How To Study For Real
Just like you can't be told what to learn,
you can't quite just sit down and have a successful study session.
It is not guaranteed to work,
allow me to explain with something similar to learning: inspirational teaching.
When I write these poems, I often try to teach you music,
and I often fail, my lecture gets completely destroyed, and I end up writing about something else.
If you sit down to something that captured your attention,
without a tiny little brilliant plan, it may fall apart on you.
You need a passion for a subject,
and a little bit of rest, so that you can dream up a strategy to get your foot in the door.
Often times what defines a successful session,
is a strategy that you came up with indirectly, the rest of the time it is mostly luck.
When I started learning BASIC,
I wanted to make the computer answer my questions by printing text on the TV.
That was an automatic strategy,
that I did not notice I was having.
When I wanted to draw on the TV screen (this was back in the 90's),
I just wanted to see a simple line, that was a strategy, just get to a simple line.
There was no learning involved,
at all, I bought the book, I drew the line.
What I was doing here,
is becoming a programmer.
Let me give you a better example,
I will give you such a good example, that you will not be able to walk away from the computer.
And once you do,
your imagination will be out of control, and you will be composing your own music.
First search YouTube for a tutorial,
on how to install lmms.
Then take a few tutorials,
just so that you know how to get to the piano roll.
And here is the strategy,
but I must warn you first... this is so amazing, that it will haunt you until you do it.
If you are busy,
then stop reading or listening to what I am about to say.
You are going to learn how to hack a song,
you will be pulled right into it, AND UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING IMPORTANT ABOUT MUSIC.
Let me give you some background on the song,
because this adventure does not just end with you gaining an insight into music, and composing your own songs, nuh uh.
Let just leave the Grand Finale for the end,
and focus on just the song.
When I was searching for new songs,
the top original modern-dance-song comes up as Faded, by Alan Walker.
The lyrics are sad, maybe some day YOU can fix that,
by making them about the re-discovery of Atlantis, and turn the song into a never-ending love story.
But lyrics aside,
this is a 90 beats per minute song, with a wonderful two part piano opening.
We will focus just on that piano opening,
and the aim is to make it your own.
Start by downloading Faded by Peter F,
from the LMMS sharing platform.
Peter created a Faded clone,
that relies only on the built in lmms instruments.
You will also catch a glimpse,
of a pro configuring instruments in lmms.
Open the "Alan Walker - Faded.mmpz",
in your lmms, and hit play.
You can double click on the various parts of the song,
to inspect the notes in the piano roll.
This is already quite an amazing look into a song,
but there is more.
Faded is so popular that there are multiple tutorials,
on how to disassemble it.
Multiple videos on people back engineering that song,
you get to see how the song is being put together.
Not only can you open the song in lmms,
and inspect its parts, and see how it creates sounds, and the actual song.
But now you get to see, people reasoning about it,
playing with it in their own programs:
Take a look at the two minute tutorial by amzine, entitled:
"FL Studio - Alan Walker - Fade Tutorial (easy)"
You can see the same pattern of notes in your lmms,
in Faded by Peter F.
Being able to see how a song is put together,
and actually having it put together on your screen, goes a long way to inspire you to keep going.
Now take a look at a longer tutorial by Falubii, entitled
"Alan Walker - Faded - Fl Studio Tutorial by Falubii"
You may also wish to take a look at a tutorial on a player keyboard, just out of curiosity,
here is a marvelous one by Mint Music, entitled "Faded - Alan Walker | Easy Keyboard Tutorial With Notes"
There are many more tutorials on YouTube if you just search for:
Now here is the Grand Finale of this Call to Adventure,
Faded, is meant to be danced to.
And the type of dancing is called Shuffle, or Melbourne Shuffle,
search YouTube for faded shuffle, to see what it looks like.
And the next step is for you to search for,
"beginner shuffle dance tutorial".
The tutorial by Anastasiia Kirilik,
entitled "Ultimate shuffle dance tutorial. All moves u need to cut shapes. Beginners to intermediate." will show you many more moves you can look up.
And at this point,
you now have a song on your screen that you can improve, edit or expand.
And dance to,
how is that for an invitation to become a World Famous Composer?
This is what I mean by learning strategy,
you have to combine multiple things, that will call to you from different places in the universe.
And what will follow,
is a story of success, and triumph.
It is not just that you can do it,
it is that now, you are unable to stop yourself from doing it.