Chapter 3 - When Less of the Same Is More
Range Blueprint
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The First Book: Range by David Epstein
David Epstein examined the world’s most successful athletes, artists, musicians, inventors, forecasters, and scientists. He discovered that in most fields—especially those that are complex and unpredictable—generalists, not specialists, are primed to excel. Generalists often find their path late, and they juggle many interests rather than focusing on one. They’re also more creative, more agile, and able to make connections their more specialized peers can’t see.
Who should read this?
All books have a thesis they attempt to answer, and Range's subtitle gives away the thesis right on the cover!
Why generalists succeed in a specialized world?
If the quote," jack of all trades, master of none." resonates with you, this book will fascinate you. Or if you are a curious person might berate themselves having too many interests. The book is about being broadly curious to solve problems more effectively.
If you missed the previous chapters you can find them here:
Chapter 3 - When Less of the Same Is More
Figlie del Coro
The Ospedale della Pietà was a convent, orphanage, and music school in Venice. Like other Venetian ospedali, the Pietà was first established as a hospice for the needy. A group of Venetian nuns called the Consorelle di Santa Maria dell'Umiltà established this charitable institution for orphans and abandoned girls in the fourteenth century. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the Pietà and the three other charitable Ospedali Grandi were well known for its all-female musical ensembles that attracted tourists and patrons from around Europe.
These girls were the seventh-century equivalent of rock stars. The question remains how?
They took singing lessons and learned to play every instrument their institution owned. It helped that they were paid for learning new skills as well. This unique breadth of skills pushed the composer's talents. This is the equivalent of the musical laboratory to experiment with unlimited resources. In my mind, this feels similar to music software tools in the modern era; rather than requiring the skill to play the instruments, you can take prerecorded or generated sounds to create compositions with little effort.
Again this probably sets off alarm bells of common thoughts we all hear or grew up with - specialize early and don't waste time learning outside of the chosen field. Especially in music, you pick on and stick with it. But in this common train of thought, there is one facet that gets much less attention—the sampling period.
Sampling Period
What do we know about music and skill acquisition?
The most successful students only start practicing more once they select an instrument they want to focus on. The instrument drives the student. From one study cited in the book on page 66, "a mismatch between the instruments [they] wanted to learn to play and the instruments they actually played."
Another quote, "It seems very clear that sheer amount of lesson or practice time is not a good indicator of exceptionality." There seems to be a variety of musical development. The most common fit this theme
A sampling period - lightly structured with some lessons, often lightly structured with some lessons and breadth of activities. This is followed by a narrowed focus, structure, and increased practice volume.
Breaking Convention - Improv Masters
Jack Cecchini is of a rare form, having stumbled across the guitar by chance. What's even more interesting besides his talent is the charisma he has as a teacher. If you check out his website, there are short videos jam-packed with knowledge.
One phrase that caught my attention was I will call playgrounds; for him, he could go out and play the guitar in front of people wherever he could get work, he would go. "Nowadays where do you pay your dues?"
Once more, a teacher leads students to the door, but it's up to them to step through the threshold. Getting each student to the door is unique.
Another example is Django Reinhardt. Reinhardt's most popular compositions have become standards within gypsy jazz. Django could not read words or music yet still remembered as "the single of the most important guitarists in jazz history." The story takes an even more unreal turn at 18. He was in an accident and burned over half of his body. His pinkie and ring finger of the left (fret hand) would hang uselessly off the strings for the rest of his life.
In Jack Cecchini's words, "Watch this." - Django Reinhardt CLIP performing live 1945.
"Improv masters learn like babies: they dive in and imitate and improvise first, learn the formal rules later."
Here lies the core of this chapter. When we learn with many rules in place, we have a more challenging time stepping outside of them as we age.
"The more contexts in which something is learned, the more the learner creates abstract models and the less they rely on any particular example. Learners become better at applying their knowledge to a situation they've never seen before, which is the essence of creativity."
Quote from Jack Cecchini, "I could show somebody in two minutes what would take them years to screw around on the fingerboard like I did. You now know what's right or what's wrong. You don't have that in your head. You're just trying to find a solution to problems, and after fifty lifetimes, it starts to come together for you. It's slow, but at the same time, there's something to learn that way."
This quote might be one of my favorite passages in the whole book. Maybe looking at optimizing all of the time is the wrong way to go about it. Perhaps we should explore and solve problems because we want to. At the end of the day, have fun.
