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The power of practice

Author: mrn
Date: 2010-11-26 17:15

I came across this video the other day, and although it's not directly related to music, it made me appreciate the power and value of developing "muscle memory" through practice. These kids can perform amazing feats of calculation because they have arithmetic "in their fingers." Moreover, with sufficient practice, they don't even need the physical abacus any more, just as it's possible to practice the clarinet mentally without the instrument in hand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIiDomlEjJw

I've tried playing around with a "virtual abacus" program myself for about the last week or so and found that it does seem to eliminate much of the need for conscious mental effort with arithmetic. Adding or subtracting numbers becomes much like playing a familiar scale or arpeggio: you simply "do it" without really "thinking" about it consciously.

I imagine that the faster you go, the less you rely on sensory feedback from the abacus because your brain starts to anticipate where the beads will be--thus, at some point there's little or no need for the abacus.

Anyway, I thought this was very interesting.

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