Every teacher knows that. How quickly an intelligent woman can be taught, grasp his ideas, see his point – and how (with rare exceptions) they can go no further
To me there seems almost an anticorrelation between being a diligent student and going further. It’s not gender specific, I’ve noticed it in musicians in general, and it puzzles and frustrates me. It seems the more diligent they are about learning technique and proper ways and so on, the less willing they are to write their own music. I’ve known conservatory folks who are literally scared of it. While the messy amateurish folks often do compose, and it’s occasionally good. Maybe you have to be a little bit independent-minded to go further than others.
There’s a little bit of contradiction in there, in that it’s not enough to be independent—you also need some amount of good technique. But you almost need to luck into it, acquire it in your own way. If you get it by being too much of a good student, then that mindset in itself will limit you.
Feels connected to his distrust of “quick, bright, standardized, mental processes”, and the obsession with language. It’s like his mind is relentlessly orienting to the territory, refusing to accept anyone else’s map. Which makes it harder to be a student but easier to discover something new. Reminds me of Geoff Hinton’s advice to not read the literature before engaging with the problem yourself.
To me there seems almost an anticorrelation between being a diligent student and going further. It’s not gender specific, I’ve noticed it in musicians in general, and it puzzles and frustrates me. It seems the more diligent they are about learning technique and proper ways and so on, the less willing they are to write their own music. I’ve known conservatory folks who are literally scared of it. While the messy amateurish folks often do compose, and it’s occasionally good. Maybe you have to be a little bit independent-minded to go further than others.
There’s a little bit of contradiction in there, in that it’s not enough to be independent—you also need some amount of good technique. But you almost need to luck into it, acquire it in your own way. If you get it by being too much of a good student, then that mindset in itself will limit you.
Feels connected to his distrust of “quick, bright, standardized, mental processes”, and the obsession with language. It’s like his mind is relentlessly orienting to the territory, refusing to accept anyone else’s map. Which makes it harder to be a student but easier to discover something new. Reminds me of Geoff Hinton’s advice to not read the literature before engaging with the problem yourself.