What are you learning?

Igneous1

@richardyot said:
As for a laundry list of "stuff", it seems almost seems irrelevant, the way I see it life is learning, full stop. Everything you do, from raising children, interacting with others, to your work, your hobbies, even how you live and think is all a constant learning curve. Either you're busy learning, or you're busy dying (to paraphrase St. Bob).

Not sure about that one , Richard. Making a conscious decision to learn something is (perhaps) a different approach to having more of the overview that we can constantly learn from everything around us - not everyone does.

Will

@u0421793 said:
One thing I might chuck in here: the things I'm learning these days have a 'circle completion' aspect. When I was young I was into various interests, some of which stood me in stead to earn a living. I didn't fully learn those topics, I stopped when other people thought I knew my onions. I suspect a lot of people out there in real jobs are similar charlatans living in fear of being found out.

Not at all an uncommon thing, or feeling. Particularly in technical fields. https://www.google.com/search?q=imposter+syndrome

Will

I can't say I've had an active single line of learning lately but I'm learning all the time. Most of it externally motivated (work, be a better parent, fix my kitchen light socket, some question here...) but still enjoy it.

I got a piano recently. I've been forcing myself to play simple scales for 10 minutes a day. Not exactly learning anything new but it is a sort of 'body learning' that pays returns pretty quickly in the form of finger strength, dexterity and muscle memory for when you're not playing something boring like scales.

crony

Wrote a kind of novel based on my (so exciting ) life. Mainly for legacy to my son. Friends found that very funny, and they can be really rude, so I'm happy it's not that bad, if not absolutely brilliant...

Also very interested with how to build a house in an ecologic manner.
Following 2 Moocs about that, and also registered thru a Kickstarter to all the courses of these guys from Quebec:
http://solutionera.com

Having fun with music, trying to set a live, based on iPads.

Processaurus

Weird how learning music things can be harder, once you are good at music. A lot of times it is harder to suck at at something you feel like you are good at, and other people think you are good at.

Am currently learning the C++ programming language, to hopefully make some fun digital musical widgets.

oat_phipps

Nothing, and it's frightening when I step back and listen to me say (type) that. But for the last couple of years nothing seems to 'catch' in my mind to where I can lock in, follow through, and learn something over time.

I never thought music would stop sustaining me, and technically it hasn't (I can toss off a track or two for a song sent to me pretty easily), but I haven't advanced my playing or skills in quite some time.

The more worrying part is the same goes for everything else. I used to have a steel trap for a mind, but I just turned 32 and that gift seems gone now.

On a lighter note, I continue to try to better myself at piano and keys.

RUST( i )K

@oat_phipps said:
Nothing, and it's frightening when I step back and listen to me say (type) that. But for the last couple of years nothing seems to 'catch' in my mind to where I can lock in, follow through, and learn something over time.

I never thought music would stop sustaining me, and technically it hasn't (I can toss off a track or two for a song sent to me pretty easily), but I haven't advanced my playing or skills in quite some time.

The more worrying part is the same goes for everything else. I used to have a steel trap for a mind, but I just turned 32 and that gift seems gone now.

On a lighter note, I continue to try to better myself at piano and keys.

The fact that you contemplated and evaluated your progress or there lack of: you are not as complacent as it may feel.

You may be surprised!

RUST( i )K

@Arpseechord said:

1st Cog in the wheel- " Hi my name is Centrifugal, how long have you been here?"

2nd Cog- " Hey there! The others call me Centripetal. It feels like I've been here an eternity"

Well done

paradiddle

Besides learning new stuff on my instruments. I'm learning math which I've never touched since I dropped out of school. I'm loving it though. There's not enough time in a day though to learn all I would like though. Time flies.

JeffChasteen

How to be a better teacher
How to walk the dog

decibelle

@Processaurus said:
Weird how learning music things can be harder, once you are good at music. A lot of times it is harder to suck at at something you feel like you are good at, and other people think you are good at.

The players I've worked with who claimed their musical learning struggles were a direct result of their high musical skill level ...

... were pretty much always mistaken.

Having said that, the fundamentals are tricky for us all at any age and at any level, so hang in there!

decibelle

@bigcatrik said:
I'm working on solid internal timing, counting one-e-an-a two-e-an-a in my head while playing anything - fingerdrumming on LaunchPad, Bach on recorder, singing, whatever.

Augmented RESPECT.

[insert a one-ee-and-ah two-ee-and-ah three-ee-and-ah four-ee-and-ah HIGH FIVE here]

[plus an awesomeness emoji ]

decibelle

@u0421793 said:

@decibelle said:
I learnt how to fix my 23-year-old microwave, woot!

I got it working again (after putting my glasses on) with only
... a couple of palette knives
... a spoon rest
... a match
... a tea light and
... a cable tie

I didn't even need my Leatherman.

@decibellesmicrowave said:
Kachunk! Beep beep beep (pause) Whirrrrrr ....

Best. Sounds. Ever.

I suspect this will seem pretty mundane to most of you in the tech trade or with tech backgrounds, but for me and my music/arts background, it was a huge win. Go me.

Tis the seee-zun too heeet water bottles
Round 'n round they gooooo, til microoo-waaave beeeeps.

Thanks for reminding me - I must do a microwave leakage check on ours, it's nearly that old. Here's a fairly strange page on how, http://m.wikihow.com/Check-a-Microwave-for-Leaks (there's a bit where they suggest putting a laptop in the microwave to see if it can still be pinged over wifi, and they briefly mention not to turn the microwave on, but you can be sure some idiot will do) (the reason for putting a laptop in the microwave is that wifi is 2.4GHz (or 5GHz) and also a microwave oven's magnetron (which is basically a high power radio transmission antenna/waveguide) operates at 2.4GHz - wifi, microwave, same thing. If the oven's capacitance trap formed by the door, the glasses metal grille, and the metal surface facing the door, are all clean and dent-free, they'll constitute a notch filter at 2.4GHz, not letting any of it through (or much). If there's food or dents on the metal face or the door, the centre frequency of the filter will shift and it'll trap something else but let the microwave energy pass through. I think I'll try mine later with a neon screwdriver and see what I can see (when it gets dark). Not sure about putting my iPad in there, I might accidentally instinctively and reflexively heat it up for 30 seconds like I do with my tea. Besides, not being able to ping it doesn't indicate that it's blocking enough to be safe.

Awesome tip, imma do that right n ...

... well, whenever I get around to it.

The iPad/iPhone part was especially good pre-empting. Maybe not too surprising, here.

Serious thanks, fer realz.

JohnnyGoodyear

Great OP. Have no idea what my answer is. Having restrained myself from being flippant I find a field of silence.

Gaia.Tree

Relearning ukulele virtuousity after finally admitting defeat at the task of learning guitar... feels so good to pick the uke back up and be shredding on it like i can only dream of with guitar

decibelle

@richardyot said:
As for a laundry list of "stuff", it seems almost seems irrelevant, the way I see it life is learning, full stop. Everything you do, from raising children, interacting with others, to your work, your hobbies, even how you live and think is all a constant learning curve. Either you're busy learning, or you're busy dying (to paraphrase St. Bob).

I think that the learning choices most of us make necessarily, as a result of topics brought into our proximity by the happenstance of navigating our usual lives, is almost certainly a ginormously different experience from extra learning choices outside the usual routines, made by seeking out new topics some distance away from the usual conveniently nearby ones, breaking up the usual routines to add new ones specially to pursue the selected new knowledge, and creating new skills outside the previous comfort zones making progress, improvement and self-growth at a more intense rate all possible.

I understand that this difference may sometimes be known as "passive" vs "active"

decibelle

@Gaia.Tree said:
Im learning that im soooo over forcing myself to suffer through learning to play steel string guitar, and am happily slappily back on the ukulele. So learning to become a uke virtuoso
Relearning ukulele virtuousity after finally admitting defeat at the task of learning guitar... feels so good to pick the uke back up and be shredding on it like i can only dream of with guitar

Good for you!

As a fiddlist I get so tired of the overwhelming guitar-centric-ness of everything, it feels like. At least you fit into the fretted plectrum universe.

The uke is totally an awesome instrument in its own right and anybody who says guitar is better than it is full of doo doo. Just saying.

But of course, I know that you already knew that.

Will

@Processaurus said:
Weird how learning music things can be harder, once you are good at music. A lot of times it is harder to suck at at something you feel like you are good at, and other people think you are good at.

Woa, great point. Not at all unlike imposter syndrome! Feel it regularly at work and on instruments.

Will

@decibelle said:

@richardyot said:
As for a laundry list of "stuff", it seems almost seems irrelevant, the way I see it life is learning, full stop. Everything you do, from raising children, interacting with others, to your work, your hobbies, even how you live and think is all a constant learning curve. Either you're busy learning, or you're busy dying (to paraphrase St. Bob).

I think that the learning choices most of us make necessarily, as a result of topics brought into our proximity by the happenstance of navigating our usual lives, is almost certainly a ginormously different experience from extra learning choices outside the usual routines, made by seeking out new topics some distance away from the usual conveniently nearby ones, breaking up the usual routines to add new ones specially to pursue the selected new knowledge, and creating new skills outside the previous comfort zones making progress, improvement and self-growth at a more intense rate all possible.

I understand that this difference may sometimes be known as "passive" vs "active"

Enjoying this thread quite a bit and reconsidering it, I'm not entirely sure the externally and internally motivated learning paths are necessarily different. That is, they can be different and I can certainly see the shapes of their differentiation but they're aren't necessarily so. If you make a series of internally motivated decisions in your life that lead you to a point where external motivations are pushing you to learn new things, to some extent anyway, they're both internally motivated. Certainly seems easier to 'break up usual routines' when motivated by necessity and while that might in some ways feel less pure, for lack of a better word, I'm not convinced it's by definition less good (or less beneficial or less conducive to learning).

decibelle

@syrupcore said:

@Processaurus said:
Weird how learning music things can be harder, once you are good at music. A lot of times it is harder to suck at at something you feel like you are good at, and other people think you are good at.

Woa, great point. Not at all unlike imposter syndrome!

It could be entirely unlike impostor syndrome, if it's the Dunning Kruger effect.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect

In my experience, this effect is exceedingly common amongst players. If one were as highly accomplished as imagined, then the new things would already have been learnt in part, and the tedious musical learning process would already be very very familiar.

decibelle

@syrupcore said:

@decibelle said:

@richardyot said:
As for a laundry list of "stuff", it seems almost seems irrelevant, the way I see it life is learning, full stop. Everything you do, from raising children, interacting with others, to your work, your hobbies, even how you live and think is all a constant learning curve. Either you're busy learning, or you're busy dying (to paraphrase St. Bob).

I think that the learning choices most of us make necessarily, as a result of topics brought into our proximity by the happenstance of navigating our usual lives, is almost certainly a ginormously different experience from extra learning choices outside the usual routines, made by seeking out new topics some distance away from the usual conveniently nearby ones, breaking up the usual routines to add new ones specially to pursue the selected new knowledge, and creating new skills outside the previous comfort zones making progress, improvement and self-growth at a more intense rate all possible.

I understand that this difference may sometimes be known as "passive" vs "active"

Enjoying this thread quite a bit and reconsidering it, I'm not entirely sure the externally and internally motivated learning paths are necessarily different. That is, they can be different and I can certainly see the shapes of their differentiation but they're aren't necessarily so. If you make a series of internally motivated decisions in your life that lead you to a point where external motivations are pushing you to learn new things, to some extent anyway, they're both internally motivated. Certainly seems easier to 'break up usual routines' when motivated by necessity and while that might in some ways feel less pure, for lack of a better word, I'm not convinced it's by definition less good (or less beneficial or less conducive to learning).

I think you may have misunderstood me. I don't recognise much of what you describe in your response.

I have no idea how "external/internal motivation" relates to what I said.

From my perspective, I was simply describing different varieties of learning process, and the primary difference being the degree of effort exertion, one requires less, the other more.

No value judgement.

When I posted that, ideas such as "good" "bad" "better" "worse" "purity" "internal" "external" and varieties of "motivation"were completely absent from my thoughts,

I was solely considering different features of how people learn. That's all.

Will

@decibelle the values placed on the motivation for learning weren't directed at you or based on your response. Others (including myself) were attaching value further up. Your post just inspired my thinking. Think mainly from the part of breaking up routines.

decibelle

@decibelle said:

@syrupcore said:

@decibelle said:

@richardyot said:
As for a laundry list of "stuff", it seems almost seems irrelevant, the way I see it life is learning, full stop. Everything you do, from raising children, interacting with others, to your work, your hobbies, even how you live and think is all a constant learning curve. Either you're busy learning, or you're busy dying (to paraphrase St. Bob).

I think that the learning choices most of us make necessarily, as a result of topics brought into our proximity by the happenstance of navigating our usual lives, is almost certainly a ginormously different experience from extra learning choices outside the usual routines, made by seeking out new topics some distance away from the usual conveniently nearby ones, breaking up the usual routines to add new ones specially to pursue the selected new knowledge, and creating new skills outside the previous comfort zones making progress, improvement and self-growth at a more intense rate all possible.

I understand that this difference may sometimes be known as "passive" vs "active"

Enjoying this thread quite a bit and reconsidering it, I'm not entirely sure the externally and internally motivated learning paths are necessarily different. That is, they can be different and I can certainly see the shapes of their differentiation but they're aren't necessarily so. If you make a series of internally motivated decisions in your life that lead you to a point where external motivations are pushing you to learn new things, to some extent anyway, they're both internally motivated. Certainly seems easier to 'break up usual routines' when motivated by necessity and while that might in some ways feel less pure, for lack of a better word, I'm not convinced it's by definition less good (or less beneficial or less conducive to learning).

I think you may have misunderstood me. I don't recognise much of what you describe in your response.

I have no idea how "external/internal motivation" relates to what I said.

From my perspective, I was simply describing different varieties of learning process, and the primary difference being the degree of effort exertion, one requires less, the other more.

No value judgement.

When I posted that, ideas such as "good" "bad" "better" "worse" "purity" "internal" "external" and varieties of "motivation"were completely absent from my thoughts,

I was solely considering different features of how people learn. That's all.

.

@syrupcore said:
@decibelle the values placed on the motivation for learning weren't directed at you or based on your response. Others (including myself) were attaching value further up. Your post just inspired my thinking. Think mainly from the part of breaking up routines.

Oh, um, ok, you only quoted me and one other, and I saw little connection with the previous comment either, and my post was most visible in yours, so I thought you meant me.

When you said "external" and "internal" motivations, did you mean conscious and subconscious? Or something else?

Because I mean, in this context, excluding loved-one's-gunpoint-life-threatened-hostage-situation coercion, forcing you to learn the tuba or else your loved one gets shot, or loses a toe, or something, I think most adult learning motivations must be internal.

Or am I missing something else?

richardyot

There's a difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Learning that is intrinsically motivated is the learning you do out of natural curiosity, for the fun of it - for example learning the piano or how to play chess in your spare time.

Extrinsically motivated learning is the learning you do because others expect you to, or circumstances force you to. For example going on an accounting course for work purposes.

There is a big difference in how this affects motivation and behaviour, and generally people are much more engaged in tasks that are intrinsically motivated. Maybe this helps to explain impostor syndrome: at work some people aren't really that engaged because they're not motivated enough to really learn what they should be doing.

And money can negatively affect intrinsic motivation, as people who turn their hobbies into a job often find out. Having to meet other people's demands and expectations means that you are no longer doing the task for yourself.

decibelle

@richardyot said:
There's a difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Learning that is intrinsically motivated is the learning you do out of natural curiosity, for the fun of it - for example learning the piano or how to play chess in your spare time.

Extrinsically motivated learning is the learning you do because others expect you to, or circumstances force you to. For example going on an accounting course for work purposes.

There is a big difference in how this affects motivation and behaviour, and generally people are much more engaged in tasks that are intrinsically motivated. Maybe this helps to explain impostor syndrome: at work some people aren't really that engaged because they're not motivated enough to really learn what they should be doing.

And money can negatively affect intrinsic motivation, as people who turn their hobbies into a job often find out. Having to meet other people's demands and expectations means that you are no longer doing the task for yourself.

This sounds to me less about reasons for doing, and more about unhelpful framing of priorities.

e.g. "intrinsically motivated is the learning you do out of natural curiosity, for the fun of it - for example learning the piano or how to play chess in your spare time. Extrinsically motivated learning is the learning you do because others expect you to, or circumstances force you to. For example going on an accounting course for work purposes."

... can also be framed as ...

Doing stuff for emotional fulfillment is intrinsic, and doing stuff for financial fulfillment to fund emotional fulfillment is ... also intrinsic?

[Deleted User]

I'm re-learning how to paint. I almost had it nailed years ago but neglected it due to work, life etc. Squeezing in a day's worth a week now with a view to some exhibiting in the summer, it's an interesting journey.

richardyot

@decibelle said:
Doing stuff for emotional fulfillment is intrinsic, and doing stuff for financial fulfillment to fund emotional fulfillment is ... also intrinsic?

It probably depends on the individual. Not everyone is the same. This is actually a whole field of psychology, not just some shit I'm making up

http://study.com/academy/lesson/intrinsic-motivation-in-psychology-definition-examples-factors.html

supanorton

@Stratguy10 said:
I bought a lovely Martin 00-18 acoustic in the weekend and am brushing up on finger picking - so beautiful to play!

Nice! Congratulations.

supanorton

Musically, I've decided that I like rock and roll. The first 25 years of playing guitar, singing, and writing songs was spent attempting to play something more than rock and roll but still rock and roll. I've learned to embrace my rather narrow (3-5 chord) musical lane, write and record rock and roll songs with what I hope are cool, catchy riffs and memorable melodies. I'm learning how to write, sing, and play rock and roll like a 15 year old kid who just turned 52. The last couple of years have been the most musically fulfilling years of my life. Looking forward to learning more about rock and roll.

JohnnyGoodyear

@supanorton said:
Musically, I've decided that I like rock and roll. The first 25 years of playing guitar, singing, and writing songs was spent attempting to play something more than rock and roll but still rock and roll. I've learned to embrace my rather narrow (3-5 chord) musical lane, write and record rock and roll songs with what I hope are cool, catchy riffs and memorable melodies. I'm learning how to write, sing, and play rock and roll like a 15 year old kid who just turned 52. The last couple of years have been the most musically fulfilling years of my life. Looking forward to learning more about rock and roll.

You are then Sir a lucky and/or wise bastard. Keep at it