Caden Webb: Coyle Chapters 3-4

 Ch. 3: One of the things I really enjoyed about this chapter was the constant notion that skill is not something you are just born with. True artists/masters of their crafts worked countless, tireless hours to get to where they ended up. Even Beethoven was forced to practice countless hours in his youth, which explains his insane skill in composition when he became an adult. I also love that Coyle points out that true skill and genius come through time and practice. The example of the Brontes sisters was fascinating in that the fact that even though they wrote novels at such a young age, it didn't mean they were anything special. At least not yet. This whole chapter reminds me a lot of the quote from Pixar's "Ratatouille." In the movie, the famous chef Gusteau says, "Anyone can cook." But in the world of music, I think this can easily be turned into, "Anyone can play." Given the right circumstances and passion, anyone has the potential to be truly great. 


Ch. 4: It was nice that this chapter had a much more music-centered analogy. For me at least, I was able to understand this chapter a lot more. It also opened my eyes to my own way of practicing. One of the things I've been taught when approaching a new aria is to always learn the text first, then the notes. I understand that idea better now after reading this chapter. So as an example, I'm learning a rather difficult French aria at the moment. But even though the language is rather difficult, it is musically quite challenging too. For a long time, I had been practicing just trying to learn the song as fast as possible, brute-forcing my way through it each time, making countless mistakes, but never immediately trying to fix them. As you can imagine, I haven't made a lot of progress on truly solidifying my knowledge of the piece. But after reading this chapter, I remembered that I actually have practiced the way that Coyle describes. When I did Schumann's "Dichterliebe" my freshman year, I started by learning the text, then setting it to music in chunks, then putting it all together and finally experimenting with the emotions of the piece as the last step. When I look back at that performance, I am still proud of it, even though it was almost two years ago. Why? Because I had truly practiced it in an effective, chunk-by-chunk manner, just as Coyle has described in this chapter.

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