[EvanAnderson]

> Music is made of words - scale-specific gestures, of which there are hundreds, perhaps thousands...

This made me think of typing tutor programs that just prompt for random letters. I type like shit on those-- slow and inaccurate.

On the other hand, I'm quick and reasonably accurate when typing English words and frequently-used command lines.

The analogy would surely hold true with musical instruments. Even with my limited experience playing musical instruments I can't imagine trying to practice random notes and rhythms. On the face of it I would think it would have little to no value. (Effectively practicing to play unlistenable music...)

[klodolph]

I remember typing tutors that started with the home row and slowly expanded. There aren’t a lot of words that use the home row exclusively, so you end up with nonsense.

(You said “typing tutors programs” but my memory is of actual tutors, as in, people.)

You may not like practicing random notes but maybe you want to play Schönberg or Bartók?

[jlbooker]

I remember a lot of, 'a sad lad had glad fad'. And then yes, it descended into nonsense from there on out.

[EvanAnderson]

Bartók... >shudder< You have a point.

[ssttoo]

As a counterpoint, Bartok’s Mikrokosmos [1] was the “textbook” for a piano sight reading class at my community college. He does have a lot of accessible, even pedagogical, pieces.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikrokosmos_(Bart%C3%B3k)

[Hunpeter]

I mean, Bartók is really not that random: polytonality, pentatonic and octatonic stuff, whole-tone scales etc. are all things you can practice and put into work in his music. (You can argue that Schönberg is even less random, cause serialism, but that probably doesn't help too much when playing the piano).

[EvanAnderson]

As a wildly amateur and unschooled musician Bartók simply looks wildly intimidating. Listen to him (again, as a wildly amateur and unschooled musician) doesn't make him make much more sense.

I wish I'd taken music more seriously when I was a kid (and had better neuroplasticity). I know I could still make decent progress with it, even at nearly 50, but I missed my opportunity to really cozy up to it deeply. (Instead I've got 6502 and 16-bit x86 assembler... Arguably not an even trade.)

[castillar76]

Whoof — this brought back memories of endlessly typing things like...

kkk kik kik k,k k,k jjj juj juj jmj jmj hhh hyh hyh hnh hnh

...on a lovely, bangy, ink-scented IBM Selectric in typing class. Which at the time felt like a meaningless exercise, but absolutely strengthened the ability of my fingers to find the right keys in a hurry without looking at the keyboard.

[vishnugupta]

> typing tutor programs that just prompt for random letters

I learnt touch typing on a physical mechanical typewriter. The syllabus that I followed did seem random but as I kept at it I could see there was a method to the madness.

I checked out a few software tutorials and they seemed OK. Maybe there are some not good ones.