I've Looked at Dumb From Both Sides Now

I am in my second semester of piano, and it's not the highest priority in my life right now, but I'd like to learn to play well enough to write down the music I have in my head.

Thing is, right now, I am like a 5 or 6 year old who has learned the alphabet and is sounding out words. It's tedious work. And I love it when I can play a simple phrase and the piano starts to feel familiar. A friend.

A Great and Terrible Teacher

My piano teacher is brilliant, and when he is in teaching mode, he's great. He'll show us how to look for the patterns and what is happening, what chords are there. He makes it look so easy.

He wants us to be able to look at the music, analyze it, think about what our fingers will do, and then play it. Not fast, but accurately. Makes sense to do this before starting to play.

And then I put my hands on the keys and my brain freezes. I can do the right hand fairly easily. The left hand takes more focus and practice. And when I put both together... well, just cover your ears.

His logic is good. When I have had sufficient experience with this kind of transposition from brain to fingers, it will be great.

But then he throws a tantrum when we can't play the music right off the bat. Like somehow that analyzing in my head, my fingers are going to magically do it right the first time I touch the keyboard. And I sit there thinking the guy is nuts. My fingers need to practice it, to get familiar with the territory. And my brain needs to make connections between the geography of the keyboard and the little black marks on the page.

He may be a musical genius, but I apparently am not. At least not on the piano. I have lots of fun singing and improvising by ear.

The Flip Side

In the same month, I got to see it from the other side with people and technology.

I've been doing computer stuff for decades. For me it's a simple matter of reading the instructions and following them. And it has always puzzled me when people have a mental block that makes it so much harder than it is. Like some people are with math. (not my best subject, but i do OK.)

If I want to do something on email, the Internet, or social media, I look at the options and find the one that works. Most of the time I can figure it out. Even though I am "of an age".

So if it's easy for me, why isn't it easy for everyone?

More Than One Kind of Smart

I've heard of multiple intelligence that describe the different kinds of genius out there. Music is one of them. Social skills are one. Logic is one of them. I've got the logic one. I've practiced technology for a long time, and it makes sense to me most of the time. (Just don't get me started on MS Word!)So I expect it to be easy for everyone.

But some people don't. I have to remind myself that for some people, following directions is difficult.

Am I being just as unfair when I wonder why someone cannot follow simple step-by-step instructions either from me? Even when I give them pictures?

And when I sit in that piano class, I get the logic. And I just need to work longer to get the information from my brain to my fingers.

I remind myself that I didn't learn to ride a bike in a day. And I didn't learn to walk in a day either. Even if the teacher thinks we should.

How About You?

What blind spot have you started to see recently?