Learning something new....
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 9:31AM I know how to do a lot of things. For instance, I can make great marinara sauce. I can hear a song on a classic rock station and tell you what year that song came out. I know how to sew a button. I can spin a basketball on my finger. I can play guitar. What do these things all have in common? They are all learned skills and they are all things that feel pretty automatic at this point in my life. Right now I am trying to learn two new things. I am learning Italian and I am also learning how to use a new piece of software called Max/MSP. I've got to say I'm doing better in Italian than I am with Max/MSP, but let me whine for a second - this is HARD!! As adults, we have things pretty figured out and we go through most days on auto pilot doing things we're already good at. Adding something new and consistently making time for it every day - very difficult. I read somewhere that it takes 30-40 days in a row of doing something to create a pattern. I haven't made it to three days! No wonder I'm whining!
As a music instructor, I tell my students all the time to practice consistently even if it's just 10 minutes a day (which is about all the attention span we can muster!). I'm going to endeavor to practice my Italian every day (I'm using Rosetta Stone) for 40 days and I'm going to take action and fire up Max/MSP every day and do some part of a tutorial for 40 days to learn what I need to do to use this software to build an VST instrument that I want to build.
I'm already talking myself out of it as I'm typing the words. Strange little voices are saying "You're too busy in November!" "What about all of those rehearsals and shows and teaching dates at EMP?" "I might go out of town. How will I fit it in?" We'll see.
I'm doing really well at working on my Italian every day, but Max/MSP is a whole other world! The only thing I can compare it to is if you already know an instrument and you decide that you want to learn a new instrument it's fairly easy since you're applying things you already know to the new situation. Learning Max/MSP is like trying to teach yourself quantum physics when you have no background in science and then attempting to apply it to experiments you're workig on and expecting everything to come together. Not even close!!! One thing at a time! I'm getting into my pattern with Italian and then I'm going to have to take some lessons on how to use Max/MSP. I'm definitely in over my head.
I guess the lesson learned is: Don't try to start two new things at once and know when to ask for help or you'll never reach your goal. More later.....
Max/MSP 





