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Comment by MrGando | Hacker News Reader

I've been playing Piano for ~28 years, almost went professional (Jazz) but ended up doing engineering. My advice would be to find a teacher, if you know nothing about it you need a teacher that corrects you so that you don't develop bad habits. Once you're no longer a novice, you can start learning other things on your own.

When looking for a teacher, I wouldn't try to find "the best" or "most virtuoso" around, but what works for you. Try several teachers, get some sessions with 2-3 and find which one is the one that motivates you the most, and understands you the most. A teacher is like a coach and a partner in an adventure... the most important thing is that they can make you progress and keep you motivated.

Good luck :)

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This is such a brilliant comment: "so you don't develop bad habits."

I went to Japan as an exchange student when I was 16. I had never studied Japanese at all. The thing that surprised me the most was how hard it was for foreign students to unlearn the bad things they learned inside their American classrooms by listening to their friends.

Most of them picked up bad pronunciations, bad grammar practices. Even if they were diligent (which is being generous for the high students they sent over with me), they would hear other students speaking in ways that made sense to them from their perspective of how English works. They would hear and repeat Japanese words in the bad pronunciation style their friends in class did, and those ways make sense. But, none of those practices were what Japanese people did.

I often remark on how fortunate I felt to have only learned Japanese in a setting where I only heard correct pronunciation and heard statements made by natives. In three months I was ahead of others who had studied back in the US for two or three years or more.

I would really love to see if anyone has studied this effect inside the world of software engineering. We pride ourselves in the hacker culture where self-directed learners are glamorized, but I wonder whether having good teachers and getting good feedback early on would make a large or small difference long term. This could be a startling alternative to the "naturally brilliant prodigy" stories we always hear.

I've been teaching coding (on the side) and doing software engineering for the past 10 years. There's a recent surge of self learners who believe in studying coding the way they believe should be studied (which is ironic, given how little experience they have). The moment they got a job, they turn around and proudly talk about "This is how I did it, you learn x, y, z and you can get a job like me" and influence the next batch of self learners. Bootcamps also buy into this ideology.

Instead, the engineers I appreciate on my team has very little to do with what they know. Instead of hiring engineers who only cares about the latest and greatest, I value engineers who: communicate openly, write good tests, and cares about the product enough to fix bugs without having someone create a jira ticket for them, and has good debugging skills.

When I'm not at work, I teach coding to a small group of self learners in my local community by telling them to focus on user experience and writing good tests instead learning every popular libraries out there. Its okay to know only 1 or 2, it is important to know it well. Together, we work on an open source project with 100% test coverage: https://github.com/garageScript/c0d3-app

We hired one of these students who was a core contributor and I hope to hire more directly once more recs opens up onto my team.

I went through one of the bootcamps back in 2014. I’m now a software engineer who cares about good practices, methodology, and design. Some of us take a few years to get there first

If you change the words bootcamp for academia in the parent comments, it still mostly holds. They both are an echo chamber, which usually needs to get "unlearned" to learn the good practices in the industry, if you happen to find a job where they actually practice them.

Interesting point

> This is such a brilliant comment: "so you don't develop bad habits."

Yes, true, but on the other hand, singing comes naturally to some people which makes me think that most other people have already developed bad habits before they even started singing. At least that would hold for me when I started singing.

Therefore I'd say that the technical aspect of singing == unlearning of bad habits.

I agree that this is a large part of it. I did Alexander Technique for about five years, and that helped me unpick a lot of bad habits. It helped my singing, teaching me to stop getting in the way of my voice. It also helped me with broader problems like my posture when I'm using a computer.

Source: I'm a vocalist in a big band.

Alexander technique eh? Awwwwesome. Love some of the research that technique sits on

I agree, I'd been singing a lot since I was 7, including touring Europe when I was 11. I didn't stop practicing at any point in there but also never had access to professional voice teachers because of the cost.

Taking a single course in college that got me a little one-on-one attention (just one in a class of ten or so) improved my technique so significantly that I can compare recordings of myself from before and after that class and it's night and day. I don't think I'd have figured out what I was doing wrong without that attention, but they were able to hear it instantly and recommend solutions.

And that's with a solid decade plus of experience in choirs prior to taking that class, it's not like I was a true novice. It's just really not as easy or obvious as it looks.

Where does one even begin to look for a teacher? Where do these guys publicize their services?

For context, I'm an amateur guitarist with an interest in singing Sufjan Stevens songs.

Usually local music shops or chains that sell gear also employ or rent space to instructors. Qualifications can vary a lot, which is why I strongly support the suggestion others have made to try out multiple teachers.

For lessons particularly, err on the side of thinking you’re not the problem. You’re paying hourly for this, and if you don’t click with the teacher it could be fairly expensive to “make it work”. Some people are also great artists but terrible instructors. That wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the fact that they are also often completely ignorant of that fact.

Check local churches. If they hae a good choir, the director might teach people or know of teachers in the area. (Growing up, my local church the director of the choir was a first tenor in the US Army chorus for 30 years.)

In addition to the other excellent suggestions, you can check in with the music department of a local college or university.

Ask local singers or musicians. They know, or they know those who know.

What website am I browsing?? Google it my friend... Also Craigslist.

superprof.com

Ideally, try to find a facebook group of local musicians. If that fails ask at the nearest musical instruments shop.

"$state music teachers association"

"music lessons near $location"

the challenge will be entirely in trying them to see who you like, not finding them.

Having some sort of teacher also does a better job of holding you more accountable. So that you're a little more motivated to stick with it which is critical early on before the bug bites or before a habit/routine forms.

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