Lately I’ve come to believe in the 3% rate of return rule.
Sometimes, you can self-improve a lot by using some simple hacks, or learning a new thing you didn’t know before. You should be on the look out for such hacks.
But, once you’ve consumed all the low-hanging fruit, most of what there is to learn involves… just… putting in the work day-in-and-day-out. And you improve so slowly you barely notice. And only when you periodically look back do you realize how far you’ve come.
It’s good to be aware of this, to set expectations.
I’ve noticed this re: habits, gratitude and exercise, after looking back on how I was 4 years ago.
But I hadn’t noticed until recently that I’d made similar improvements at *improvising music on the spot*.
A few years ago I tried things in the genre of rap-battling, or making up songs on the fly, and it was quite hard and I felt bad when I did.
But a) recently I’ve noticed myself having an easier time doing this (to the extent that others are at least somewhat impressed)
And b), I encountered masters of the art. A friend-of-friend shared a podcast where they improvise *an entire musical* in realtime.
And it’s *good*. They have the skill to make up rhymes on the fly *and* make up stories on the fly *and* have evolving characters undergoing emotional arcs on the fly and it all.
And it’s all quite silly, but it still, like, fits together.
After listening to it, my housemates immediately gave it a try… and it actually basically _worked_. It was obviously way less good than the podcast, but it was good enough that we felt good about it, and I could see the gears of how to get better at it.
I think most of my own progress here came from practicing making NON-improvised songs. The skill still transfered in terms of finding good rhymes and structure.
If you _deliberate_ practice I’m sure you can progress much faster.
Lately I’ve come to believe in the 3% rate of return rule.
Sometimes, you can self-improve a lot by using some simple hacks, or learning a new thing you didn’t know before. You should be on the look out for such hacks.
But, once you’ve consumed all the low-hanging fruit, most of what there is to learn involves… just… putting in the work day-in-and-day-out. And you improve so slowly you barely notice. And only when you periodically look back do you realize how far you’ve come.
It’s good to be aware of this, to set expectations.
I’ve noticed this re: habits, gratitude and exercise, after looking back on how I was 4 years ago.
But I hadn’t noticed until recently that I’d made similar improvements at *improvising music on the spot*.
A few years ago I tried things in the genre of rap-battling, or making up songs on the fly, and it was quite hard and I felt bad when I did.
But a) recently I’ve noticed myself having an easier time doing this (to the extent that others are at least somewhat impressed)
And b), I encountered masters of the art. A friend-of-friend shared a podcast where they improvise *an entire musical* in realtime.
https://www.earwolf.com/show/off-book/
And it’s *good*. They have the skill to make up rhymes on the fly *and* make up stories on the fly *and* have evolving characters undergoing emotional arcs on the fly and it all.
And it’s all quite silly, but it still, like, fits together.
After listening to it, my housemates immediately gave it a try… and it actually basically _worked_. It was obviously way less good than the podcast, but it was good enough that we felt good about it, and I could see the gears of how to get better at it.
I think most of my own progress here came from practicing making NON-improvised songs. The skill still transfered in terms of finding good rhymes and structure.
If you _deliberate_ practice I’m sure you can progress much faster.