Lobsters are mushy creatures that live inside a rigid shell. So, how can a lobster grow if its shell can’t expand? But the lobster does grow, and then its shell starts becoming tighter. This pressure and discomfort is the stimulus for it to go hide behind a rock, cast off the old shell and make a new, larger one. If lobsters were able to ignore the discomfort and not discard their old shells, surely they'd suffocate and die.
Similarly, if we humans get too comfortable, we become complacent and stagnate. On the other hand, if we are always in pain, we become traumatized and burnt out. But there's a sweet spot in-between where growth happens: discomfort. Where there's discomfort, there’s usually a lesson to be learnt, a problem to be solved, and a new ability waiting to be discovered.
Shalini had just started learning music from me. She’d learnt for many years from other teachers and was frustrated with her lack of progress. In our very first session, it became painfully clear that she had fundamental problems understanding notes. We’d practice for an hour, she’d improve, then she would go practice by herself for a few days, and wipe out any progress that had been made. After a few months of this fruitless struggle, both of us were feeling frustrated and stuck.
I’d learnt my lesson in Dr. Narcismo’s hellhole and this time recognized our discomfort as an opportunity. After examining the problem carefully, I realized that what Shalini really needed was continuous course correction when she sang. But I couldn’t carve out more than an hour a week to teach her. If only there were an app that would correct her notes without my involvement! But there was no existing app that was sufficiently accurate for vocals as well as being suitable for Indian music, so I decided to build one myself. That is how NaadSadhana was born. (In Sanskrit, “naad” means sound and “sadhana” means mindful practice).
I had studied basic digital signal processing during my undergraduate days, but this problem domain required me to go very deep in DSP. I also studied completely unfamiliar topics such as psychoacoustics, machine learning, iOS programming, the Swift programming language, and user interface design. To my delight, within a few months, I had developed a fast and accurate pitch detection algorithm for vocal and instrumental music, a genetic algorithm to detect music, a method to measure the accuracy and stability of musical notes, and designed a user interface that used visual biofeedback to help the student make rapid progress in singing.
Shalini then started using the app, and in two weeks, improved her score from 10% to 80%. Her confidence in herself and passion for music also grew considerably stronger with her newfound precision.
Using discomfort again as stimulus, I identified other problem areas in my students, such as going off-pitch at higher tempos, or being unable to synchronize with tempo. It is also hard to produce spontaneous and creative musical dialog during practice, unlike when jamming with expert musicians. The Naadsadhana app grew to incorporate these facets, and now can generate AI melody (Swarmandal, Tanpura), AI harmony (Strings, Piano) and AI rhythm (Tabla, Manjira). These all accompany music live, in real-time, creatively, and expertly. Thereby the app improves many aspects of music practice (pitch, scale / raga, tempo, improvisation, creativity, performance, motivation and regularity).
Discomfort has pushed me to think out of the box, learn several new skills, expand my comfort zone and invent new technologies to help myself and my students to become better singers.
Pay close attention to any sign of discomfort!
2. Practice ⇒ Talent
Thinking that talent comes automatically from genes or environment is akin to thinking that caramel custard is made by simply mixing together sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla. Without proper technique, all you get is an inedible mess. Similarly, no amount of genetic predisposition, environmental support, luck, and knowledge about the topic can produce extraordinary talent without skillful practice. Skillful practice is: try, fail, analyze, correct. At the neurological level, talent is simply nerve fibers firing together in intricate patterns. The more you practice skillfully, the stronger and faster the neural connections and pathways.
But it is not true that superhuman levels of practice are required for great results: Albert Einstein famously said, “the most powerful force in the universe is compound interest”. Consider the equation:
(1 + 1%)365 ≈ 38.
This says that a mere 1% improvement over your baseline
every day will lead to powerful changes within a year.
Any skill can benefit from systematic, regular practice - from public speaking and social skills to playing soccer and solving sudokus. I’ve successfully been able to practice (and teach others how to practice) soft skills that are critical for success, but are not formally taught, such as poise, charisma, creativity, decision making, teamwork, letting things go, and efficiency.
As a singer, I wanted to know how to practice singing systematically. There are so many aspects to cover — technique, precision, repertoire, range, speed, agility, resonance, timbre, endurance, and aesthetics — all while preserving vocal health.
I love to apply my geek to my music and vice versa, and thus have earned the title of ‘
geek gayak’ from my wife. I use techniques from software engineering such as using multiple testing styles (unit, edge-case, stress, integration), and increasing test coverage. I used ideas from mathematics, neurology, anatomy, psychology, education, and aesthetics to compress my practice time from ten hours to one. I call this system of practice ‘Naadyoga’ (Yoga of Sound) and have practiced it regularly for over a decade. It helps me to become a better musician, student and teacher.
Ask any magician to reveal his secrets, and he’ll tell you, “A magician never reveals his secrets”, but pester him enough and he’ll tell you:
“There’s no magic - the secret is to practice, practice, practice!”
3. Thoughts ⇒ Reality
“You can’t pursue music and engineering - you’ll fail at both”.
“You can’t finish a Masters Degree in 8 months with a high GPA”.
“You will be miserable if you quit Google and move back to India”.
I have a peculiar mental condition - If people tell me that something can’t be done, I get a strong itch to prove them wrong! Ratan Tata says, "I don’t take right decisions - I take decisions and make them right".
Thoughts shape our reality not by some mystical process, but by simply modifying the way we sense and process information. Negative thoughts tend to limit vision, creativity and motivation. Positive thoughts literally help us reach a higher level.
In 2004, I was at Johns Hopkins University pursuing a Masters Degree in computer science. I had registered for 5 courses, more than the recommended 3 courses so as to finish my degree in half the time. My advisor had admonished me - “3 courses is a full time workload, 4 means no life, but 5 is suicide!”. I did not heed his advice and by the time things started getting intense, it was too late to drop any course!
Every insecurity and fear came out of the woodworks to haunt me.
“I’ll get a bad grade. Oh no - I’ll fail a course. Oh god - I’ll fail them all!”,
“Everyone will know what a failure I am”,
“I should never have left the comfort of my home and come to this foreign land where I am so out of my depth”.
I was walking to the lecture hall caught in this tornado of negativity when I saw a line of ants. They were carrying food to their anthill. Suddenly a large magnolia flower fell from the tree above and scattered the ants. But then, they quickly regrouped, went around the flower and found their original trail. Two light bulbs flashed on in my head. One, I got an idea for my final project for “Theory of Network Communications” and later wrote a paper “Anthill: A fault-tolerant, self-healing, distributed hash-table with pheromone based routing”. Second, I was inspired to put aside my negativity and self-doubt, and find a different route to my goal.
Thanks to the ants, I found the strength to overcome my fears, to manage my time well, to take ‘
smart-cuts’ and to keep pushing. I ended up getting an A+ in my course, finishing my degree in 2 semesters (rather than the usual 4) with (whew!) a 4.0/4.0 GPA.
Simply being aware of your current mindset provides the needed separation from your current situation to start a new line of thought. Mindfulness meditation, talking to a friend or mentor, practicing awareness, should help.
There’s always hope, there’s always another way.
Parting words
“What is my discomfort?”
“What skills should I practice?”
“What am I negative about?”
The answers to these 3 questions will help you each day, to
cast off your current shell and grow a new one, make delicious caramel custard every day, and be ‘ant-spired’ to remain positive and keep pushing!
🖖
— Live long and prosper
(This was written for a college magazine as a upcoming featured guest article)
(Special thanks to Dilip Ranade for helping this article be the best it can)
