Ben-Coyle-Ch2

 

The second chapter of “The Talent Code” is somewhat technical in nature, describing the so-called “deep practice cell” in the brain called myelin. Myelin, author Daniel Coyle explains, is “the insulation that wraps [nerve fibers] and increases signal strength, speed, and accuracy.” The more frequent circuits are fired, the more myelin optimizes the circuit. One of my favorite sentences in this chapter is “Struggle is not an option: it’s a biological requirement.” The struggle is what builds myelin. Coyle also points about that skill is like muscle. Another aspect of this chapter that stood out to me is that the theory that short-term memory can only keep track of seven independent pieces of information was proven to be wrong.

I think this chapter is quite inspirational. The teachings of this chapter directly imply that essentially anyone can learn to sing. Coyle quotes Dr. Ericsson saying “there’s no cell type that geniuses have that the rest of us don’t.” Simply stated, all that stands between a voice student and achieving proficiency in vocal abilities is approximately 10,000 hours of deep practice. While 10,000 hours may sound like a lot, Coyle also points out that a sort of “transfer learning” can occur. “Transfer learning” is not a term used by Coyle, but it is used in machine learning. Essentially, a deep learning model trained to distinguish pictures of dogs and cats has “learned” things that pertain to distinguishing sedans and trucks. This phenomenon in human learning is alluded to as Coyle talks about savants being “magically” able to solve Rubik's cubes and the like.

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