Role of Deliberate Practice in the Development of Creativity (2014)
repositories.lib.utexas.edu
repositories.lib.utexas.edu
Hehe :)
Edit: Very interesting read, with nice examples of both successful and unsuccessful artists in various fields. One key trait in becoming successful seems to be willing to put in the effort. This in turn seems to only work if you actually enjoy putting in some effort. It makes one wonder if this can be a learned trait, or whether enjoying something is the actual (proxy) talent someone is born with.
Take drawing for instance, which is something I practice actively. The act of putting effort in drawing is quite reductive as drawing is a broad area. Sure you can will yourself into drawing 100 faces and you will invariably be better at drawing faces, but it'll take you nowhere nearer being a more creative artist. But sometimes approaching drawing laterally, that is reaching to other techniques, subjects and skills (like shading, drawing lines, using pens and such...) might give you a broader set of tools that in turn will help increase the chances you will find something that catches your attention and absorbs you into it.
Sure you can get lost in the generics with lateral thinking and never reach a level of masterery that might be necessary for you to grow as an artist, so that is why attention isn't a replacement for discipline. You need both. But bottomline is that you also need to develop a relation with the subject that will reduce resistances, increase satisfaction and make it more likely that you will get absorbed by the task at hand.
I’m doing this because it will save me from having to do that in the future, and I hate doing that.
When I began studying jazz drumming I was working from a DVD by John Riley. At one point he makes this statement about what it means to be 'gifted' at drumming (but it applies to anything).
He says the 'gift' is less about a physical attribute, and more about a disposition or temperament. I.e., you're so passionate about something that you're willing to spend countless hours, days, years learning to do something you can't do, simply because you find that process the most enjoyable.
I appreciated that perspective so much I snipped it.
I am just finishing up The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle [0] and it has been an interesting short read. In a nutshell, it boils talent down deep practice, ignition, and master coaching.
[0] https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/5771014-the-talent-co...
Cooking for my wife and me together? Love it..
Cooking alone doesn't check the same boxes. It probably gives you only more "certainty" of being fed, but you're not craving more of that.
Cooking for you and your wife probably gives you some significance (you like being appreciated for making a nice meal), love and a sense of contribution. Way more satisfying!
See: wars, arms, drugs.
It's all on how you held those tools.
I hate advertising too tho lol
I have actually read most of the dissertation today, and it sure is about the creativity you reject it to be about.
Probably need a similar study but with two different domains.
B) I’m not sure how scientific this is. “We looked for instances of deliberate practice and found some” seems more like self-help advice than rigorous sociology? Or… anthropology? It certainly isn’t psychology, but funnily enough it doesn’t actually say what degree this was for.
C) The theory section needed a much more serious engagement with the philosophy discussed, rather than just taking 1-2 sources on each 800y period as gospel. Let’s just say that not all Ancients thought nature was the peak of creativity, and that the doctrine of the Catholic Church wasn’t the only thing going on 400-1600, even if we restrict the view to Europe. Also desperately needs more engagement with postmodern conceptions of creativity, given that they basically dominate many parts of the “fine art” world to this day!
That does explain my negative reaction to the method — if I had to pick a single archenemy among the modern academies, Advertising would likely win top billing! I mean, I just now learned that it exists at all, which doesn’t help. I guess PhD’s in Manipulation wouldn’t look nearly as good on the mantle…
- Hua Hsu, "Stay True: A Memoir"
Deliberate practice helps refine skills and deepen domain knowledge, but breakthrough creativity often comes from making unexpected connections between disparate fields. Some of history's most creative figures - like Leonardo da Vinci or Benjamin Franklin - were polymaths who excelled in multiple domains.
But I do think that there is an important distinction between incorporating it in some form into a person’s expression, versus being the whole of the expression. Even if that incorporation is mere curation, at least that imbues some semblance of meaning, to someone capable of experiencing meaning.
And perhaps that’s a snobbish perspective. Maybe it deserves reexamination.
In Chomsky's words, quoting Wilhelm von Humboldt:
Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free creation. The normal use of language and the acquisition of language depend on what Humboldt calls the fixed form of language, a system of generative processes that is rooted in the nature of the human mind and constrains but does not determine the free creations of normal intelligence or, at a higher and more original level, of the great writer or thinker...
The many modern critics who sense an inconsistency in the belief that free creation takes place within – presupposes, in fact – a system of constraints and governing principles are quite mistaken; unless, of course, they speak of “contradiction” in the loose and metaphoric sense of Schelling, when he writes that “without the contradiction of necessity and freedom not only philosophy but every nobler ambition of the spirit would sink to that death which is peculiar to those sciences in which that contradiction serves no function.” Without this tension between necessity and freedom, rule and choice, there can be no creativity, no communication, no meaningful acts at all.
Add to this: giving room for ideas to grow: the more you wait, the more diverse and numerous the life experiences, all of them having the potential to shape those uncrystallized ideas.
So I have been trying to focus on specific antagonists. Recognizing what forms of creativity matter to me; Solving for "block"; Solving for "time".
Deliberate practice is a lonely process, which can only be accomplished with courage, dedication and grit whether you have a mentor/coach/master or not.
A great mentor is crucial too. I know for myself having my music teacher listen and force me to not move on from what I'm working on is necessary. Having my Muay Thai trainer throw down his pads and silently demonstrate what I need to embody is invaluable. My meditation teacher pointing out my misunderstandings. Etc.
Dump that teacher. If it's all they could teach you, you are done with them.
Quality of practice is another factor. It's possible to become very good at doing things the wrong way, then belatedly realise that progress has been unintentionally stunted. And even that is not clear-cut. Sometimes 'the wrong way' is lauded as creative discovery, and other times simply as reduced competence.
And sometimes when that happens, I've seen people say "I'll just stick with this way, since I think my skills would dip too much for too long while re-learning this technique the 'right' way."
As a guitar player who is modestly ok at basic jazz, all the pattern-based rock stuff I spent years on is now an impediment. I have to unlearn it and approach the instrument like a beginner, but with a different intention.
So in some ways I’m reversing out of a cul de sac.
It also doesn't mean that their creativity's mode of operation isn't totally irrelevant to some other person. Might be. Might not.
> Mediocre performers don't use deliberate practice and credit talent to their success.
The author then implies that deliberate practice and hard work are the key to success. But it could also be the case that elite level performers _are_ talented and they achieve success by exploiting that talent through hard work, while mediocre performers wouldn't achieve the same level of success even if they worked as hard.
Given the 2 x 2 matrix of natural talent and ability to focus/ give effort / practice deliberately (whatever you want to call it)
High High > superstars, top 0.1%
Low Low > duh
High Low > flame outs, weeded our early from higher tracks, big fish in small ponds
Low High > stars (not super), top 10%
Showing up really does count for a lot. It absolutely leads to "success" even if not the highest stratosphere.
An example, ask any well known guitar player....their greatest rift came from practicing some chord progression and noticing something different about it...the rift from Sweet Child was discovered that way....
It works like this:
Take any hypothesis. And have a lot of verbiage around it with dubious experiments to "statistically" validate it. and write a giant report which would eventually turn into a book.
Steve Pinker and his likes excel in this kind of stuff. Psychology/Sociology and sometimes economics are filled with these sorts of studies.
It is more persuation than science.
And one could could argue that science itself is a certain kind of persuation.
But Bohm's "On Creativity", to me presents a much deeper "philosophical" take on a) what is creativity and b) how to foster it. And I dont see it referenced in this text at all.
Again, since this is about persuation, it is what the reader wants to believe.
there is way too much information-garbage floating around.
hence I try to stick to time-tested classics particularly when it comes to certain topics. now, your time-tested classic may be different from mine and certainly, i want to see if there are things I missed, and hence I mentioned Bohm's work, as something the author of this PhD missed.
And science happens to be a certain kind of a method for settling opinion.
CS Peirce wrote about it so beautifully in his 1877 essay: "On the fixation of belief". go read it. here is a link saving you a google search. https://www.peirce.org/writings/p107.html