Piano

When I play the piano, I have this great uncertainty. Like every time I try to play a note, a wrong one may come out. I'm not sure if the sound I'm going to make is the correct one.

It helps to be out of my depth but still performative. I never memorized or really practiced any scales. I just learned how to play songs rotely. I was never aware of the machinery of music.

I wonder if a lot of autodidacticism is like that. Once you get a feel for a field, this incredible uncertainty and self-doubt about the way you are interacting with that field enters. There is an absolute confidence in one's ability to understand a field--comprehend it--but once you reach a certain level it is incredibly difficult to make the next step.

Maybe the hard part is knowing what that next step is. When you haven't been taught to build up the intuition for your path, there's too much uncertainty. I've started to find small improvsiations to change the way I approach piano. I hope it changes the way I feel about the instrument. I hope it can inform my understanding of how others learn.