Learning is creating and encoding patterns in our brains within the context of existing patterns and networks. ‘Creating patterns’ means a mix of new connections and strengthening or damping existing connections. Learning something new is embedding it in a living network, using whatever existing and new network patterns are apt. Remembering something you’ve learned re-plasticizes it: every time you remember something you change it. This is how memory works.
For a general reference on what we know about learning, Ben Carey’s book ‘How We Learn’ is the place to start. Supplement with this.
What does ‘learning to play music on the guitar’ mean? Encoding the physical, temporal, emotional, cognitive, and motor elements of a song into memory at both the musical and the performance levels.
Great. Super-helpful. Learning is encoding content into memory. This is like defining ‘dog’ as an animal having the characteristics of being a dog.
Music is encoded in a lot of ways. Memories of a song might include the melody, how to play it with your fingers, how you want it to sound, how it sounds now, how it makes you feel (physically, emotionally), the names of the notes, names or concepts for musical structures, whose performance is your favorite or your reference, passages where you want to consciously remind yourself to relax your shoulders, which parts you’re having trouble with, the place of the song in a suite or in relation to other songs by the same composer, the genre of the song, what other songs the melody reminds you of, big spatial jumps in the performance, what the score looks like in problematic passages, and so on: each of these is distinct and will have a distinct encoding and location and network connectivity in the brain and mind. Every one of these examples is multiple things.
We think of music as a noun. It’s a verb. Learning music is a lot of interrelated and mutually-influencing things. None of the authors put it like this, but it’s hard to imagine any would disagree.
Self-regulation, learning how to manage your own learning, is likely more complex.
Learning is pragmatic. There’s a spiritual aspect as well. `Spiritual’ is a too-elastic word; to bring it into focus, consider older players. We will decline. We will be less dextrous, less quick at learning new things, and will see things we formerly could do effortlessly become challenges we might not be able to overcome. The long arc of our practice is to get less rather than more capable. As well, our emotional volatility moderates; that may be good for developing wisdom, but music may benefit from vivid, spontaneous emotion. For younger players, a ceiling will be reached, soon or later, beyond which gifts of physical expression can’t be developed. If music, making music, is to be a lifelong engagement, then practicing the process of practicing in such a way that it is satisfying in itself is essential. Practice in this sense is akin to meditation.
This creates a wonderful tension. Rigorous practice is the farthest thing from vague or undefined; at the same time, the music of it is to express as much of our felt inner self as we can; and again at the same time, our practice is a self-nourishment independent of progress or decline. Passion, dispassion, and soul interwoven.
Learning music on guitar 