A Quote
“One reason why play is such an ideal state of mind for creativity and learning is because the mind is focused on means. Since the ends are understood as secondary, fear of failure is absent and players feel free to incorporate new sources of information and to experiment with new ways of doing things.”
Source: Peter Gray
A Thought
I’m a very limited ukulele player, but one thing I like to do each day is spend a few minutes working on the transition between a couple of chords. Four bars of one, four bars of the other, repeat.
A strange thing happens when I do this. After a short amount of time I stop hearing the note and start hearing the things around and between it: resonance, fingers on strings, heaviness, lightness, etc.
It becomes meditative, hypnotic even, and this allows my mind to open into an explorative state where I am alert to and accepting of ‘accidents’ and imperfections. Small slips lead to realisations there are different ways to ‘attack’ the strings, and this creates new rhythms within the repeated chords.
I know from playing cricket that you can significantly change how the ball moves with slight, subtle variations of hand and finger placement. It had never occurred to me that this also worked in music. Until, that is, I had time to repeat chords and listen deeply.
Repetition is something that is often associated with rote, skill-and-drill learning. In these instances, repetition is seen as a way to get something into the brain. Typically, this is something imposed on a learner, and in doing so, while ‘effective’, it loses its power.
But when repetition is something a learner has control of, those repeated ‘actions’ mean that connections are made and deepened. In this case, it’s not so much getting something into the brain as it is connecting things within the brain, via an outward experience.
Each day, the way I play is slightly different. I also listen differently. These combine to make me think differently. Because I’m in control of the repetitive action, and the environment makes it easy for me to do it each day, my learning evolves in a way that is meaningful and sticky.
And I can’t stop going back, over and over and over …
An Action
Combine the physical with the cognitive.
Are there 5 minutes in the day where students can choose to do one thing, over and over?
Make sure the environment makes it easy for them to repeat the action, day after day.
I wonder what this will allow students to get in tune with?