So for the latest book that I'm reading (Gaming and Cognition: Theories and Practices from the Learning Sciences), I'm making a mind-map of what I'm learning to see if displaying it in this new way is useful for me. Experts are able to synthesize and contextualize information, so if I'm really starting to develop expertise in this area, this should be a good test of it.
The other current cognitive experiment involves -- you guessed it -- Rock Band. So, currently, I'm able to play guitar and bass on expert, comfortably drum on medium, and sing on medium or hard. My last challenge (for Rock Band) was learning to play and sing at the same time, and, I'll admit it, it made me feel like a rock star.
Then I realized that I have a unique opportunity. I'm able to get into a state of flow (my next book in the queue for class is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, thanks to Adam -- it's the seminal work on the concept of Flow and I know I need to read it...) very quickly. I don't have to think about where the buttons are, really.
But what if I switched and started playing left-handed? What would happen then?
Okay, okay. So the ultimate goal is to start out playing right-handed and then switch, mid-song, to playing left-handed. If shredding on a fake plastic guitar isn't impressive enough, imagine that I was able to shred well (I won't go and say equally yet) with both hands. Really, I think part of this is a throw-back to my desire to be ambidextrous as a child. It was a general summer-time goal that was abandoned after a few days of child-like script. "Meh, it's not really worth it," I would conclude and pick up the pencil with my right hand again.
Well. I have a new motivation now. I want to study my learning. I want to study how flow (or expertise or talent or pick an educational buzz-word) develops. I'm aware that playing right-handed is somewhat automatic at this point. So I'm very interested to see how this develops.
The first day (Saturday): I had played a few set-lists right-handed and I was feeling rather confident. It's a good time to try this, I thought. I futzed with the guitar strap and put it on backwards.
Boy, this feels weird.
I had this odd moment where I was trying to figure out where, exactly, on my body the guitar should rest. It felt off-kilter. I ended up taking the guitar off and putting it on the "normal" way. Ah. So it really sat over my bellybutton. I removed it and flipped the position. It felt weird. I went to the mirror to examine it to see how it looked. Well, it looked fine, I guess.
In front of the screen again, I went into the free play mode and tried to scroll using the strum bar. Nothing happened. But I was strumming! Ah. Then it became clear to me.
If you are left-handed, you can play what they call "lefty flip." This reverses the order of the buttons onscreen so it matches the order of buttons on the guitar if you hold it left-handed.
I had purposely decided to not use lefty flip. This would make it more challenging, as I would need to "read" the order of the buttons backwards and it wouldn't directly correspond with the order of my fingers. I had to build a new connection that when the green (far left) note appeared, I would actually play that green note with my pointer finger, the far right finger on my right hand when holding the guitar.
This was necessary if I wanted to flip the guitar mid-song. It was also an sub-experiment within the broader cognitive experiment.
The first song was a bit of a disaster. I started on medium because I thought easy would be too boring. I'm happy to say I didn't fail out, but I had a "Well, that was nice," reaction before setting down the guitar and turning off the X-Box.
The second day (Wednesday): After three or four songs, I was getting into a flow. But my right hand was starting to ache. It was clear to me that I didn't have the sort of endurance I needed yet, or, at least, strumming endurance does not necessarily translate into being able to perform a completely different task for the same amount of time.
I wanted to switch back over to my expert playing style and jam on a few songs.
The third day (Thursday): My less-than-stellar endurance was upsetting (I sound like some twenty-something guy when I say that, but oh well), so I wanted to play a bit more. During the first song, I realized that the bump on the yellow button was actually helping me. I had connected that the button with the bump was yellow.
I also learned that I needed to develop a new strategy so I wasn't strumming and clicking the respective note button at the same time. I practiced switching my fingering to another note before strumming as an experiment. And then a funny (yet predictable) thing happened. I'm used to doing this with my left hand, so I ended up strumming slightly early and fingering the proper note on time. I have to rewire these circuits, I thought.
After a few setlists, I decided to again switch back to right-handed playing so I didn't lose any proficiency. And then the other interesting thing happened. When I play, I turn on the hyper-scrolling, or whatever you call it. It scrolls the notes at you faster. When you first switch over, it can be challenging. And, as I found, it doesn't make that much of a difference if you are playing on, say, medium. But after watching it scroll at a medium speed and then seeing an expert speed, holy cow. My brain took a third of the song to recalibrate. These notes are coming at me so fast! What's happening?!? In fact, that session was relatively sad in general. I think I'm generally better than that. I'll have to improve my ability to context-switch too.
Ah, so much to learn (and to learn about learning). I love cognitive experiments.
xoxo
Sarah
Sarah
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