audiot

ha! to tie in with yesterday’s entry, here’s the next tip:

no.2 get the big picture.

you can’t tell which one comes first, because it depends. if there is a big picture available (like a song for instance), then you should of course concentrate on that before you break it down. in this case it’s best to provide your brain with an overview and then go from there. but there are situations when there just is no big picture (those are usually the ones where mr brain up there smoothly glides into standby-mode). scientists, for example, need to work with things and understand things without knowing what the end result will be or how it’s all connected. in a situation like that, you need to deal with what you have by using the breaking-it-down-technique, so you can then work on unveiling the big picture. this also happens with music. think drums: you can learn and practice rudiments to achieve certain skills like precision or speed and then later discover that other things, you never understood before, make use of exactly those rudiments… it’s impossible for you to get an overview of all rudiments including all possible uses for them in the first place. so you work on one at a time and then discover what you can do with them…

now, what’s the priority?

no surprise here, if it’s possible to get the big picture first, then by all means do so – it makes the following a lot easier. to give you an example: if you’re reading a book (apart from novels of course), it really helps to focus on the table of contents first. give your brain the chance to see what it will be dealing with, where the journey goes. that way, it will be prepared, open for things to come and a lot less stroppy…

never fight your own brain – it’s a fight you can’t win :-)