4min chapter

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Instruments for Renewal with Andy Crouch

The NewCity Orlando All of Life Podcast

CHAPTER

The Piano Is the Ultimate Instrument

Piano represents almost the total range of hman hearing. Every other instrument can be mapped on it to some degree, yes? Yes. It allows you to do melody, harmony together. And yet it's something you have to be apprenticed to be able to use. I think devices basically ask less and less of it the better they are. But instruments which can progress and become more technologically sophisticated in all kinds of ways. There is progress in instruments, but always still requiring human skill.

00:00
Speaker 1
Yes, let's,
Speaker 2
let's lean in here with the instrument language. We were talking before we got on here, that when you say instrument, and i hear instrument, i immediately think, musical instrument, yes, which is intentionali. Thought it might be intitale. I think about, you know, we all have a natural in we have our voice. So we create melodies, harmonies, rhythm together without any external aids. But i can definitely extend my musical ability and creativity if i have a a flute or a trumpet or a trombone, or even more so, if i have a piano, which is kind of the as
Speaker 1
enes we would say, even more so,
Speaker 2
yeusy,
Speaker 1
the ultimate instrument. Really
Speaker 2
a one of the things iam struck by. We can, let's go go on the piano for a little bit. It represents, tha almost the total range of hman hearing. I know you, no. And every other instrument can be mapped on it to some degree, yes? Yes. Yes. It allows you to do melody, harmony together. So it's andrhythm and rhythm. So you, you can, you get the total package there. And yet it's something you have to be apprenticed to be able to use. Yes, anyone can sit down and pick something out on the piano, but to really play it as it was tended. Maybe that i could ask you this, that could be a dividing line between devices and instruments. Of devices don't really i don't need someone to show me how to use an iphone. I can just figure it out on my own. Exact toddlers figure how to use eye pads. An instrument, there's an apprenticing that has to happen, someone else who knows it hat needs to show me really how to maximize its capabilities a hundred %. I
Speaker 1
think that is the difference. I think devices basically ask less and less of it the better they are. The better a device, the less skill is required, the more you just get what you want by pushing a button. That's kind of one direction of technological progress. But instruments which can progress and become more technologically sophisticated in all kinds of ways. So the piano iss it has its own kind of technological story, because the forte piano, which is the ancestor of the modern piano, had less capability in some ways, until we added some industrial techniques, the harp, the strength of the steel that holds the strings, intention those kinds of things. There is progress in instruments, but always still requiring human skill. And devices say, oh, you don't need skill, so just see that little triangle. Press that triangle and music will play. Press play. But to play an instrument, a is this invitation into becoming different in everything. And we know, of course, that it's now we have even ways to formalize this, that there's a literal neurological transformation. Your your your neurance, your body's physical elements rearrange overtime as you to provide you greater and greater capability as you learn an instrument. Whereas i suppose, actually, your neurons are rearranging themselves when you press play on the seventh netflick show as well, but not in a direction of more skill, less skill. So ye, instruments, and i love this apprenticeship language. I think it's exactly i im you, you it's very unlikely you will achieve deep capability wth an instrument without a fellow human being being with you, both to model it and to provide a in learning theory, they sometimes talk about a emotional scaffolding. You need the emotional support to take the next step in your in the difficulty that you're being asked to do. And we need other human beings with us to take that stp. And otherwise we're going to be like a i'm just got press play. Ye, especially in a world where you can just press play and have music like, why would you go through all this trouble only if a fellow human beingis like, you can do it. You're getting better. You're playing better than last week. Here's the next thing to try. You need that emotional support of another person with you in the process of learning. Yes?

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