Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Speed of learning
A lot changes as we get older; not only do we grow a few hairs in some places while losing a few in others, gain a few wrinkles and pounds too, but we also slow down in many different ways, physically and also mentally. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not putting myself on the scrap heap yet, but I have noticed how more difficult it is to do somethings that would have been easy a decade or so ago.
If you are young, say in your twenties, and if you are anything like how I was, then everything gets done at the speed of lightning. We have boundless energy, fleet of foot and of mind. We are aware of how older people (and I don't mean in old age, but from middle-age, say fifty onwards) generally slow up a bit, aren't physically as fit, and we don't think for one minute that this will ever come to us. Well that's how I thought, if I ever thought of it at all; 'old ways' was for 'them' and not me. I was trim, light, fit, quick and nothing could hold me back. We take it for granted and don't consider that what we have is not everlasting. Well I'm glad to say that I still have quite a few of these qualities, but change does happen.
One change I've noticed is how it has become more difficult to learn something new, to memorise fact. Learning concepts and principles are fine, they make sense, they hang together as a pattern and a general understanding of a whole situation can be grasped without difficulty. But learning some things such as numbers, dates, and in my case, musical key signatures can be experienced as being a very slow process.
I have been playing the violin for about two years now and enjoy it thoroughly. The more I play it the more I want to do. So even now, with a busy Alexander Technique practice that keeps me at work for up to 12 hours a day, I still manage to do 1-2 hours violin playing a day. It's pretty quiet in London at 5.00am! But that's how I squeeze it all in. But practicing an instrument doesn't necessarily make you better at it unless you practice in a considered way. For instance if I make a mistake in fingering the notes, there is no point in repeating it over and over as the mistake gets more ingrained into the muscle memory of my fingers and it becomes even harder. The answer is to slow it right down so it doesn't even sound like music but just long slow notes, so I can put the fingers in the right place, then as it becomes more familiar then I can speed it back up to the proper tempo. One has to take time and be methodical, even though the process can be mindblowingly irritating. So one has to find enjoyment in working on the process and not end-gaining.
Being older and learning an instrument is quite a different thing from learning it as a five year old. It all goes into the brain (probably a different part of the brain) much more slowly. If you want to be a great violinist, you have to start as a youngster, and if you've missed that chance then forget it. However you can have a lot of fun and still enjoy it, even starting as late as fifty years old. Ones ambitions are different.
With learning a musical instrument comes the need to understand the theory of music too. One needs to know the structure and how to read music. While there are a lot of principles that one can grasp fairly easily, there are also a lot of details, names of notes, names of keys, chord structures etc to learn. This can be difficult. While I was away on holiday over New Year, I did some work on learning more of this, in the absence of actual violin playing. I decided to learn all 24 key signatures by heart. Yes, I knew a few of the main ones, but I should know them all. The key signature is the group of sharps or flats usually on the left of the line of music which tells you what key the music should be played in.
Well, could I get them into my thick head? No way. I looked at them, realised how they group into pairs, found patterns and sequences in them and how one key signature relates to another, but they still wouldn't go in. I thought how long it was taking....hours and hours. If I was young, this would be learnt in a few minutes or an hour at most. Now it takes a lot longer.
So should I give up? I asked myself, does it matter how long it takes to learn them? No. Do I have a deadline? No. If it takes a week to learn them ....or two, or three.....does it matter? And with this realisation that it actually doesn't matter, comes peace of mind and contentment. It actually does not matter, because I do not have exam dates to concern me or any other constraint. I shall eventually get it all into my head and when I do, then I shall be better off than I was before. I still have my whole life ahead to benefit from the hard won knowledge. In the context of a lifetime it is of no importance if something takes one hour or three weeks. If it's three weeks then I've still got very many years to benefit.
There is something about our modern times, and also relating to our experiences in childhood, that says everything must be done quickly. Why is that? Speed is of the essence. Why? OK in certain situations such as in business, then projects and tasks need to be done by a certain time, but in many other situations, the need for speed is unnecessary, but we feel that it's important. Well I'm glad to discover that it doesn't actually matter. And that is cool.
Have a good day.
:-)
