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Are you resistant to change?
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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 Are you resistant to change?
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It's interesting that most people believe they aren't resistant to change--and they resist changing their mind on that subject with great ferocity! I have recently realized, with heroic effort, that in many ways I, too, am resistant to change.
For example, in speaking about the guitar when people challenge my ideas, I tend to rise to their defence, often not giving the challenge enough thought to actually debate its merits. One time, I had come to the thought that the left hand was a vise--well, good ol Jon corrected me and said that the proper use of the LH was more arm weight, that the thumb was not to be used as a vise at all. I fought it! Well, I have since realized that the key to LH use, at least for me, really is weight--Jon was right.
And when I started out playing lots of Paco scales, Ron told me that it's better to play a simple thing really well, with aire, than a complex thing badly. I fought that, too! Well, I have since realized that not only is it better to do as he said, it may actually be essential to actually reaching the ability to play complex things well. Ron was right, I was wrong.
A lot of us, maybe most of us, have a lot invested in being "right." My wife seems to find it astounding that if we disagree upon a word, I will look it up in the dictionary. If we disagree about some actor, I may Google him to find out if he was in a particular movie. I guess it's just a component of my personality, and other people's as well.
To swing this discussion to guitar, I think we can agree that to some degree, the virtuoso player is "right." We may not like what he says, his communication skills may be poor or twisted, but at least we can agree that it works for him. The question is, how "right" can a non-expert player be about playing?
My point is this: it is a tendency of most of us, myself included, to think our ideas are right--about basically anything. We think our ideas about politics are right, our ideas about religion are right, our ideas about how to make barre chords are right. But if we were so right, we would be much better players, wouldn't we?
In my case, by changing my mind, I became able to play barres with absolute ease, where before they were torture. By changing my mind--acknowledging my mistake--I improved my performances a huge amount. I am starting to believe that this is a component of learning--the ability to change--to resist our inherent resistance to it.
Studies consistently show that people make up their mind, then find reasons to back it up. This is certainly not the "scientific method," and it is not the way people would describe their decision making processes. Yet it is how the human brain operates--not like a computer, but more mysteriously, more quickly and efficiently and sometimes fraught with unpredictable twists.
This somewhat unsavory fact must be overcome if we are to make great strides. We have to change the way we think--and change is hard.
When I listened to Paco play picado, my whole forearm would tense, my hands would become an immobile claw. This was my reaction, my way of mimicking him. Yet it should seem obvious that this kind of muscular tension is not the way to achieve speed! Our instincts sometimes fail us.
As I move forward in this thing, I wonder how to overcome the bias of thinking I am right, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. It would seem that everytime I find something I am sure of, that I hold with unquestioning faith, I should attack it and see if it holds up to reason. Doing this systematically might be the key to improving as a player! It may actually be that each time I am wrong, I actually win.
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Date Apr. 14 2006 17:19:27
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Are you resistant to change? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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The whole point of debate is that both sides stick to their guns, right or wrong, in order to explore thoroughly all the avenues. People like to believe in whatever makes sense to them, seems logical, or whatever they have blind faith in. "Paco said...Grisha said....etc". Nothing wrong with holding down your idea to the end, but what is "the end?" For me it is when all the possible avenues have been explored and you realize you are wrong. You have to change and accept whatever it is as the truth. Be honest with yourself. That is the point, to get at what is going on truely. But you can't look at it as "I was wrong, I lose...what an idiot I was...". You have to be willing to accept and grow from your previous mistakes.
Someone asked Paco, how to you keep track of time, do you think of beats, what about synchopation? His answer was, you just have to feel it, don't think about it. Like riding a horse, you move into a gallop and keep it. Great wisdom and truth there, but is that a helpful answer? How about for a student who can't play a barre chord?
Everyone has an opinion and point of view, and unless quoting some outside party, I don't see the point of constantly reiterating that on the internet. But that is what people do, and in many cases it gives anyone the right to speak on any matter they want. I personally never saw the point in make statements on matters I don't know much about. I keep my mind open totally on matters that others have a lot of experience with. I love science, physics, cosomology, and I am always asking questions to professional scientists I meet. I hear different sides and get opinions from everywhere before forming my OWN. But until then, I don't make much noise about stuff I dont' really understand well.
I like to visit flamenco and music forums, because that is what I know something about. I lurked at a physics forum for awhile and all it was was one poor guy holding up Einstein's Relativity, trying to make them understand it better, against a whole LOT of idiots who thought it was a load of crap. I was able to learn a little from the one guy who seemed to know what he was talking about, but the other jerks made it annoying. I was hoping to learn something or ask questions, but I did not see a point a clear way to with that crap going on. Everyone's voice is equal on the internet. But face to face is something else.
Anyway, it is good I think to stick to what you believe in, but keep an open mind. If you go to a teacher and tell him what it is you expect to learn, and the structure of the way you want to be taught, you have already lost. You can't learn if you think you know it already. But if you are simply willing to change left and right, open to ANY suggestion, without making a solid focus, I dont think that would be good either. I feel that regardless of advice given, most of us really KNOW what it is we need to do to better ourselves, but having the drive to actually do it is the thing.
Ricardo
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Date Apr. 14 2006 22:27:04
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Are you resistant to change? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Guth, yeah I know that idea. Hard to understand the "horizen" problem, but I understand why his idea solves it. So far I don't buy that idea, but it was good never the less. The other book I don't know, I will check out for it. Brief History of everything, yeah I have it, great book. I am more visual, I dont' like to take time reading. I like Sagan's Cosmos. One book I did read explains Relativity very well, The Elegant Universe. Excellent book, but string theory? Another idea I am not buying at this time. Waiting for more options. I like talking with scientists to get some perspective.
Picado? Same thing, I like to SEE people doing it rather than read about how it should be done. I am a visual learner I think.
Ricardo
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Date Apr. 15 2006 5:39:05
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: Are you resistant to change? (in reply to Ricardo)
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Ricardo,
don't buy inflation? Which part of it, the part that would pertain to our "bubble", or just the idea that the visible universe is just one of an infinite number of bubbles arising from random vaccuum fluctuations in a false vaccuum? Speaking of visual, Guth's book has some mind-bending diagrams of simple Higgs diagrams and universe creations... how to picture more than 3 dimensions is something that can really hurt your brain!
Supposedly almost all scientists believe in inflation now. Only read a short book on string theory, but yeah that one seems speculative to me.
Hawkings seems to think we're really close to undrestanding what's going on, but something in me resists. Wasn't it just 100 years ago some people thought that nothing more could be invented!? :)
Tom,
I went to school at Bradley University, which supposedly has a decent Engineering program (I "studied" business). I had a bunch of friends who started out EE, then went to CE, finally ended up CS. The slacker half-life, I guess was a semester or two.
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Date Apr. 15 2006 15:54:43
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Ricardo
Posts: 14822
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Are you resistant to change? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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My good friend I meet in Spain every year is now a doctor of physics too. He plays great. He works with those crazy super conductors too, he is Swiss. Every summer we jam and I pick his brain about physics. Here were are in Spain playing "Spain". He is in the middle.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v238/RicardoM/DSCN0737.jpg
Miguel, I don't buy it because it is simply not a sure thing to me. Perhaps if I understand better the problems it solves I would get the obvious logic. Like I said, I think it was a brilliant idea, I just don't think it is the truth. I accept that it may actually BE the truth, but I just don't think so at this time. I mean regarding "our" bubble. I don't really care about the other bubbles. 
The cosmic microwave background radiation proves the big bang idea. Yeah, an explosion happened in the beginning. Inflation solves the problems with the big bang, so since big bang seems to be true, most scientists buy into it. VSL (varying speed of light) also solves the same problems. That one is almost IMPOSSIBLE to swallow for most scientists, but for a layman like me, I see both as ideas that solve a problem, but WHY would either happen? Why expand that fast, then stop or go to the "normal" expansion rate? And what about the new data coming in regarding expansion rate? They thought it was slowing do to matter, but it is increasing, and did so at certain epoc, for no apparent reason. They are consdering Einstein C (comsological constant), but not for his reason, just to be nice to him. Again, just an idea to solve a problem we observe. But not the truth to the question why. The real solution will solve the problem and explain why, and also reveal things we did not even think or care about, opening a door for new relavent questions. (Oh yeah another book I skimmed was Quintessence, very good also.)
Hawking does great layman explainations, but I feel he is really wrong about our closeness to understanding it all. The galaxy spins too fast, because of some elusive "dark matter". 90% of the "matter" creating gravity effects, is not visable to us. What is the dark matter? To me it represents what we DON'T understand about the universe. We are only 10% of the way to the true picture with our present understanding. That is just my own theory. 
But it is great, because it means there is so much ahead to discover. Data is pouring in as we speak, no need for busting our heads thinking so hard. The answers are coming, it is exciting stuff.
More than 3 spacial dimensions? Ever see Carl Sagan's tesarect(sp?) shadow? Very easy to "see" the shadow of a cube in 2D on a piece of paper, so he shows the shadow of the 4D hypercube, in 3D. It is a little cube inside of a big cube (clear plastic) with the corners connected by straight lines. Pretty cool.
Now, how to make my students "see" the compas of bulerias... 
Ricardo
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Date Apr. 16 2006 6:46:07
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Mark2
Posts: 1872
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
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RE: Are you resistant to change? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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I like to think I'm open minded, but my wife and kids will tell you different. The reality is when I look back at my routine, I AM resistant to change. I've been working in the same place for twenty five years( I own a small business) and when I come to my warehouse, I don't have to turn the key to get in-it turns itself! My car drives itself to work as well, sometimes taking the right exit even when I'm not going to work. If I see someone I haven't seen for year and they ask what's up, I think about it and there's not much new to report. Sure my kids are growing and I relate their accomplishments, but I am doing the same thing I was doing a year ago, two years ago, three years ago. I don't want to make it sound like I'm unhappy with this because I'm not. I'm on the track I set up for myself and it's working well. Mortgages are getting paid off, and I'm setting myself up to not have to work someday..............I mean, it's all going to plan. Why would I want to change anything?????? I'm resisting changing my plan to TAKE OVER THE WORLD  MOOOHAHAHA!
On a musical note, I am resisting the modern sound to an extent in that I stopped seeking out new cd's, players, etc, a few years ago. I mean, I love VA and all, but have little to no interest in when, if , how, he makes another CD. I get all those cool dvd's from Bill Davidson and haven't even watched many of them. As a player, I'd be happy to play stuff that was being played 30 years ago, not that I don't like the newer stuff, but who wants to turn their guitar in some weird tuning and play solea ?????? There's so much to play por arriba or por medio. No time for that in my life these days. In spite of I guess a waning aficion, i'm as happy as a clam at high tide, so go figure- a closed mind is a happy mind. 
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Date Nov. 6 2006 17:58:02
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: Are you resistant to change? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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Romerito,
it is strange, eh? I don't know the historical reasons for that. I studied Japanese for two years, 5 classes a week in college, so when I heard people speaking Korean, I sensed they were similiar. Now that I am studying Korean it is quite obvious.
Interestingly, they share similiar structures and grammar but completely different vocabulary! Korea uses mostly Chinese words--I'm not sure about Japanese. Japanese language and culture borrows heavily from others and I know that much of their modern vocab is from English. For example, instead of making up a new word for "tape", they say "Teepu"; instead of making up a new word for golf, they say "golfu". Korean seems to do this a bit too, but I am only a few weeks in.
They have a reverse word order to English and are agglutinating, which means they use small particles that attach to the ends of words to clarify structure.
Also, the Korean alphabet is incredible, apparently the most logical one in the world by far. Somewhere it was designated as a World Treasure! It was created by a King Sejong, I'm not sure when, and is wonderfully logical and only took me three days to learn! Also, both Korean and Japanese use direct Chinese characters in their writing to some degree, and such inclusions are thought of as somewhat erudite. (perphaps somewhat analogous to using latinate quotes in English, like quid pro quo or caveat emptor)
As to why I'm learning Korean, there are a few reasons. The main one is that I was watching something called a K-drama, which was basically a historical soap opera. A guilty pleasure, but very eduational and beautifully done (called Dae Jang Gum). Watching this subtitled work inspired me to learn a little more about the culture. I am also 1/4 Korean, although not culturally; and my wife is half Korean and her mother is Korean (although from Manchuria). Also, and this sounds ridiculous, maybe there could be a chance for me to do something in Korean music or screen--hey, you never know! :) Lots of good reasons, aren't you sorry you asked? :)
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Date Nov. 6 2006 19:05:56
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: Are you resistant to change? (in reply to Guest)
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Romerito,
I think Dilermando Reis is awesome. I just learned Xodo de Baiana and it is very nice. I have been pondering getting his folios from GSP but I need to pace myself and finish up the pieces I have been learning. But yeah, Dilermando has some very good stuff.
As far as Korean food, I like it although I haven't had something as crazy as you mentioned. Mostly just kalbi and pulgogi and kim-chi and all that. Korean food is a lot of vegetables, and uses soy sauce, garlic, red chiles, and sesame seeds a lot. It's not as varied in terms of flavor as Chinese food for example. But I like it and actually recently bought a Korean cookbook (called Dok Suni). The main problem is that it uses so much garlic that you will reek after a meal for at least 24 hours. That would be fine if you're hanging out in Korea, but it's not good if you have to go out in public and shake hands and what not. Of course, Mexican food can suffer from the same problem :)
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Connect with me on Facebook, all the cool kids are doing it.
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Arizona Wedding Music Guitar
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Date Nov. 6 2006 21:41:33
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