I have done it! I made an unpopular Reddit post I got a lot of negativity for so thought I’d share it here. I know it’s not unpopular here because people here give actual answers to questions.
“Telling people to practice is bad, lazy advice
Yes, practice is important to improve but whenever I see that as an answer to someone asking for advice it’s just actually not an answer at all. I’ve had that answer many times before when I asked how to do something. Practice was always the answer, no elaboration ever. Practice, practice. Okay, but practice what? People hardly ever seem to want to answer that. If you see someone play an improv on an instrument and you ask how they do that, big chance that all you get to hear is “practice” and you have to figure it out by yourself. No one HAS to give an answer, but if you do give an actual answer. For the improv example you could say “I mixed arpeggios with scales” “I used this technique”. You don’t have to write a book as an answer, just give some tag words for people to look further. Beginners need to know where to start looking and may not know those words, that way they’ll eventually find out what to practice, and how.
Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice make permanent. Practice doesn’t improve, efficient practice improves.”
Getting better isn’t about the amount of hours you put into it, but it’s about the effort. It’s about what you practice. If a beginner wants to learn a specific technique, but doesn’t know the name of it the answer “practice” doesn’t get them anywhere. If you’d tell them what the technique is however, they know what to look for and what to practice. Just a one word answer would be good enough. You can’t practice something if you don’t know it exists.
“Telling people to practice is bad, lazy advice
Yes, practice is important to improve but whenever I see that as an answer to someone asking for advice it’s just actually not an answer at all. I’ve had that answer many times before when I asked how to do something. Practice was always the answer, no elaboration ever. Practice, practice. Okay, but practice what? People hardly ever seem to want to answer that. If you see someone play an improv on an instrument and you ask how they do that, big chance that all you get to hear is “practice” and you have to figure it out by yourself. No one HAS to give an answer, but if you do give an actual answer. For the improv example you could say “I mixed arpeggios with scales” “I used this technique”. You don’t have to write a book as an answer, just give some tag words for people to look further. Beginners need to know where to start looking and may not know those words, that way they’ll eventually find out what to practice, and how.
Practice doesn’t make perfect, practice make permanent. Practice doesn’t improve, efficient practice improves.”
Getting better isn’t about the amount of hours you put into it, but it’s about the effort. It’s about what you practice. If a beginner wants to learn a specific technique, but doesn’t know the name of it the answer “practice” doesn’t get them anywhere. If you’d tell them what the technique is however, they know what to look for and what to practice. Just a one word answer would be good enough. You can’t practice something if you don’t know it exists.
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