Pay attention to the man behind the curtain

But why do you knit, then purl in order to create stockinette stitch? And why does it curl?

When I was fourteen or so, I really struggled to read music. 

I knew what the names of the lines and spaces were, but that was the extent of it. Every note had to be decoded, one at a time, in order for me to be able to play a piece.

I would still have to then practice it over and over for it to be smooth. That took a long time, and I would end up “re-decoding” notes multiple times in order to remember what I was doing.

I had no understanding of the system. I didn’t know why Schumann or Bach or Mendelssohn chose these notes in the first place or how they worked together — I could only conceive of them one at a time. 

That is not how musicians think, of course. I began to understand this when I learned music theory. Once I grasped the system that the notes were part of, I saw that they were grouped together into scales and chords. I could then recognize these patterns when they showed up in the music. I could identify them whether I heard them or saw them. At that point, I was able to read music almost as easily as words — no decoding necessary.

When I made this connection, I wondered why no one had explained this to me before. Why hadn’t anyone taught me the system behind the notes? I suppose it was just assumed that once I learned the notes, I could intuit the system, but that’s not always the way it works.

This same dynamic shows up in other areas. For example, many older adults haven’t learned the conventions of the modern user interface design of devices like phones, computers, tablets, and televisions. Instead of smoothly executing a task without consciously thinking about it, they have to memorize the places to click or tap. If anything changes (for instance, in the case of the dreaded software update), they have to memorize the new pattern. It isn’t intuitive for them.

Another common challenge is operations with fractions. Instead of understanding part-to-whole relationships conceptually, lots of desperate ten-year-olds have simply memorized the procedures related to adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing fractions. However, without a clear understanding of why these procedures work, they are constantly second-guessing themselves. Do I change the denominators? Do I add the numerators or multiply them? They can’t intuit the intent of a word problem because they can’t visualize what’s happening. Like my middle school struggles with music, they are getting lost somewhere in the decoding process and nothing locks into place.

Whether you’re studying a foreign language, building a chair, or learning to code, there is a structure behind what you’re doing. The trouble is, it’s not always easy for the beginner to see. When we’re new at something, we just don’t have the library of patterns and the experience to spot them.

That’s why it’s so helpful to have a teacher or coach. However, if your teacher is not actively helping you to understand the system — or answers your “why” questions with “Don’t worry about that right now,” or “It’s a lot to get into,” you need a new one. Yes, it will slow you down at first if you insist on experimenting to find out how something works or why the rule is the rule, but in the long run, it will accelerate your progress.

Too many people stall out completely because they can’t memorize all the steps — steps which an expert doesn’t memorize because they are seeing a process unfold. If you are stuck, ditch the algorithm and delve into the messy back-end until it doesn’t seem messy anymore. You will begin to see in a new way. There’s nothing more satisfying.