Sheet Music is the Answer (Key)

When you're doing a crossword puzzle do you start by looking at the answer key, or do you wait until you've solved as much of the puzzle as possible before looking at the answers? If you're like most people you probably wait to look at the answer key. Solving the puzzle is the whole point, right?!

So why do we treat music differently? Let's say that you're trying to learn a new jig or reel and you have both the audio recording and the sheet music handy. Why not approach this the same way that you would a crossword? The audio recording is the puzzle and the sheet music is the answer key. Try to solve the problem (how does this tune go?) before being shown the solution (the notes on the page).

Take some time to just listen to the recording and find the notes on your instrument. If you're not in any rush, maybe give it a day or two of listening and playing before you cheat and look at the answer key (AKA the sheet music). It doesn't really even matter if you misheard parts of the piece and were playing it "wrong". 

When you try to come up with the answer yourself - what notes are these - rather than having it presented to you it will lead to better learning and longer retention. Maybe there were some measures in there that completely baffled you. When you finally do look at the sheet music and get the answers to the puzzle, chances are you'll later be able to recall how to play those measures because of this struggle rather than by trying to have memorized it through sight reading.

Disclaimer: I had the idea for this crossword puzzle analogy before looking at Peter Brown's book Make It Stick, but reading his chapter titled "Embrace Difficulties" helped me find the words to put this into writing.

To continue this puzzle comparison further and refence something else that I learned in Make It Stick, if someone says to you "wow you're really good at solving puzzles", then you might be inclined to pick easy puzzles going forward so that you can maintain this image of being really good at puzzles. Whereas, if someone says to you "wow, you must work really hard at solving puzzles", by saying you work hard that will motivate you to want to continue to work hard by choosing more and more difficult puzzles.

Now apply this to music. Do you have a natural ability hear pitches and play by ear? Probably not. But are you willing to work hard at solving the puzzle of playing by ear? Hopefully yes is the answer to that! I definitely still like to have the answer key, but I'm willing to follow the advice of this post and delay my looking at it.  

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