Life gets busy

I haven't published a writing in some time even though I started a blog post about the struggles with my wife. I have been distracting myself with my hobbies and social events and she needs me at home, or rather, present, since I am always at home.

I have taken a break from learning the piano, in practice. I was inspired by the "Anki-fy your life" post on HackerNews and decided to come at this thing from an entirely different angle.

The issue with learning the piano, at least for me, is that I was simultaneously trying to learn to read sheet music, while learning how to make my fingers play independently, while keeping tempo. Three new areas of coordination, three new areas of stress and frustration ;D. When I am not good at any single one of them, they all conspire to make piano seem extremely hard, even overwhelming. It stops being a hobby and becomes more work in my life .

So... like any good hacker I am trying to find some quick wins. I have downloading the "Intro to Piano" Anki deck and I am learning to read the sheet music and listen to the note pitches to get my ear in shape. Once I am adequately reading the sheet music, I will do what deliberate practice on the keyboard. I will sit there with my left and right had and play random notes -- I think there is a MIDI Tetris -- until I am absolutely comfortable with my fingers on the keys up and down the scale. Then I will have knocked out reading sheet music and playing with my fingers. After this I can work on the tempo and get back to learning through FlowKey

This is the way I must do it.