Covers as a way of learning music and code
ntietz.com
ntietz.com
Remake it from the ground up: the drums, the instrument parts, the mixing, the sonics, the loudness. Everything. Match everything perfectly to the best of your abilities.
You will learn a tremendous amount as you listen deeper and deeper into the record, as it will force you to ask questions about intent and process and balance that a casual listen does not challenge you on.
It’s just like art students with an easel and paint in the museum recreating an existing painting. You will experience every brush stroke and interaction of color, and in doing so learn far more about the masters then you ever could otherwise.
Here, try this: https://www.google.com/search?q=copywork
I was a teenager trying stuff out I was trying to just show what I am doing not sell them "a product".
If you are making a copy for yourself to try things out or learn and then just to share because you think is cool — do it copy stuff and don't listen to negative folks.
Usually those folks would not even attempt doing anything and I will skip all the bad words that I would like to tell them.
I think the same ideas can be applied to any hobby/job/industry. Picasso first learned how to paint a realistic apple... Wozniak spent years making calculators ... and I'm sure there are modern plumbing techniques created by someone who spent years learning the traditional techniques and decided to try something better. (Are there any famous, non-video game plumbers? There should be.)
Ignore the haters and copy other people's stuff.
Any differences around 'Oh, but it's their job to play other works' (ignoring that some trained classical musicians also count themselves as composers) is ignoring the fact that learning _anything_ is a process that involves mimicry.
Where in reality they don’t see years of experience or time spent honing the skill.
As much as I am not fan of Gladwell those 10k hours somewhat opened up some people heads it is usually not „overnight success”.
The original paper is very interesting and while I think it's good that ideas around deliberate practice has permeated into people's awareness I do find that some of the nuance from the paper has been lost, namely the _conditions_ of that practice that the paper describes (immediate informative feedback, practice at the current boundary of skill, etc.)
Of course 10000 hours is a lot to build up to, so I also like the 100/1000/10000 hour breakpoints idea I've seen elsewhere, that just 100 hours with a subject can yield some basic level of proficiency, 1000 hours for 'good' level of skill (subjective, of course), and 10000 is the sort-of-unattainable gold standard which it's nice to strive for without worrying too much about.
The Beatles were one of the first British bands who had mostly original music on their first album. The Stones had only one original song on theirs. This was record company policy at the time - who would buy a record of songs they didn't know?
It is usually in response to newcomers thinking they need to learn everything about every scale, every mode, every chord. They ask questions like "what scale should I play over this chord" or they get in really deep into some obscure theory thinking. I see it all the time with posts, even here on HN, where someone says "I figured out music!" and then you get some dry 1000 word essay on harmonic overtone series, and the maths of intervallic relationships.
But all of that intellectualization is replaceable and improved upon by learning a massive number of songs. Not just chord progressions, not just melodies in isolation, but beginning to end tunes. I was watching a live stream by industry veteran Jimmy Bruno and he was asked how many songs he knew and could play mostly from memory and he pondered for a minute and said "probably 2000".
You can learn a lot from textbooks... or you can use textbooks to give you the absolute bare minimum, and then just use the language itself repeatedly.
Learning grammar, vocabulary, semantics, etc. is definitely valuable. But immersing yourself in a culture where the language is spoken, listening how it is used in practice, speaking it yourself with a native, that is a truly powerful way to learn the language.
I'm not religious but I am reminded about a story where Jesus was challenged about his disciples picking some wheat on the Sabbath, breaking a law. The Pharisees demand an answer and Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He was pointing out the inverted relationship and the corruption that results.
The same can happen with music, programming, language learning, etc.
Another analogy most people will recognize: the map vs. the territory. Music theory is the map, the songs are the territory. No matter how much you study the map you will benefit tremendously from walking the territory.
I feel like if I don't know why they chose to do a specific thing, I won't know how to properly alter it.
There is no a 'proper' way to do it! It goes like this, you change it, if it looks good, well, good job, if not, ask yourself why, and try your best to take that into account next time.
It's by doing millions of small mistakes that you improve. The teacher teaches one way that is kinda easy to grasp, it's not the only way and far from unique.
The further you go, the further you will see the same mistakes, and you will start to think in terms of volumes, shapes, shadows, perspective, even anatomy if you still struggle on some human body parts
My comment isn't meant to devalue knowledge but to put it in relation to "something else". That something else is the thing you have knowledge about. The thing to appreciate is that you can become an expert on knowledge itself, without ever becoming expert in the thing the knowledge is about.
Consider some painting theory topics: color theory, contrast, perspective, proportion, etc. Imagine someone who attains expert level knowledge of any one (or combination) of these subjects but they are still unable to draw a picture that is a pleasing representation of their subject. You can easily study all of these topics for a lifetime without every picking up a pencil or a brush.
My other comment mentions the map vs. territory distinction. So let's deeply consider this. You are in unfamiliar territory and you feel lost. You think to yourself: "If I only had a map then I wouldn't feel so lost". But does that mean you should spend the rest of your life studying map making? An alternative is to survey the territory with your own eyes and learn to pick out the trails that many others have cut into the wild. And then follow some of those trails. You might end up at a dead end and have to turn back to a previous fork in the road. You may find yourself scratched up as you try to get through dense thickets, or bogged down up to your shins in a swamp. Those are the kinds of experiences that teach you the land in a way no map could ever. And they are experiences you can't get by sitting in a tent studying a map. If your goal is to find a new trail through the territory - no map will even show it. That will only come from the hard won experience of trekking relentlessly through the wild.
As the philosopher Mike Tyson once said: "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face". It sucks getting punched in the face by other people, by learning a new language, learning to paint, learning music. Some people avoid it at all costs, thinking that studying the theory is the same thing.
Just remember that all of the scratches and bruises you are getting as you fail at painting are scratches on your ego. It can take it. You will get better, as long as you keep trying it is inevitable you will learn. And it is very useful to glance at a map now and again. Just don't get too reliant on it.
Note that recipes are actually useful, it's just that they are not theory.
> "what if I want to change something?" It's indeed an essential step of learning and creating
I'm not slowly foraying into doing more original things which seems to be going loads better than before I did the copy-work. Currently I'm practicing drawing hands, and while it's not like I'm producing good sketches of hands, I can now totally see the path from where I am to good sketches of hands.
I'll share a sequence of sketches so you can see what a study looks like for me. This started off with trying to draw a specific characters hand in a specific pose, but turned into more of a "well how about figuring out hands in general first" thing:
0. I started with copy work, decent results, did a couple of these: https://i.imgur.com/3Fb3kDY.jpg
1. I moved on to trying to do a hand using no refs, somewhat predictable results, doesn't look like anything: https://i.imgur.com/wvgm1F3.jpg
2. After a bunch of repeating the same exact drawing it's starting to look like a thing: https://i.imgur.com/oMEVhOM.jpg
3. Took a break on hands, did a bunch more copy work of complete characters etc. Got slightly better at confident lines.
4. Returned to hands, switched to using my own hand for reference. Ignore the missing finger, I misjudged the spacing but pressed on regardless. You can clearly see the improvement from when I started: https://i.imgur.com/fZduLG1.jpg
5. Where I am today, probably going to need to practice different angles, but it'll be basically more of the same. Keep doing copy-work, Keep doing studies.
Important part of studies is to draw the same thing multiple times I feel. Do a sketch, try to avoid hating yourself for it being bad too much, pick one thing to improve. E.g. for the study sketches linked I've picked "try perspective" as improvement, but "get the right number of fingers" or "make the fingers the right length" are equally valid goals.
Notably absent from my workflow is tutorials or art-books. I'm sure those will come in handy once I've got the basics down, but for now they are just frustrating non-help. I'm making significant progress week-over-week still.
tl;dr: Copy work and studies is what works for me. Copy-work gets the strokes into your muscle memory. Studies helps you get a feel for how and why to place strokes.
The analogy I've tried to use in teaching is that learning to play jazz is like being a comedian; when your skills are at their peak you're going to be inventing jokes regularly, but in the decades before you get there, you're going to be delivering other people's jokes putting a little of your own spin on them. The delivery matters a lot, and like good jazz playing it's pretty much impossible to write a book called "How to be Funny" that wouldn't just be an academic analysis rather than an instructional guide.
I struggled with jazz for the reasons I've alluded to above, and it wasn't until I started studying with a teacher who just had me memorize hundreds of standards that I got my playing together. We definitely talked about the technical bits of what was happening in the tunes, but those were really just interesting observations; repeatedly playing them in a group setting after woodshedding them at home between lessons, then taking a lot of solos was really what made it happen.
It really makes me happy to see up-and-coming killer players like Patrick Bartley espousing this same approach. Yeah it means you're going to spend thousands of hours memorizing tunes, but if that's not fun then playing jazz isn't going to be fun either.
I think one of the causes is that some people struggle for years with music and then one day they learn a bit of theory and they experience a moment of enlightenment. Suddenly, all of their confusion is dispelled and what was once difficult is clear as day. They then think "if I had only know this years ago I wouldn't have struggled!". But they are wrong. It was the years of struggle that helped them understand the theory, not the other way around.
It's the "wax on, wax off" of Karate Kid and the wise old Mr. Miyagi.
I read a music theory book from the 1800s and in the first chapter the author stated that while he endeavored to write useful theory to help students they must realize that if some composition they write follows all of his rules but sounds bad, it is bad. And if they write a composition that breaks his rules but it sounds good then it is good. These are old, old ideas that we re-learn over and over.
Inevitably, they end up reinventing the wheel, in order to understand music they learn or write and then share with other musicians.
I think one thing that gets lost is that beyond being rules (more like observations these days) about how to write music, music theory is also a language that allows you to communicate with other musicians.
I am by no means a prolific or genius songwriter, nobody would know any of my music, and I don't believe that any of it is particularly impressive. However I've always found the fact that it happened spontaneously way to be a source of wonder, and as I've aged as a musician its delightful to see the endless stream of new songs and that it doesn't seem to matter whether you're a prodigy when it comes to writing songs that impact listeners. It seems to be a fundamental aspect of the human experience.
In philosophy there is a test of necessity and sufficiency. Theory is definitely not sufficient to become a proficient musician (let alone a composer). I think it is arguable whether or not it is necessary (I would argue not and handwave towards the list of musicians who are literal legends despite 0 theory). So as a strict answer to your question: maybe not.
However, practically, learning some theory is obviously beneficial to many learners and can speed up the process of acquiring the skill. But again, beware of cart before horse.
Take one famous legend who is infamous for his insistence he know no theory: B.B. King. I mean, anyone who analyses his music can point out a laundry list of complicated theoretical things he is doing in his playing. He just doesn't know the "book names" for it since he learned those things in a different way. He definitely know what a "6" chord is, when to use it, what scales to use with it, etc. But if you asked him to explain it to you he'd probably show you 4 or 5 songs instead of writing you an essay.
(Obviously you can study music more than 50 hours. I’m just talking about the applied theory most expert musicians know.)
The people I've known who have made practical use of theory, mainly used it to help them streamline composition and arrangement. This I appreciate because I enjoy playing original material. Of course theory isn't telling them what to write, but perhaps it helps them come up with more coherent ideas more quickly.
The advice of just listen/play music that I often read is imho a bad advice. You would not give people data about orbits and expect them to discover by themselves newton's law without never teaching the laws.
Of course music theory is not a scientific theory, and not only theory by itself is not enough (in both cases) but too much theory before practice is bad. And of course listening and practicing a lot of music is extremely important.
But who is going to progress faster: the student that knows what a chord is and how they are built or the student that is just listening to music ?
E.g. Aphex Twin - Avril 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSiv7unrx8
> Live coding music with algorithmic patterns
Yes, it works, and it's a great way to approach learning to code as well.
Musicians still use transcriptions of past recordings for their own performances.
Jazz musicians learn "standards." Even jazz improvisation, which you'd think should be 100% original, is taught using virtually the same short list of tunes, such as "Autumn Leaves."
Many musicians don't bother with original material at all, until they're absolutely sick of the standards.
- Players have tendencies that they repeat
- Genres have vernacular which you need to learn in order to sound right
- Often original sounding bands and artists "found" their sound by trying to emulate something else (another artist or band).
I don't read a lot of code these days, but I do remember some of this from back in the day - we all have style tendencies (e.g., tabs, spaces or where we start parens, etc.).
For something in a similar vein but more short form there's HackerType:
I'm really happy to see that there is something actually valid to this repetitive practice!
It helped me learn C 10 years ago when I was a student. Sadly, I doubt it's still relevant nowadays.
It is also just a little bit tricky to do this if you are working with an LLM that is able to add additional code or do some other kind of refactoring.
I've always liked the idea that familiarity doesn't breed repetition, rather repetition breeds familiarity (I think this is a quote but can't find the source now) and it's always made me wonder how much is gained from some of the repetitive parts of re-typing, such as does this help embed concepts?
So I think it depends on how much the person is thinking through what they are typing?
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1. This has its roots in my high school writing practice where I wrote using a manual typewriter (sitting on the floor of my bedroom in my parents’ basement) and the only way to revise my copy was to retype a clean version of it.
The obvious theory is it is better because you are going slower and are more focused.
Less obvious theory: I also think that the activation of the muscles stimulate the brain (that's why we have muscle memory)
Nowadays I'm learning game engine techniques by reading Godot code and implementing the damn same thing in my engine... Also, nowadays I like tracing pretty anime drawings... I enjoy it more and end up with something I like better than if I were to draw something original.
Conventional wisdom among musicians is that the best way to attract an audience and make money is to play covers or familiar works. It's hard to get an audience to show up for "originals," whether it's in Classical or contemporary music.
It's hard to get people to visit a restaurant that's not part of a chain.
Disclosure: Musician in an "originals" band. ;-)
Copying is a good way to learn if there are no exact instructions. E.g. covering a song is learning to listen as much as it is learning to play. But if someone made you a "10 steps to cover this song" video those lessons won't really stick.
My experience is that most people will only start to deeply think about a topic once they encounter it practically themselves. I can tell people about different signal levels and impedance all I want, it seems only once they plug wrong things together and wonder why the result sounds bad the light bulb goes on.
Copying can be great if it is done on your own as you will encounter all kinds of questions that matter in practise.
Also in both cases people will be more than happy to tell you your version sucks.
> it's much faster to do a combination of scale/chord/arpeggio and technical challenge drills.
Classical musicians that wasted their time training on existing note sequences learning pieces intentionally picked to be at the edge of their current skill level are going to _hate_ when they hear about this one weird trick ;)
Looping arpeggios/chord tone sequences together at progressively higher BPM, while sprinkling in stuff like string skipping, dynamics control/accent patterning, etc lets you stay close to your edge of ability and really focus on specific techniques heavily. If you're trying to make it sound good to a backing track at the same time, it also develops improvisational abilities and musical originality in a way that playing existing music won't.
> That's not your average music teacher
Tangentially (or perhaps not as every other topic in 2025 is 'AI'), I was always facinated by the episodes of Star Trek: TNG that showed the holodeck and crew members being able to use that environment to essentially learn skills from the greatest performers (or even a blend) in their area.
What it wont prepare you for at all is impovisational mastery and just jamming over some chord changes.
Also, I don’t know many musicians who would completely ignore technical exercises like scales, chord voicings, and arpeggios.
So, it depends on what kind of musician you’re trying to be.
Which nicely fits into the idea that repetition leads to familiarity, and that the act of re-creating those examples is a form of study and source of learning. I'm not sure what the name for the 3D modelling equivalent of a musical etude is but perhaps this seems like that.
Incidentally, I've also been trying to learn some amount of 3D modelling (with Blender) and in some cases have got to, say, half way through some structured courses before having to pause for a bit. After finding some more time to get back to it it seemed easier to just start over instead of pick up where I left off, and not only did the process seem a bit easier the second time around, being able to refresh and reinforce general concepts and specific techniques felt very valuable.
Incidentally, Mike Acton's talk 'Solving the Right Problems for Engine Programmers' [1] includes a part on deliberate practice with small focused examples.
Wax on, wax off...
1: From Wikipedia, '"Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.' In my own words, you don't rip out a seemingly-stupid thing without first figuring out why it's there.
Everything is done for a reason. Unfortunately, often the reason is the author didn't know what they we were doing.
I also like the idea of doing that for programming. There’s so much out there you can learn from. Just start building…
I think I probably learned so much more in between the lines during that period, than if I’d just read the user manuals.
And the same is true even today - spending a few hours code-reading some wonderful open source project will enlighten you immensely.
Code is a social construct - just like music. It prospers in the space between minds, in my opinion.
> If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it. Amazingly it's like music. And from typing out parts of Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - these were writers that were very big in my life and the lives of the people around me - so yea I wanted to learn from the best I guess.
after debugging, i conpare to the working codes
between katas, i try to improvise by combining several ideas and reducing bugs
so katas are moving objects