Practically Practicing
"Practice is the best of all instructors." - Publilius
Every once an a while I snap a picture with my point-and-press camera that, when viewed later, managed to capture the moment. The header image is one of those captured moments. Over 15 years ago, I was in Italy on honeymoon. While visiting the Duomo in Siena, Italy, I captured this image of a street musician. It's clear why he chose this location. The acoustics were awesome as was his performance.
This picture, and a few others, serve as inspiration and motivation to practice playing music. I've played piano for over 50 years and about 20 years ago I began studying cello. More recently, I began studying guitar so I would have an instrument to play that was more portable than the cello.
I love the cello. My interest was rekindled when the lockdowns hit and sent me looking for on-line instruction. I wanted to find live instruction since streaming video had advanced considerably in the last 10 years and the lockdowns accelerated this process. This was a remarkably good experience, given that everything was locked down. It was much better than static videos, but not as good as in-person 1:1 instruction.
Since I'm new to the guitar, the videos from several sites are serving me well. What I'm starting to struggle with, though, is the recurrent issue of staying engaged and motivated. What's easy to do with in-person instruction can be a considerable challenge when studying on my own. Frequently, a video would leave me with more questions than answers. It felt as if I wasn't quite practicing what I needed to focus on. Not surprisingly, most videos are laden with prompts to sign up for lessons. I have no problem with that, but I don't want to commit to a teacher if all I have is one question. And I don't know enough yet to reliably evaluate a potential teacher.
Here's where I'm thinking I might be able to develop an on-line community of like-minded people interested in mastering...well, anything, but would like to have a resource that can fill in the gaps between in-person instruction or coaching. I've been thinking about this since long before I picked up the guitar. And my experiences with trying to sort out what I needed to practice from generic instructions inspired a play-on-words title for the community: Practically Practicing.
The official blurb as of this post:
Practically Practicing seeks to be a nexus for information related to deliberate practice irrespective of the subject. It's a place for mastery-seekers to connect and share stories, experiences, advice, techniques, tools, and empirical research related to the Art of Practicing. The expanding latticework of wisdom contained within the community's forum will help all mastery-seekers smooth their transition from the frustrations of beginning to the joys of mastery in their chosen pursuits.
Here's my hypothesis. I've written previously on the limits of platforms like Substack, Wordpress, and Facebook:
The thing that frustrates me about platforms like Substack and Wordpress is that a lot of what I and others write quickly disappears into the dark recesses of the Archives Tomb. Like the stacks of walk-in libraries, articles slip from the place where they are visible and can be read into a place where only the curious or determined venture: Storage. I don't fault such platforms. They're fit for purpose. Even though Substack and Wordpress aren't designed for the get-to-the-next-damn-thing FOMO doom scrolling found on Facebook, X, or Bluesky, they are nonetheless subject to prevailing rules of the attention economy. So until someone figures out a platform that combines the best of Substack, the power of Obsidian vaults, and the convenience of a local AI queries, it is what it is. Limited.
It's a consequence of information that's presented serially. It quickly gets buried. Substack, et al. are pretty to look at, but something like a forum, while ugly and often intimidating, is easier to search and more dynamic in a way that invites ongoing participation from members and readers. This is what makes Stack Exchange so valuable.
But isn't AI busy gutting any and all forums, you might ask? Why not just fire up an AI engine and get on with our journey toward mastery?
Fair questions. However, several elements central to my hypothesis are:
AI is likely to come up short when working to solve complex individual problems. This is readily apparent in cases where hapless individual's seek mental/emotional help from AI. It's not ending well for them.
A silver lining to the covid lock-downs is that many people have begun to recognize the value in human-to-human contact and communication. Not most, but enough to where I think there may be a place for a community like I'm proposing.
From my perspective, this venture is very similar to what I'm seeking to accomplish with The Remnant's Way. What I (and others) learn and think about regarding practicing and mastery will be found as posts in Discourse and perhaps eventually find they way onto a platform like Substack. Maybe. As for the website...I just don't know what it will offer yet. Perhaps tools for practicing - like a daily practice journal or the sight reading application I developed previously.
Competition is thick for a community like this, so I'm not sure how well this will do. I expect I'll be a solitary traveler in this little world. For a while, at least. But I won't know unless I give it a go. I'm committed for the long-haul, even if the community forum is filled with mostly my posts.
So here it is. I've hit the "GO!" button. A dedicated website and Substack newsletter have been set up and are serving as placeholders for now while the Discourse site is up and running. Let me know what you think of this little venture. What I'd really like to know is how I can grow participation, so any and all suggestions and shared experiences are most welcome.
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Image credit: Author