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Currently at Toronto Pearson: -13. High today: 0, at midnight. Looks like tomorrow night, if not tonight, will most likely be the last night it breaks -10 this winter. I've got March 25, 2:15 p.m. in the UW first-time-to-20-degrees contest. That'd be fifteen degrees above normal, so, you know, not exactly likely, but then no particular time is.
Sometimes trying to play a passage on the piano has the same annoying quality as trying to remember your phone number. You just know your phone number, until it happens that you try to remember it. When you have to try to remember it, you can have a hell of a time trying to remember it. But then you remember it, and (maybe once you get past wondering whether that's really your phone number, or your old phone number, or one digit off of your phone number) then you just know it again. Until you have to try to remember it again. (You can't play anything of any difficulty on the piano without relying almost entirely on "muscle memory". But you also can't play anything of any difficulty reliably if you rely entirely on muscle memory. My piano teacher's main struggle with me was to get me to "analyze" things rather than counting on muscle memory to get me through them. (If I could go back in time and tell myself something about playing the piano, it would be: fingering is REALLY IMPORTANT, what is wrong with you.))
The main thing I had wanted to say about "flow" and piano-playing (prompted by a comment on this, about some bits of which I may have something to say sometime) is that I am basically never in a state of flow while playing the piano. Actually, often, I'm in something much more like the state of "boredom" that Benjamin says was the lifeblood of storytelling:
If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away. His nesting places--the activities that are intimately associated with boredom--are already extinct in the cities and are declining in the country as well. With this the gift for listening is lost and the community of listeners disappears. For storytelling is always the art of repeating stories, and this art is lost when the stories are no longer retained. It is lost because there is no more weaving and spinning to go on while they are being listened to. The more self-forgetful the listener is, the more deeply is what he listens to impressed upon his memory. When the rhythm of work has seized him, he listens to the tales in such a way that the gift of retelling them comes to him all by itself. This, then, is the nature of the web in which the gift of storytelling is cradled. This is how today it is becoming unraveled at all its ends after being woven thousands of years ago in the ambience of the oldest form of craftsmanship.
"Boredom" in German is Langeweile, the pieces of which (can) mean pretty much what they sound like they mean: long while. A state of boredom is kind of the opposite of a state of flow; in flow, time is supposed to pass in a blink, as you're completely absorbed in what you're doing. (People who are impressed with the idea that flow is "optimal experience" ought to think hard about the fact that Csikszentmihalyi himself identifies video games as a source of flow states. Now, you know, being not only a big fan of sports but someone who thinks sports are actually really important, I can't be all down on video games. But I can remember countless hours of my life going down the tubes playing Minesweeper.) When I'm playing the piano I think about everything. This used to make me nuts when I was playing for exams or recitals or otherwise being evaluated, because I can hardly ever get through anything without running off the rails somewhere. You can play with divided attention, but you can't play with no attention, and as long as your attention is divided, there's a possibility of it running away completely (and then you're left trying to remember your phone number). But: for the most part, I'm happier that way. (More on that, um, someday, somewhere.) Sounds terrible to say that playing the piano, for you, is "boring", that your mind inevitably wanders all over when you're doing it, eh? (I should say, it's not really boring in the ordinary sense, and I guess largely not even in Benjamin's sense--it just has something important in common with Benjamin's sense.) Yeah, but: try just concentrating, focussing, on just one thing, any one thing, just that, don't let your attention waver--the closer you get to not moving your attentive focus, the more the thing disappears. (The classic gimmicky example is: try to feel just one thing, with your fingers. Don't move your fingers. Just feel that one thing. First of all, you can't feel texture if you don't move your fingers--and then, within seconds, the thing is gone altogether.)
I had written some stuff here angsting about the fact that nearly half of the students enrolled in my course this term have dropped, and my hypothesis as to why, but, eh, who needs it. ( Here's some chickadees: )
Sometimes trying to play a passage on the piano has the same annoying quality as trying to remember your phone number. You just know your phone number, until it happens that you try to remember it. When you have to try to remember it, you can have a hell of a time trying to remember it. But then you remember it, and (maybe once you get past wondering whether that's really your phone number, or your old phone number, or one digit off of your phone number) then you just know it again. Until you have to try to remember it again. (You can't play anything of any difficulty on the piano without relying almost entirely on "muscle memory". But you also can't play anything of any difficulty reliably if you rely entirely on muscle memory. My piano teacher's main struggle with me was to get me to "analyze" things rather than counting on muscle memory to get me through them. (If I could go back in time and tell myself something about playing the piano, it would be: fingering is REALLY IMPORTANT, what is wrong with you.))
The main thing I had wanted to say about "flow" and piano-playing (prompted by a comment on this, about some bits of which I may have something to say sometime) is that I am basically never in a state of flow while playing the piano. Actually, often, I'm in something much more like the state of "boredom" that Benjamin says was the lifeblood of storytelling:
If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experience. A rustling in the leaves drives him away. His nesting places--the activities that are intimately associated with boredom--are already extinct in the cities and are declining in the country as well. With this the gift for listening is lost and the community of listeners disappears. For storytelling is always the art of repeating stories, and this art is lost when the stories are no longer retained. It is lost because there is no more weaving and spinning to go on while they are being listened to. The more self-forgetful the listener is, the more deeply is what he listens to impressed upon his memory. When the rhythm of work has seized him, he listens to the tales in such a way that the gift of retelling them comes to him all by itself. This, then, is the nature of the web in which the gift of storytelling is cradled. This is how today it is becoming unraveled at all its ends after being woven thousands of years ago in the ambience of the oldest form of craftsmanship.
"Boredom" in German is Langeweile, the pieces of which (can) mean pretty much what they sound like they mean: long while. A state of boredom is kind of the opposite of a state of flow; in flow, time is supposed to pass in a blink, as you're completely absorbed in what you're doing. (People who are impressed with the idea that flow is "optimal experience" ought to think hard about the fact that Csikszentmihalyi himself identifies video games as a source of flow states. Now, you know, being not only a big fan of sports but someone who thinks sports are actually really important, I can't be all down on video games. But I can remember countless hours of my life going down the tubes playing Minesweeper.) When I'm playing the piano I think about everything. This used to make me nuts when I was playing for exams or recitals or otherwise being evaluated, because I can hardly ever get through anything without running off the rails somewhere. You can play with divided attention, but you can't play with no attention, and as long as your attention is divided, there's a possibility of it running away completely (and then you're left trying to remember your phone number). But: for the most part, I'm happier that way. (More on that, um, someday, somewhere.) Sounds terrible to say that playing the piano, for you, is "boring", that your mind inevitably wanders all over when you're doing it, eh? (I should say, it's not really boring in the ordinary sense, and I guess largely not even in Benjamin's sense--it just has something important in common with Benjamin's sense.) Yeah, but: try just concentrating, focussing, on just one thing, any one thing, just that, don't let your attention waver--the closer you get to not moving your attentive focus, the more the thing disappears. (The classic gimmicky example is: try to feel just one thing, with your fingers. Don't move your fingers. Just feel that one thing. First of all, you can't feel texture if you don't move your fingers--and then, within seconds, the thing is gone altogether.)
I had written some stuff here angsting about the fact that nearly half of the students enrolled in my course this term have dropped, and my hypothesis as to why, but, eh, who needs it. ( Here's some chickadees: )
