Data Science Wizardry Blog by Attila Vajda

If you have ghosts

I am harmonising a melody #

I spent some time creating a harmony to "If You Have Ghosts" by Rocky Erickson.

Permuting the left hand fingers doing hammerons, and pulloffs works well. I am happy when I hear cool little sounds, made accidentally, by unconsciously picking/touching a string. These subtle mistakes seem to enrich the music, I set out to consciously recreate and develop them. I would strum some pattern, and my pinky would accidentally pick an open, or held string. Sometimes a nail creates some sound, or a glass note is made under a joint of a finger, and when I hear these sounds I always wish I could consciously play them. This relates to what I read today about musicians being magicians really, an exciting idea.

To recreate the pinky pick mistake sound, I permuted the left hand fingers in picking the strings. At first it was difficult, as my habit was to hold onto the chord notes, but making effort to move the individual fingers seems to widen the range of motion, and introduces movement into the stiff hand. Holding my hand stiffly was quite silly, I now realise.

Baking cookies, listening to podcasts, and reading practical books on playing the piano #

Today I baked cookies, they became nice. I made them out of whole grain wheat and oat flour, oat milk, a little sunflower oil, salt, cinnamon, dutch cocoa powder, black pepper, ground raisins, ground sunflower seeds, walnuts, flaxseeds, a carrot, and a little sugar. The batch I rolled too flat with the rolling pin burnt, but the thick ones became delicious.

I relistened to Huberman Lab podcast episodes on dopamine, the molecule of energy, motivation and drive. I find that, on double speed, I can easily follow episodes I already heard. I also like how I become familiar with the nomenclature, vocabulary that used to be completely foreign to me. Dopamine for effort is our best bet, with using intermittent reward to meaningful ends. NSDR/Yoga nidra can keep our dopamine reservoirs filled.

I also listened again to the episode on using heat and cold, with Susanna Soberg, and was happy to realise how little/moderate exposure is needed for great health benefits, compared to what I believed, and practiced.

I revisited Fundamentals of Piano Practice. I knew this was a good book, I read most of it, but after I picked up some science knowhow, I am surprised to find it even better. It seems to relate to the 20/80 principle, and to growth mindset. One suggestion in this book, is to always practice musically. Amazingly, the Feldenkrais method is used in piano practice, and Alan Fraser builds on it in The Craft of Piano Playing. Wondering how to learn the method I found a way to learn it through piano practice! I am already practicing the Tai Chi walking, and finger walk exercises, and realised I could imitate my karate kicks using my fingers. "Standing" on my middle, and ring fingers, the index and pinky look like arms, while the hand resembles a little man. Pushing downwards vertically with two straight fingers, they can be used as little legs, placing the weight from one to the other. I could do mae geris, mavashi geri, and uramavashi geri with them.

Two quotes of mathematics learning #

Mathematics is fun ^1

Play, make a mess ^2