you want to master the guitar, instead of boring repetition, you need to find ways to train your technique that engage you and are rewarding. People quote the 10,000 hours figure, as if you just needed to put in the time, but in reality those are 10,000 engaged, focused hours where you push yourself. It doesn't matter how many disengaged hours you put in, you'll plateau at "decent" and never become truly excellent.

[jonathanstrange]

Maybe that's your opinion and the perceived opinion right now, but your claims directly contradict what many successful teachers state. (But see below, maybe we don't disagree.)

In Germany, for instance, there used to be these little "ETP books" for guitar players called Tägliche Übungen zur Entwicklung einer Technischen Perfektion that involved lengthy and absolutely monotonous finger exercises that really had nothing to do with music. Everybody praised them and everybody said that these and similar exercises are essential to become a world-class player. There is hardly any way around it, they said, you cannot become that good by merely playing music. I still have no reason to believe they were wrong. It would be surprising if arguably harder instruments like classical piano didn't involve similar monotonous exercises and the same couldn't be said about ballet, world-class athletes, etc. A friend of mine is a professional jazz saxophonist and while he was studying saxophone he had to practice scales up and down for hours and hours every day.

You've got to put some serious effort into it, you agree with that, right? So maybe we agree in the end, because you use vague word "engage". Of course, nobody denies that you need to find a way to motivate you to get through these exercises or to stay "engaged". I didn't deny that. All I'm saying is that a lot of "mere repetition" is needed in many disciplines in order to reach a really high level while staying motivated.

[log_base_login]

You're both right.

Extensive practice is essential to getting one's self to the point where creativity can take over, where the muscle memory can 'meld' with one's expression of whatever emotions are being communicated via music.

There are certainly counter-examples, musicians who compose from day one, and don't really focus on melodic theory, running scales, and all of the other pieces of the neuro-muscular puzzle that go into making one technically 'good', and some of them do well.

There are those that allot all of their time to becoming technically proficient, pianists who spend endless hours working up Rachmaninoff's 2nd concerto, only to get so lost in the technicality of their discipline that they become cold and mechanistic, but, again, are so proficient that they find work their entire lives.

But true greatness needs both. You have to, as one artist put it, be able to 'forget' all that you have learned and compose and/or perform from the heart, letting all of that training do what it will naturally do, resulting in a transcendent expression of artistic grace.

That's what makes Campbell so accessible. He speaks and writes as though he is talking about the weather to his best friend, but his erudition provides such a solid foundation in the topics he expounds upon that one hardly notices that one is being educated.

[i2shar]

Beautifully put!