Some suddenly become accomplished artists or musicians with no previous training(blogs.scientificamerican.com)
blogs.scientificamerican.com
Some suddenly become accomplished artists or musicians with no previous training
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/brain-gain-a-person-can-instantly-blossom-into-a-savant-and-no-one-knows-why/
91 comments
It's remarkable how similar this is to learning programming. Anyone remember the lightbulb moment of grokking pointers? And there you were writing C for an arbitrary amount of time t for 0 < t < need for sleep.
React devs probably have a moment when react suddenly makes sense.
In all four cases (bicycling, music, pointers, react) what makes the difference is dogged persistence. One day you'll wake up and things will seem simple -- and the next challenge impossible. Rise and repeat.
React devs probably have a moment when react suddenly makes sense.
In all four cases (bicycling, music, pointers, react) what makes the difference is dogged persistence. One day you'll wake up and things will seem simple -- and the next challenge impossible. Rise and repeat.
> Anyone remember the lightbulb moment of grokking pointers?
Strangely enough, I don't think I do. There was a spectrum where I didn't get pointers, I thought I sorta got pointers, I thought I got pointers, I thought I get nothing, and over time I got a bit better at understanding pointers thanks to C++ and Rust. Definitely more of a continuum.
I did have a lightbulb moment for understanding recursion, though, thanks to an assembly course.
Strangely enough, I don't think I do. There was a spectrum where I didn't get pointers, I thought I sorta got pointers, I thought I got pointers, I thought I get nothing, and over time I got a bit better at understanding pointers thanks to C++ and Rust. Definitely more of a continuum.
I did have a lightbulb moment for understanding recursion, though, thanks to an assembly course.
To take that further, this is exactly in analogy with why/how some people enjoy research (or any kind of learning that stretches cognition, in general). Every time you "get" a new concept, it's like you've "leveled up" and your experience in that domain is forever altered :-)
This is still what I tell people in interviews was my most difficult technical challenge. I had nothing but an old 386 and the K&R book -- no Stack Overflow back in those days, and I didn't know any programmers well enough to ask them for help. It was the first time in my life I ever truly grinded on a task. It happened just suddenly, and it was glorious, and I've been chasing that feeling ever since. "Hey, kid, you wanna fly?"
I seem to go through a similar experience every time I need to design a recursive algorithm... after writing and rewriting a bunch of crap code, it finally clicks and I can write the REAL function (which is usually just a few lines and amazingly elegant).
how long does it take for react to make sense?
A friend of mine is a far better webdev than I could hope to be. She knows CSS inside and out, and seems to make it a point of pride to know every little detail. She did it in three years of focused effort, with no prior programming experience. It was one of the most amazing transformations I've seen, but it was only because she worked so hard.
She mentioned the other day that she's a bit sad she can't find any aspect of React she doesn't know. But now she's been banging her head against react native for the past few months, so there's no shortage of challenges. She's the primary architect of a startup's frontend webapp (and now their mobile app). I keep trying to push her to write and post her stuff, but she still feels like she doesn't know anything. But that feeling seems like the main reason she knows so much now, several years later.
She mentioned the other day that she's a bit sad she can't find any aspect of React she doesn't know. But now she's been banging her head against react native for the past few months, so there's no shortage of challenges. She's the primary architect of a startup's frontend webapp (and now their mobile app). I keep trying to push her to write and post her stuff, but she still feels like she doesn't know anything. But that feeling seems like the main reason she knows so much now, several years later.
To be fair, CSS is nothing like programming. So she wasn't really learning react, she was learning the entire paradigm of programming in the context of react. My guess is that would have been way harder than learning programming in a traditional language and then learning React, because you wouldn't have been able to separate the concepts that are React specific from the concepts that are just programming. It would have been harder to answer the "why do we do it this way" questions, which can be really important to developing an intuitive underatanding of programming.
I would like to add as well, as a career move, total slam dunk.
I would like to add as well, as a career move, total slam dunk.
Funnily enough, this happened to me just today! After almost two years of studying 6502 assembly in my spare time, the whole mindspace required to be an efficient and productive assembly programmer clicked for me this afternoon.
It wasn't literally sudden, more so a realization over the course of an hour after the usual reading and re-reading of various tutorials and documentation that I had already been doing. I'd say a few hours into programmer flow was when it all came together.
I liken it to when I first grokked Lisp back in high school. A shedding of mental fog leading to a sort of "now I finally get how somebody could program a game in this without being some hack-the-planet-level computer whiz."
It wasn't literally sudden, more so a realization over the course of an hour after the usual reading and re-reading of various tutorials and documentation that I had already been doing. I'd say a few hours into programmer flow was when it all came together.
I liken it to when I first grokked Lisp back in high school. A shedding of mental fog leading to a sort of "now I finally get how somebody could program a game in this without being some hack-the-planet-level computer whiz."
There’s a big difference between “I’ve been practicing a bunch of different parts of a thing and now I can actually do the thing pretty decently” and “I have never done this thing before and suddenly I am doing the thing at a semi-pro level”.
To use your example, this article is about people who had never played piano in their life, but suddenly sat in front of one and started flawlessly improvising the blues without all that time practicing the different parts of the blues...
To use your example, this article is about people who had never played piano in their life, but suddenly sat in front of one and started flawlessly improvising the blues without all that time practicing the different parts of the blues...
Western music has a fairly simple base system, with only 12 tones in total its much easier to get by ear than other systems like classical Turkish music which has 9 microtones within the space of one half step. It would be interesting to see how universal this phenomena is or whether its actually partially a byproduct of western music being relatively simple and easy to get by ear, even classical pieces like Beethovan's Song of Brotherhood. Are there musical prodigies in Turkey? Certainly we don't see cases of prodigies in the US spontaneously picking up complex classical Turkish microtonal music by ear.
The turisk have 9 microtones per full step. This gives the scale more 'perfect' sounding pitch.
Musical scales have a very sound physical basis. Two notes sound good together when their frequencies easily ring together. For instance, an octave (which is present in all music all over the world, but just called differently) is two notes where one note has double the frequency of the other. So one note will make a full period while the other makes two. This is pleasant, but a tad boring. You can make an octave of your octave, still pretty, still boring. It's a dead end.
The next pleasant sound is when one note makes 2 periods and the other 3. These are your forths and fifths in western music. These intervals give endless possibilities. A forth of the fifth gives back your base note, similar to a fifth of your forth. But! Fifth of fifth and forth of forth go endless. Each will result in a new note that sounds less pleasant but more interesting together with the base note.
(the forth is the inverse of the fifth: forth(fifth(base)) = base AND fifth(forth(base)) = base. I'll only talk about fifths hence forth)
A scale is an 'arbitrary' bunch of these notes together sorted by pitch. All scales used in the world can be constructed out of fifths. How many fifths to make a scale? We usually stop when the note is _almost_ equal to the base; that way there is an even representation of the frequency spectrum whilst having many notes that sound good together. For instance, western music, the 12th consecutive fifth almost sounds like the base (it's frequency is 1.3% off) The microtonal scales 53th consecutvit fifth is only 0.21% off. The pentatonic scale which uses only 5 notes, is 5.3% off.
Another remark: western classical music uses the 12 note scale, but pop music often limits itself to only seven of those.
Here is some psuedo code to play with it yourself:
Musical scales have a very sound physical basis. Two notes sound good together when their frequencies easily ring together. For instance, an octave (which is present in all music all over the world, but just called differently) is two notes where one note has double the frequency of the other. So one note will make a full period while the other makes two. This is pleasant, but a tad boring. You can make an octave of your octave, still pretty, still boring. It's a dead end.
The next pleasant sound is when one note makes 2 periods and the other 3. These are your forths and fifths in western music. These intervals give endless possibilities. A forth of the fifth gives back your base note, similar to a fifth of your forth. But! Fifth of fifth and forth of forth go endless. Each will result in a new note that sounds less pleasant but more interesting together with the base note.
(the forth is the inverse of the fifth: forth(fifth(base)) = base AND fifth(forth(base)) = base. I'll only talk about fifths hence forth)
A scale is an 'arbitrary' bunch of these notes together sorted by pitch. All scales used in the world can be constructed out of fifths. How many fifths to make a scale? We usually stop when the note is _almost_ equal to the base; that way there is an even representation of the frequency spectrum whilst having many notes that sound good together. For instance, western music, the 12th consecutive fifth almost sounds like the base (it's frequency is 1.3% off) The microtonal scales 53th consecutvit fifth is only 0.21% off. The pentatonic scale which uses only 5 notes, is 5.3% off.
5 notes: 5.3% error
7 notes: 6.8% error
12 notes: 1.3% error
41 notes: 1.1% error
53 notes: .21% error
Another remark: western classical music uses the 12 note scale, but pop music often limits itself to only seven of those.
Here is some psuedo code to play with it yourself:
BASE_NOTE_A = 880
def note(n):
f = BASE_NOTE_A * (3/2)**n
while f > BASE_NOTE_A:
a = a/2
return a
Indeed. I taught myself how to juggle recently, because I am fairly clumsy and thought this was something I’d never be able to do, but I wanted to see how far I’d go.
For a month or so, I’d spend 10 minutes a day doing various throwing/catching exercises with 1, then 2, then 3 balls (went on YouTube for resources).
And then at some point - much like you described for playing the blues - all the separate motions all came together and I was juggling.
For a month or so, I’d spend 10 minutes a day doing various throwing/catching exercises with 1, then 2, then 3 balls (went on YouTube for resources).
And then at some point - much like you described for playing the blues - all the separate motions all came together and I was juggling.
Also, whistling.
Semi-related, this recent Radiolab episode:
> Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then ... "Bolero."
> At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel's famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it "Unraveling Bolero." But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music. Arbie Orenstein tells us what happened to Ravel after he wrote "Bolero," and neurologist Bruce Miller helps us understand how, for both Anne and Ravel, "Bolero" might have been the first symptom of a deadly disease.
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/131/1/39/346188
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/unraveling-bolero
> Anne Adams was a brilliant biologist. But when her son Alex was in a bad car accident, she decided to stay home to help him recover. And then, rather suddenly, she decided to quit science altogether and become a full-time artist. After that, her husband Robert Adams tells us, she just painted and painted and painted. First houses and buildings, then a series of paintings involving strawberries, and then ... "Bolero."
> At some point, Anne became obsessed with Maurice Ravel's famous composition and decided to put an elaborate visual rendition of the song to canvas. She called it "Unraveling Bolero." But at the time, she had no idea that both she and Ravel would themselves unravel shortly after their experiences with this odd piece of music. Arbie Orenstein tells us what happened to Ravel after he wrote "Bolero," and neurologist Bruce Miller helps us understand how, for both Anne and Ravel, "Bolero" might have been the first symptom of a deadly disease.
https://academic.oup.com/brain/article/131/1/39/346188
https://www.wnycstudios.org/story/unraveling-bolero
Is there a control group of people who spend an equal amount of time and fervor investigating a new musical or artistic path without first having the "epiphany?"
I had a friend in college with no prior musical training who decided his second year to become a classical guitarist. We kind of teased him at first because he clearly had no sudden music-related epiphanies nor any idea of the time involved to master an instrument much less learn to read music and understand theory.
Nonetheless, he spent the time you'd think would be required on a daily basis to gain such competency, plus starting the music track classes. At the end of a year if I didn't already know his initial skill level and his general obsessive dedication to all endeavors, I'd have assumed he was a savant.
Put another way-- most amateur musicians I know spend less than 30 minutes a week doing anything resembling practice. I often hear people drilling a mistake in that scant time. Given that, I'm amazed most people can play anything at all.
I had a friend in college with no prior musical training who decided his second year to become a classical guitarist. We kind of teased him at first because he clearly had no sudden music-related epiphanies nor any idea of the time involved to master an instrument much less learn to read music and understand theory.
Nonetheless, he spent the time you'd think would be required on a daily basis to gain such competency, plus starting the music track classes. At the end of a year if I didn't already know his initial skill level and his general obsessive dedication to all endeavors, I'd have assumed he was a savant.
Put another way-- most amateur musicians I know spend less than 30 minutes a week doing anything resembling practice. I often hear people drilling a mistake in that scant time. Given that, I'm amazed most people can play anything at all.
I think most people underestimate the amount of discipline that it takes to get good at something, and overestimate the amount of time it takes. I learned WAY more in one summer of programming 16 hours a day than I did in a year of classes where I was supposedly immersing myself in learning. When I say that I was programming 16 hours a day, I was. That was _all_ I did. But I came out the other side with a much better understanding of programming, and a slightly roughed up relationship for it. If I woke up tomorrow with an inexplicable obsession for painting, I suspect I could get _much_ better than I am now in a relatively short amount of time because right now, I've spent a grand total of maybe 20 hours in my entire life painting. The thing that's intriguing to me is the sudden onset of a compulsion to do one particular thing.
I think most people underestimate the amount of discipline that it takes to get good at something, and overestimate the amount of time it takes.
Truer words have never been spoken, across all kinds of domains. When I was a fat desk nerd and decided to become a Marine, I was surprised at how quickly I was able to transform my body and gain the required physical skills - once I found the motivation and discipline. Ditto for language study, programming, etc.
Truer words have never been spoken, across all kinds of domains. When I was a fat desk nerd and decided to become a Marine, I was surprised at how quickly I was able to transform my body and gain the required physical skills - once I found the motivation and discipline. Ditto for language study, programming, etc.
What did you do to train?
Intermittent ketosis with a 1500 kcal budget (net after exercise), a lot of pull-ups, elliptical, running. Weight training focusing on arms, chest, shoulders, some leg work.
I lost 25# over about 3-4 months while also being more muscular than I'd ever been. Ended up submitting my application with a 290 PFT score out of 300 (20 pull-ups, 100 crunches in 2 minutes, 19:32 3-mile runtime).
I lost 25# over about 3-4 months while also being more muscular than I'd ever been. Ended up submitting my application with a 290 PFT score out of 300 (20 pull-ups, 100 crunches in 2 minutes, 19:32 3-mile runtime).
> The thing that's intriguing to me is the sudden onset of a compulsion to do one particular thing.
The article suggests something different than a compulsion, something like a sudden awareness of music (or art or whatever) that the person didn't have before.
For example, I have a kind of involuntary hobby of cataloging 3rd inversion seventh chords in music. Tchaikovsky likes to use them in descending chromatic sequences. Brian Wilson has a funny one in "God Only Knows" where the bass idiosyncratically resolves up. Etc.
I didn't have an obsession to learn about harmony and then catalog what I learned in the music I hear. I had an awareness of harmony before I took music lessons, then I learned the notation and went, "Oh, that's what it's called."
I think that's one of the most frustrating parts of learning something that's really new to you. Suppose I had no initial awareness of harmony and tried to learn to identify those 3rd inversion seventh chords by obsessively cataloging them. Perhaps I do some work studying pop and classical music, and after lots of effort I come up with the Tchaikovsky and Beach Boys examples. Then some musician with an awareness of harmony walks in and starts effortlessly adding more: there's one arpeggiated when Link falls in a hole in Ocarina of Time, in the theme to Back to the Future, a famous one in the transition of the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth, a string of them in a chromatic sequence in the Shepherd's Tune from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, etc. "Oh, and isn't the verse of Tom Petty's 'Here Come's My Girl' just a famous alternation between a triad and a 3rd inversion seventh chord built on the first scale degree of a Lydian scale?" In that case I would start to wonder whether I really want to continue with my project.
Of course one can actually learn and improve that awareness with enough practice. But it requires perseverance to keep at it in the face of people who naturally have those same abilities (and often don't seem to value them).
The article suggests something different than a compulsion, something like a sudden awareness of music (or art or whatever) that the person didn't have before.
For example, I have a kind of involuntary hobby of cataloging 3rd inversion seventh chords in music. Tchaikovsky likes to use them in descending chromatic sequences. Brian Wilson has a funny one in "God Only Knows" where the bass idiosyncratically resolves up. Etc.
I didn't have an obsession to learn about harmony and then catalog what I learned in the music I hear. I had an awareness of harmony before I took music lessons, then I learned the notation and went, "Oh, that's what it's called."
I think that's one of the most frustrating parts of learning something that's really new to you. Suppose I had no initial awareness of harmony and tried to learn to identify those 3rd inversion seventh chords by obsessively cataloging them. Perhaps I do some work studying pop and classical music, and after lots of effort I come up with the Tchaikovsky and Beach Boys examples. Then some musician with an awareness of harmony walks in and starts effortlessly adding more: there's one arpeggiated when Link falls in a hole in Ocarina of Time, in the theme to Back to the Future, a famous one in the transition of the last movement of Beethoven's Fifth, a string of them in a chromatic sequence in the Shepherd's Tune from Wagner's Tristan und Isolde, etc. "Oh, and isn't the verse of Tom Petty's 'Here Come's My Girl' just a famous alternation between a triad and a 3rd inversion seventh chord built on the first scale degree of a Lydian scale?" In that case I would start to wonder whether I really want to continue with my project.
Of course one can actually learn and improve that awareness with enough practice. But it requires perseverance to keep at it in the face of people who naturally have those same abilities (and often don't seem to value them).
>> "Oh, that's what it's called."
I think what defines great teachers is their ability to illustrate new concepts through familiar and relatable examples.
I think what defines great teachers is their ability to illustrate new concepts through familiar and relatable examples.
There is a certain level of starting knowledge that can be very beneficial or even necessary before dedicated immersion. Your year of classes likely provided sufficient overview to make the start of your summer more productive than it would have been otherwise.
I mention this only because if you take up painting then I recommend studying up on the materials and processes first (how to mix paints on the palette and also on the canvas).
I mention this only because if you take up painting then I recommend studying up on the materials and processes first (how to mix paints on the palette and also on the canvas).
Very true. I just started playing basketball for the first time in over 20 years. I'm 31 and pretty overweight (300+ at 5"11') and I've been playing for three weeks. After the first week I got my ass kicked by my in-shape friend who plays recreationally in 1v1 over and over again. After two weeks of 3+ hours /day I beat him handily a few times.
Granted, he hadn't touched the ball since our last set of matches but I'm not letting that take the wind put of my sails.
Obsession is the name of the game. Balance is for chumps. Nobody ever got great at anything by spending a reasonable and well adjusted amount of time working on it.
Granted, he hadn't touched the ball since our last set of matches but I'm not letting that take the wind put of my sails.
Obsession is the name of the game. Balance is for chumps. Nobody ever got great at anything by spending a reasonable and well adjusted amount of time working on it.
> Obsession is the name of the game. Balance is for chumps. Nobody ever got great at anything by spending a reasonable and well adjusted amount of time working on it.
You had a good point but this seems completely unnecessary. You're not making it into the NBA here, so "great" seems like a very strong word. For most people, basketball and such is not the main purpose, but a side event, a hobby, etc., so it's pretty strange for them to choose to obsess over it.
Of course focusing on one thing and only just that one thing will make you relatively good at it. Everyone already knew that. The issue is just that people have jobs, relatives, other hobbies, etc., so balance becomes more relevant. It's more interesting when someone gets good at something without being able to allot huge amounts of time to it.
You had a good point but this seems completely unnecessary. You're not making it into the NBA here, so "great" seems like a very strong word. For most people, basketball and such is not the main purpose, but a side event, a hobby, etc., so it's pretty strange for them to choose to obsess over it.
Of course focusing on one thing and only just that one thing will make you relatively good at it. Everyone already knew that. The issue is just that people have jobs, relatives, other hobbies, etc., so balance becomes more relevant. It's more interesting when someone gets good at something without being able to allot huge amounts of time to it.
I'm way into golf and on the golf subreddit, there are regularly people who show up who ask about their chances of going pro as a 20-something or 30-something, and a chorus of people will respond that all pro golfers have tremendous natural ability (which may well be true) and that if you aren't already a great golfer without really practicing, you're not going to make it.
But every account I've ever read of a pro golfer's childhood (and I've probably read at least a dozen), indicates that almost without exception, they got obsessed with golf at a young age and every day they didn't have school, would get dropped off at the course in the morning when their parents went to work and practice until their parents picked them up on their way home from work. They got in a staggering amount of practice by the time they were teenagers, but because it happened utterly out of the limelight and was mostly unstructured, people chalk up their teenage virtuosity to "natural talent."
But every account I've ever read of a pro golfer's childhood (and I've probably read at least a dozen), indicates that almost without exception, they got obsessed with golf at a young age and every day they didn't have school, would get dropped off at the course in the morning when their parents went to work and practice until their parents picked them up on their way home from work. They got in a staggering amount of practice by the time they were teenagers, but because it happened utterly out of the limelight and was mostly unstructured, people chalk up their teenage virtuosity to "natural talent."
I think this points to the idea that there’s a blurry line between talent and just a really early head start. Lots of the things we call skills are composed of more basic, lower level skills and in general skills can overlap in different domains. For example the skill of programming can be seen as being composed of / overlap with the skill of thinking abstractly, which may be composed of things like being able to visualize, draw relationships between ideas, sit still for long periods of time. Sports skills may be composed of the skill of something like detecting very subtle physical cues in your body. Are these things really skills though? I would say yes because you can train yourself to get better at them, but I suspect low level skill start developing so early on that it’s hard to catch up to others if you start developing them later in life. We think of these skills as innate talent because they can start to differentiate kids at a very early age, but that’s due to these skills starting to develop so early in life.
It’s like the old sports coach’s expression: “You don’t need talent in order to practice!”
Outside of super-rare outliers, I don’t personally believe that anyone is born with natural talent for anything. When someone is highly skilled at something, I will assume that they spent tons of obsessive time learning and practicing rather than that they tried it one day and found they were magically good at it.
Outside of super-rare outliers, I don’t personally believe that anyone is born with natural talent for anything. When someone is highly skilled at something, I will assume that they spent tons of obsessive time learning and practicing rather than that they tried it one day and found they were magically good at it.
Natural talent certainly exists. I used to be into boxing. Trained 6 times a week really hard for many years and improved a lot of from where I started. From time to time we would have some new guy come who clearly didn't know anything about boxing or fighting. But within weeks he would learn and get better than almost anyone else in the gym. He would be faster and punch harder. In the same way Mozart was able to compose music at the age of 3 or Gauss just understood math naturally some people just understand certain sports. In school we had a guy who could run around 10.5 over 100m without any training. I could never reach that no matter how much I trained.
Pro sports is full of natural talents and the top guys are the ones who also work hard in addition to their natural abilities.
Pro sports is full of natural talents and the top guys are the ones who also work hard in addition to their natural abilities.
> 10.5 over 100m
I can run a 10.5 after a lot of training, so maybe it's my ego talking here, but I refuse to believe this! I think you must just not have been aware of the training this person did. If they could really run a 10.5 in high school with no training, then with minimal effort they could bring their time down enough to qualify for most any country's Olympic team. A 10.5 100m is good enough to win the high school state tournament in an average US state.
> From time to time we would have some new guy come who clearly didn't know anything about boxing or fighting. But within weeks he would learn and get better than almost anyone else in the gym. He would be faster and punch harder.
These people must have had prior training in other sports. Once you've done strength, agility and speed training and have good coordination, it's easy to pick up another sport.
I can run a 10.5 after a lot of training, so maybe it's my ego talking here, but I refuse to believe this! I think you must just not have been aware of the training this person did. If they could really run a 10.5 in high school with no training, then with minimal effort they could bring their time down enough to qualify for most any country's Olympic team. A 10.5 100m is good enough to win the high school state tournament in an average US state.
> From time to time we would have some new guy come who clearly didn't know anything about boxing or fighting. But within weeks he would learn and get better than almost anyone else in the gym. He would be faster and punch harder.
These people must have had prior training in other sports. Once you've done strength, agility and speed training and have good coordination, it's easy to pick up another sport.
There's a huge spectrum of natural athletic ability in children; you could see it in plain sight you just played sports as a kid.
There's a huge spectrum in the amount of each type of athletic play children have done.
I think most of that "natural" ability is still down to practice. Tiny innate differences and advantages push people in certain directions, which means they practice those more (through play, to start with), and pretty quickly there are big apparent differences.
I think most of that "natural" ability is still down to practice. Tiny innate differences and advantages push people in certain directions, which means they practice those more (through play, to start with), and pretty quickly there are big apparent differences.
The science has a clear cut answer to this, not only with twin studies but also with different genes having been tied to specific body features that directly affect athletic ability.
If genetics didn't play a meaningful role in athleticism, we wouldn't have evolved it. But even if that was true at some point in history, that would only be temporary, because without selective pressure, genetic drift would move the population to some point where there was selective pressure.
Obviously environment plays a role, with climate giving kids in California more practice time, or the annual cut-off date in team sports affecting who's in what age group.
If genetics didn't play a meaningful role in athleticism, we wouldn't have evolved it. But even if that was true at some point in history, that would only be temporary, because without selective pressure, genetic drift would move the population to some point where there was selective pressure.
Obviously environment plays a role, with climate giving kids in California more practice time, or the annual cut-off date in team sports affecting who's in what age group.
Yeah it's most obvious that there is some natural/genetic talent at play in sports like swimming/track and field. I was pretty obsessed with running in high school - I trained damn hard, did 80 mile weeks in the offseasons, etc. I ended up being pretty good, but there were some guys who trained less hard and less smart than me that were just as good (or better), and I certainly was not capable of becoming an elite runner no matter how hard I trained. It is just not in my genes to run a sub-4:00 mile or whatever. While I think it's comforting to think that all natural talent is just hard work and we could all be geniuses and savants if we just put in the effort, I don't think it's true. That being said, I do think people overestimate the difficulty of picking up many skills to a proficient or superior level.
Have you ever engaged in any sport and seen young people develop? You would immediately see that some people just "get it" and are better than others. They are faster, stronger and move better. The superstars are the ones who combine talent with hard work.
My experience with youth sports is that the kids who "just get it" are the ones who have been watching/playing sports since very young with their family and friends. My family wasn't really in to watching sports and it took me a while as a kid to figure out that that's why everyone else on the team knew how to play and I didn't even know the basic rules. Looking back it would have helped me a lot if a practice or two was devoted to learning how the game actually worked.
I did a lot of sports growing up but I had to accept that there are people who start out at a level that I can never achieve no matter how hard I try. I still get a lot of benefit from it but u think it's wrong to tell people they can hang with top athletes if they put in the work. It raises unrealistic expectations.
On the other hand I am much better at software development than a lot of other people with the same background. It was always easy for me to comprehend things and then I also put in a lot of work.
On the other hand I am much better at software development than a lot of other people with the same background. It was always easy for me to comprehend things and then I also put in a lot of work.
I've been a guitar teacher for about 20 years, and my experience disagrees with your feeling. Some people have much more aptitude for the guitar than others; I've had some kids who have picked up playing chords in a tiny fraction of the time that is typical. While generally the ability to learn seems to correlate with their general intelligence level, there have been some who are far better than you would expect.
This is not to say that practice isn't the most reliable way to achieve gains (it is!), but some 'just get it' and have ability (either musical or dextrous) on the instrument that most take a lot longer to achieve.
This is not to say that practice isn't the most reliable way to achieve gains (it is!), but some 'just get it' and have ability (either musical or dextrous) on the instrument that most take a lot longer to achieve.
Something worth mentioning as well is that in order to sustain that level of discipline a person needs to both be observant of their work/practice while also withholding judgment of their ability, otherwise they will wear themselves out fairly quickly.
The example with the musician (the case of K.A) in the article doesn't support the "suddenly" part of the title.
Specifically, that person knew how to play a bunch of songs on the piano - it just didn't click for him until a certain point in life.
If anything, that seems like something was missing from his picture that should have already been there. As in - not seeing the forest behind the tree for a while. It's not a sudden development, it's the opposite.
Of course someone who can play popular music has some form of understanding of basic music theory (chords, harmony, voicing, structure - etc). Just like someone who has been coding for a while has some form of understanding of things like data structures, loop invariants, computational complexity, etc. even if they haven't formally learned them first.
"Whereas he could play simple popular songs from rote memory before", the article says - well, at that point he already was a musician, even if he didn't know what the hell he was doing.
But that's how anybody learns - you do some activity quite a few times, then you start seeing the patterns, then it clicks and becomes your nature. That's why you have exercises - in music, math, science, dance, sport, languag - anything that people learn.
The surprising part is not how sudden the epiphany of seeing the structure came, but rather how awfully long it took and how far he got without seeing the structure.
It's like being able to write down the first 50 terms of the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ...) from sheer memorization only, and only seeing the pattern that makes everything simple after doing it for years for fun.
Must've been awfully difficult.
------------------------
TL;DR: the K.A. example doesn't seem unusual or "sudden" - more like connecting the dots one day.
Specifically, that person knew how to play a bunch of songs on the piano - it just didn't click for him until a certain point in life.
If anything, that seems like something was missing from his picture that should have already been there. As in - not seeing the forest behind the tree for a while. It's not a sudden development, it's the opposite.
Of course someone who can play popular music has some form of understanding of basic music theory (chords, harmony, voicing, structure - etc). Just like someone who has been coding for a while has some form of understanding of things like data structures, loop invariants, computational complexity, etc. even if they haven't formally learned them first.
"Whereas he could play simple popular songs from rote memory before", the article says - well, at that point he already was a musician, even if he didn't know what the hell he was doing.
But that's how anybody learns - you do some activity quite a few times, then you start seeing the patterns, then it clicks and becomes your nature. That's why you have exercises - in music, math, science, dance, sport, languag - anything that people learn.
The surprising part is not how sudden the epiphany of seeing the structure came, but rather how awfully long it took and how far he got without seeing the structure.
It's like being able to write down the first 50 terms of the Fibonacci sequence (1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, ...) from sheer memorization only, and only seeing the pattern that makes everything simple after doing it for years for fun.
Must've been awfully difficult.
------------------------
TL;DR: the K.A. example doesn't seem unusual or "sudden" - more like connecting the dots one day.
I don't think that's really it at all. Most of us have to sit in classrooms for months or read and study to understand the intricacies of music theory. None of that is necessary to learning a few pop songs on a guitar or piano.
You can learn to play songs purely through muscle memory as long as you have a basic sense of rhythm. That doesn't mean you understand anything about musical composition, scales, chords, modes or anything else that underlies what you're playing.
The epiphany described in this case seems like it's suddenly and intuitively understanding all of that, in addition to the layout of the piano (why it takes the form that it does) along with the ability to actually play the thing competently.
I've been playing music for years. I understand a good chunk of theory. I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any stretch, but I understand the layout of the piano. I can't play the damn thing. Waking up one morning and having that ability would certainly be surprising.
You can learn to play songs purely through muscle memory as long as you have a basic sense of rhythm. That doesn't mean you understand anything about musical composition, scales, chords, modes or anything else that underlies what you're playing.
The epiphany described in this case seems like it's suddenly and intuitively understanding all of that, in addition to the layout of the piano (why it takes the form that it does) along with the ability to actually play the thing competently.
I've been playing music for years. I understand a good chunk of theory. I wouldn't consider myself an expert by any stretch, but I understand the layout of the piano. I can't play the damn thing. Waking up one morning and having that ability would certainly be surprising.
^this. I have played guitar for quite some time, starting with basic popular stuff and then progressing to classical guitar. Despite being able to read music and play intermediate pieces I do not have the level of theory/understanding that the article suggests K A gained in his epiphany.
>I do not have the level of theory/understanding
Or do you? Here's the level he gained:
"I suddenly realized what the major scale and minor scale were, what their chords were and where to put my fingers in order to play certain parts of the scale. I was instantly able to recognize harmonies of the scales in songs I knew as well as the ability to play melody by interval recognition.”
Are the italicized concepts unfamiliar to you, after that some time (how long was it?) of playing? And note that KA might have played for longer than you have before getting there - the article doesn't specify.
Or do you? Here's the level he gained:
"I suddenly realized what the major scale and minor scale were, what their chords were and where to put my fingers in order to play certain parts of the scale. I was instantly able to recognize harmonies of the scales in songs I knew as well as the ability to play melody by interval recognition.”
Are the italicized concepts unfamiliar to you, after that some time (how long was it?) of playing? And note that KA might have played for longer than you have before getting there - the article doesn't specify.
I don't think you are disagreeing with what I said:
>Most of us have to sit in classrooms for months or read and study to understand the intricacies of music theory. None of that is necessary to learning a few pop songs on a guitar or piano.
That is not necessary, but once you play enough music, you learn the theory in practice. Or have enough data in your head to make that realization.
I challenge you to play 100 pop songs on an instrument - any pop songs, any instrument - and not at least know things like major/minor chords, basic chord progressions (like the endemic I - V - vi - IV, aka "four chords").
>The epiphany described ... suddenly ... the ability to actually play the thing competently.
>I've been playing music for years [...] Waking up one morning and having that ability [to play piano] would certainly be surprising.
It would be surprising indeed! It also never happened. Not in the article, at least.
Specifically, the article says: he could play simple popular songs from rote memory before
Once you can play simple pop songs, you can play them all. Kathy Perry's songs have as much harmony as the top hits from Beatles or Bob Dylan.
>Most of us have to sit in classrooms for months or read and study to understand the intricacies of music theory. None of that is necessary to learning a few pop songs on a guitar or piano.
That is not necessary, but once you play enough music, you learn the theory in practice. Or have enough data in your head to make that realization.
I challenge you to play 100 pop songs on an instrument - any pop songs, any instrument - and not at least know things like major/minor chords, basic chord progressions (like the endemic I - V - vi - IV, aka "four chords").
>The epiphany described ... suddenly ... the ability to actually play the thing competently.
>I've been playing music for years [...] Waking up one morning and having that ability [to play piano] would certainly be surprising.
It would be surprising indeed! It also never happened. Not in the article, at least.
Specifically, the article says: he could play simple popular songs from rote memory before
Once you can play simple pop songs, you can play them all. Kathy Perry's songs have as much harmony as the top hits from Beatles or Bob Dylan.
> That is not necessary, but once you play enough music, you learn the theory in practice. Or have enough data in your head to make that realization.
No, you really don't. You literally don't even need to know a single note name to be able to play a song from memory. You just need to know which keys to push or strings to pluck and frets to press in what order.
>I challenge you to play 100 pop songs on an instrument - any pop songs, any instrument - and not at least know things like major/minor chords, basic chord progressions (like the endemic I - V - vi - IV, aka "four chords").
Just because you're playing these progressions doesn't mean you have the slightest fucking idea what they are, or why they're numbered that way.
When I was about 6 years old I started learning piano. My parents took me to a teacher who used the Suzuki method. For those unfamiliar, it's a method of musical training that focuses solely on learning by ear with no discussion of theory or sheet music. I did this for years, and I absolutely hated playing the piano for reasons that had nothing to do with the piano itself.
Early in high school I picked up the electric bass, and did what you mentioned above, i.e. I learned a whole pile of pop and rock songs. I also played a bit of guitar around and between all this as well.
This constituted years of experience playing music. And yet, I did not suddenly and independently discover and understand the circle of 5ths. I couldn't tell you why a 7th chord was called a 7th chord. I didn't wake up with an intuitive understanding of time signatures.
I wasn't exposed to any of this stuff until I took a music theory class in college. It was at that point that the 'why' of what I had been doing to make noise on these instruments started to make sense.
And once I did start learning these things, there was still no intuitive sense of where to put my hands on the instrument to play the notes I wanted. I had to fumble around with it to figure out where the notes were.
And now, having spent years after high school playing in live bands in front of paying audiences, I still don't think I'm anywhere near what someone might call a 'great' musician, and my understanding of music theory is really far from complete. I still play all the time and can't sight-read, for example. I have to sit and puzzle out a piece of sheet music.
Additionally, I've read about this particular guy before in greater depth than is discussed in the linked article. Something unusual really did happen in his brain. He somehow gained knowledge and ability far beyond what we would consider normal.
No, you really don't. You literally don't even need to know a single note name to be able to play a song from memory. You just need to know which keys to push or strings to pluck and frets to press in what order.
>I challenge you to play 100 pop songs on an instrument - any pop songs, any instrument - and not at least know things like major/minor chords, basic chord progressions (like the endemic I - V - vi - IV, aka "four chords").
Just because you're playing these progressions doesn't mean you have the slightest fucking idea what they are, or why they're numbered that way.
When I was about 6 years old I started learning piano. My parents took me to a teacher who used the Suzuki method. For those unfamiliar, it's a method of musical training that focuses solely on learning by ear with no discussion of theory or sheet music. I did this for years, and I absolutely hated playing the piano for reasons that had nothing to do with the piano itself.
Early in high school I picked up the electric bass, and did what you mentioned above, i.e. I learned a whole pile of pop and rock songs. I also played a bit of guitar around and between all this as well.
This constituted years of experience playing music. And yet, I did not suddenly and independently discover and understand the circle of 5ths. I couldn't tell you why a 7th chord was called a 7th chord. I didn't wake up with an intuitive understanding of time signatures.
I wasn't exposed to any of this stuff until I took a music theory class in college. It was at that point that the 'why' of what I had been doing to make noise on these instruments started to make sense.
And once I did start learning these things, there was still no intuitive sense of where to put my hands on the instrument to play the notes I wanted. I had to fumble around with it to figure out where the notes were.
And now, having spent years after high school playing in live bands in front of paying audiences, I still don't think I'm anywhere near what someone might call a 'great' musician, and my understanding of music theory is really far from complete. I still play all the time and can't sight-read, for example. I have to sit and puzzle out a piece of sheet music.
Additionally, I've read about this particular guy before in greater depth than is discussed in the linked article. Something unusual really did happen in his brain. He somehow gained knowledge and ability far beyond what we would consider normal.
Well, guess it happens differently to different people. Thank you for talking about how the process went for you!
If you can find the more detailed article about the K.A. from the article, please post it!
If you can find the more detailed article about the K.A. from the article, please post it!
Each of the stories listed are suspicious. They feel like the crop circle hoax to me -- something they planned well to get attention.
Are there any provable cases?
Are there any provable cases?
Im not sure they got their attention because only initials were provided in the article, but i do agree with your sentiment. Also, art is such a subjective practice. If there was a mathematics case i would be much more compelled to believe this.
Here's one related to savant syndrome: "Daniel Tammet first came to worldwide attention in March, 2004 on international Pi Day (3/14 of course) when he recited, from memory, Pi to 22,514 decimal places."
https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-...
https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-...
However, Tammet has been a savant from childhood, so he's a case of a better-known phenomenon. He didn't suddenly acquire previously unknown unusual abilities in adulthood. (Learning conversational Icelandic in a week is amazing, but he already anticipated that he could do it!)
Actually, he had a different name and was a memory competition champion who practiced every day. Instead of mentioning that, he decided to blame his entire abilities on a fever he had as a kid. Not to put him down or anything, but a lot of it is PR.
Under the name Daniel Corney he even advertised PSYCHIC services. Definitely his abilities are incredible, but he also spent hours and years practicing them.
Under the name Daniel Corney he even advertised PSYCHIC services. Definitely his abilities are incredible, but he also spent hours and years practicing them.
Oliver Sacks had some case studies listed in his book "Musicophilia." One was a non-musician doctor who, after an injury, developed an obsession with Chopin's Fantasie Impromptu. He apparently bought a Steinway and learned the piece in a year with no instruction.
The story you are referring to is this one: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Cicoria
It's a fascinating story.
It's a fascinating story.
> Are there any provable cases?
Dr. Tony Cicoria. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/a-bolt-from-th...
Dr. Tony Cicoria. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/07/23/a-bolt-from-th...
From the article, it doesn't seem that unusual: Dr. Cicoria didn't suddenly become an artist, it still took him a bit to get there. Specifically, the "no previous training" from the title simply doesn't apply.
The sudden part was gaining interest and passion in music - and it can be linked to him being struck by lightning.
As for the musical process - hearing music in his head, desire to listen and play, hearing his own music when starting to play other pieces - that's not at all unique. I can't vouch for everyone, but as a musicmaker, I can say that this is how a lot of people make music.
I think it's not that much unlike the flow state in coding, where one wakes up with the problem already loaded in mind, has ideas about structures and algorithms in the shower, and then figures out how to code it all during the day. Writing down the notes is - literally - coding music.
I think that if you can get a song stuck in your head, you also have this potential to hear new music in your head, and thus to make it. It just can get easily drown in all the other noise that life generates. Some people just need a shake to turn the other noise down.
The sudden part was gaining interest and passion in music - and it can be linked to him being struck by lightning.
As for the musical process - hearing music in his head, desire to listen and play, hearing his own music when starting to play other pieces - that's not at all unique. I can't vouch for everyone, but as a musicmaker, I can say that this is how a lot of people make music.
I think it's not that much unlike the flow state in coding, where one wakes up with the problem already loaded in mind, has ideas about structures and algorithms in the shower, and then figures out how to code it all during the day. Writing down the notes is - literally - coding music.
I think that if you can get a song stuck in your head, you also have this potential to hear new music in your head, and thus to make it. It just can get easily drown in all the other noise that life generates. Some people just need a shake to turn the other noise down.
This is fascinating. A few years ago I had a "sudden" musical accomplishment that overlapped with some medical issues. After reading the article, I asked Good Old Dr. Google about my medical condition and the Central Nervous System and... There are some published papers describing some observed links between them.
To be clear, I am in no way, shape or form a savant at anything. Comparing me to these people mentioned would be folly. In my late teens and early twenties, I tried quite a bit to play the guitar and was never very good and I definitely could never sing and strum at the same time. I never touched a guitar again for nearly 20 years until my wife signed me up for a local folk music class. At the very first lesson, I sang and strummed as if it was naturally easy for me, until my fingers were so sore I couldn't make chords anymore. Certainly nobody is going to be paying money to hear me play, but I've received quite a few compliments about how well I do.
To be clear, I am in no way, shape or form a savant at anything. Comparing me to these people mentioned would be folly. In my late teens and early twenties, I tried quite a bit to play the guitar and was never very good and I definitely could never sing and strum at the same time. I never touched a guitar again for nearly 20 years until my wife signed me up for a local folk music class. At the very first lesson, I sang and strummed as if it was naturally easy for me, until my fingers were so sore I couldn't make chords anymore. Certainly nobody is going to be paying money to hear me play, but I've received quite a few compliments about how well I do.
I vaguely remember a story decades ago where a group of Russians were hypnotised to bell eve they were a famous Russian painter, and when out of the trance they could all paint to a high professional standard.
I think what i am trying to say is that such memes have been around for years, and appeal to our "something for nothing" part of our lizard brain.
It's why we all liked the "I know Kung-Fu" line in the matrix.
I think what i am trying to say is that such memes have been around for years, and appeal to our "something for nothing" part of our lizard brain.
It's why we all liked the "I know Kung-Fu" line in the matrix.
Treffert has come up before, and he is bogus. He’s the only one who acknowledges “sudden savant syndrome”, which he made up. I know someone on his list, and I know how that person got on his list. By emailing him, and claiming that after he hit his head, he was a savant. That’s it.
My dad's second wife could draw photorealistically with a pencil from looking at something. She never practiced, never had training, never even showed any enthusiasm for it.
It was one of the most soul-crushing things to witness that. She once drew some animals in my notebook and at school the teachers grabbed it out of my hand and wanted to move me to an art academy. When I told them who actually drew it, and how, they were utterly speechless.
Imagine someone drawing monochrome photorealism as casually as scribbling some stick figures. She couldn't draw anything that she didn't see, but she didn't show any understanding of how incredible that ability is either. And she's now an accountant...
Unfortunately this was 15 years ago or I'd add one of the drawings. But here is something similar (even the detail on the hair):
http://www.remrovsartwork.com/uploads/7/9/8/3/7983811/380163...
It was one of the most soul-crushing things to witness that. She once drew some animals in my notebook and at school the teachers grabbed it out of my hand and wanted to move me to an art academy. When I told them who actually drew it, and how, they were utterly speechless.
Imagine someone drawing monochrome photorealism as casually as scribbling some stick figures. She couldn't draw anything that she didn't see, but she didn't show any understanding of how incredible that ability is either. And she's now an accountant...
Unfortunately this was 15 years ago or I'd add one of the drawings. But here is something similar (even the detail on the hair):
http://www.remrovsartwork.com/uploads/7/9/8/3/7983811/380163...
In a symmetric system are there documented cases of people becoming suddenly very mentally challenged? Or artists or musicians who suddenly one day could no longer paint or play?
This happened to me with Archery and it took over a year to get over. Horrible. For me I think it was caused by hurting myself with the bowstring pretty badly on a botched shot and my mind would just freeze up anticipating that pain... I think. Weird stuff.
There's a book "Drawing on the Right Side of Your Brain" where the author shows before and after self-portraits made by students who attended her five-day (40 hours) drawing course. The difference is immense -- childish drawings before and good realistic portraits after. And she shows the whole group, not just a few prodigies. The whole idea of the book is that drawing is not hard -- the hard thing is to see what is in front of your eyes as opposed to what you mind thinks you're supposed to see. (And this, of course, applies not only to drawing.)
Looks like someone forgot to [COMBINE PARAS]
Nope, they didn't forget to, it's in the past tense: [COMBINED PARAS]
All is well! ^_^
All is well! ^_^
Nope, there is also [COMBINE PARAS] in there as well. I didn't see the COMBINED until later on in the article.
This seems explainable.
Humans typically learn art like GANs learn. We start as children making things and the adults, teachers, etc start grading and encouraging/discouraging us, providing the feedback we learn from.
As we grow up, we all to some degree learn what art we like, and what good art is. But some people learn this better than others, and some people learn more finely tuned discrimination than others. One doesn't need to be an artist to have good taste.
It seems like if you are a non-artistic adult who learned exceptional taste, then you are held back by only technique and creativity. If you are creative and/or lucky when you first decide to try to make something, even without technique you'll make much more progress than the average person. Then, so encouraged by the progress, you'll focus obsessively on technique and improvement.
Once it starts, this learning process can proceed much more quickly than the typical child learning process, because it doesn't have to wait for others to provide the feedback.
Et voila, adult sudden savant.
Humans typically learn art like GANs learn. We start as children making things and the adults, teachers, etc start grading and encouraging/discouraging us, providing the feedback we learn from.
As we grow up, we all to some degree learn what art we like, and what good art is. But some people learn this better than others, and some people learn more finely tuned discrimination than others. One doesn't need to be an artist to have good taste.
It seems like if you are a non-artistic adult who learned exceptional taste, then you are held back by only technique and creativity. If you are creative and/or lucky when you first decide to try to make something, even without technique you'll make much more progress than the average person. Then, so encouraged by the progress, you'll focus obsessively on technique and improvement.
Once it starts, this learning process can proceed much more quickly than the typical child learning process, because it doesn't have to wait for others to provide the feedback.
Et voila, adult sudden savant.
Our minds are driven, pattern-finding engines. Much of what we 'discover' is done 'behind the scenes'. E.g. 'he woke up with the answer'.
Many musicians have related how they learned how to 'channel' ... open themselves to write-down or perform 'incoming transmissions' as it were.
Shouldn't surprise us too much. How often do we start talking about something - at length - without prior deliberation ... as if we just opened a valve?
It's as if, once the engine has 'figured out' the patterns, we just ... turn it on.
Many musicians have related how they learned how to 'channel' ... open themselves to write-down or perform 'incoming transmissions' as it were.
Shouldn't surprise us too much. How often do we start talking about something - at length - without prior deliberation ... as if we just opened a valve?
It's as if, once the engine has 'figured out' the patterns, we just ... turn it on.
*Some become accomplished artists or musicians through self-training.
Because only officially recognized and/or terribly expensive training is the only way to become high-skilled in anything. /s
Because only officially recognized and/or terribly expensive training is the only way to become high-skilled in anything. /s
The connection of savant syndrome to brain injuries is interesting as well.
There are some links in the article to be followed. This one has links to additional info:
https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-...
There are some links in the article to be followed. This one has links to additional info:
https://www.wisconsinmedicalsociety.org/professional/savant-...
Funny, I've been wondering for years if something similar would be possible intentionally. Like deliberately adding relaxation and concentration to a new activity and at the same time becoming devoid of the conviction that one shouldn't be able to do what one currently does.
Doing it instead of trying to do it.
Who is judging the skill of these sudden savants?
Aside from code, I draw and paint well (art school) and have built my own furniture. I know I am far from an expert.
However to people who's last artistic endeavour was finger painting as a kid, my skills appear expert. I don't think they could tell apart the skill of a real practicing artist vs me, they have no foundation to judge from.
One day I want to take off 3 months, and lose myself in learning to play the piano, 4+ hours a day. I suspect I will be pretty good at the end, but judged as far better a player than I really am!
Aside from code, I draw and paint well (art school) and have built my own furniture. I know I am far from an expert.
However to people who's last artistic endeavour was finger painting as a kid, my skills appear expert. I don't think they could tell apart the skill of a real practicing artist vs me, they have no foundation to judge from.
One day I want to take off 3 months, and lose myself in learning to play the piano, 4+ hours a day. I suspect I will be pretty good at the end, but judged as far better a player than I really am!
From what I've read and heard, it's pretty advanced stuff. In some of the clips I've listened to they'll hear a random excerpt of Romantic period music (say, 20 seconds worth), and the person will immediately play it back on the piano at tempo.
Now, if you played back the intro to Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, would the savant give the full duration to that tied dotted sixteenth note from the first chord? Could they play back the first page of Ligeti's tempo fugue etude? I'm not sure, but what they do is already well beyond what even trained professional musicians can achieve.
Digression-- our idea of what constitutes "advanced" can get a little out of hand with myths that have been handed down over the years. Even Mozart "cheated" every now and then. One contemporaneous composer noted that when he requested that (child) Mozart sight read a difficult piano sonata, Mozart improvised the development section because it was too difficult to sight read it.
Now, if you played back the intro to Beethoven's Pathetique Sonata, would the savant give the full duration to that tied dotted sixteenth note from the first chord? Could they play back the first page of Ligeti's tempo fugue etude? I'm not sure, but what they do is already well beyond what even trained professional musicians can achieve.
Digression-- our idea of what constitutes "advanced" can get a little out of hand with myths that have been handed down over the years. Even Mozart "cheated" every now and then. One contemporaneous composer noted that when he requested that (child) Mozart sight read a difficult piano sonata, Mozart improvised the development section because it was too difficult to sight read it.
In at least one case I’m aware of, it’s the savants themselves. Treffert wants his pet theory to be true so badly that self-attestation is enough for him to count you.
[deleted]
Fascinating. It would be interesting to learn whether there was prior exposure to, e.g., music theory that allowed the unfolding in the mind later on in life.
Uh, is this a draft of the article? What is with the "Combine paragraphs" and "detail[derail?]"?
That's incredible! It gives us all the gift of something to hope for.
A family member of mine went from speaking only English to learning 11+ foreign languages once given exposure.
No leading indicators this would have been the outcome.
No leading indicators this would have been the outcome.
For example: if you learned to ride a bike as a kid, you'll remember a moment where your balance just "locked in" and there you were riding for an arbitrary amount of time.
Now take twelve-bar blues on the piano: say you spend some weeks or months learning some bass patterns in your left hand. Maybe you learn a simple melody for the right hand. Then you put them together. Then you learn a few "riffs" for the right hand.
If you keep practicing consistently, at some point you develop your coordination in your left hand to the point that you've got a steady rhythm in the bass line. And you won't stop playing that bass line even if you mess up in the right hand.
No longer are you merely practicing the parts that go into playing the blues, you are practicing playing the blues by actually playing the blues. And each time you play a chorus, you have aural feedback you can use to decide whether the things you played in your right hand are worthwhile or undesirable. You can even play a thing which you did not intend that turns out to work, and use it later.
Essentially, you can now cycle through the blues form an arbitrary number of times. That's an epiphany, and it feels the same as the moment you learn to cycle an arbitrary number of times on a bicycle.
There are similar epiphanies when learning to construct a melody over a pentatonic scale, and an even stronger one when learning how to construct a melody over an octatonic scale. Those moments are so intense that a lot of musicians end up just stopping there because it's so much fun.