Re:I am starting an AI+Education company
by seabass-labrax on Tuesday July 16, 2024 @03:48PM
(#40979660)
> Practicing scales endlessly does make you a better musician. But they won't do it till forced.
The value of such exercises, or any other drill-based curriculum, must be measured with its opportunity cost. If you practise scales for an hour a day, you can indeed reliably expect to be better at your musical instrument, but it could very well be that the same hour spent on improving another skill (sight-reading, articulation etc.) would make you considerably better still at your instrument.
I think it might be more generally useful to say that, in order to develop well-rounded competency in a given field, one should expect to sometimes have to perform boring drills.
Reminds me of a recent podcast with Staša Gejo [1], a top competition climber. She basically says the same thing. At times she hated being told to do drills growing up, but really valued that later because as a kid she sometimes didn't feel like doing the hard work necessary for the outcomes she desired.
Most kid athletes are also not self-motivated to run laps, or do boring repetitive drills, when they know from experience that these activities help them win games within the next few months. Usually need a coach to force them to do them. Same for young music players. Practicing scales endlessly does make you a better musician. But they won't do it till forced.
The primary reason kids don't like running laps or playing scales or doing math drills is because they are boring.