I recently went to Powell's and found used copies of the following self improvement and learning books:
-Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Rodiger III, and Mark A McDaniel
-Peak: Secrets from The New Science of Expertise by Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool
-Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
-Mindset - The New Psychology of Success: How We Can Fulfill Our Potential by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.
I'll probably be sharing any tips or points that I extrapolate from these books, starting with something I read in Peak.
When he was a young man, Benjamin Franklin came up with a way to improve his writing. He was a fan of the British magazine The Spectator so he devised a way to teach himself how to write as well as the articles in that magazine.
Franklin's idea was to attempt to reproduce the sentences in an article once he had forgotten the exact wording. He chose several articles with writing he liked and wrote down brief descriptions of the contents of each sentence - just enough to help him recall what the sentence was about. After several days of not looking at the articles, he would then try to reproduce the article from memory based on the hints he had given himself. He wasn't trying to recreate it word-for-word, but come up with his own reproduction in the style of the original. Then he compared the original article to his own sentences and made corrections and improvements as needed.
This sounds like an excellent way to learn fiddle tunes! How would you go about this? Maybe just try listening to the tune for a few days. Then, without listening to it again, try to recreate it on your instrument. Make up your own tune that, phrase by phrase, sounds as close to the original as you can remember. Play your version for a day or two then go back and listen to the source recording and make refinements as needed. Over time you'll develop your own take of the tune! This is probably similar to how it used to be done in the days before recordings.
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