While there’s stuff beyond the combinatorial space of scales/ragas etc, it it’s mostly tacit. Things like instrument-specific timbre and elements like microtones (raga musicians in particular go on and on about that and entire schools rest on microtonal aesthetic theories)…
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Fair enough… I imagine you might suddenly run into a particular weird “new physics” effect while experimenting with a particular combination of formal scale/instrument/microtonal flourishes. Often those are what I personally like best in music. New emergent effects.
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Replying to @vgr
Maybe complex rhythm or polyrhythms or something are like the thermistor of music. It seems like there's always a new concept that can radically change the boundaries of somewhere you thought was your back garden.
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I can believe it. I have a suspicion that kata is bullshit work. Practicing basic combinations/drill (kihon) and sparring (kumite) make sense, but kata never made sense to me. I gave up karate after a year in grade school because they only did kata and it bored me to tears.
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Replying to @vgr
if you read bruce lee he points out that katas are just as bad in martial arts
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Come to think of it, this may also be why I never pursued music. My tabla teacher had me doing kata-like drills for years and I never got to accompaniment performance (the equivalent of sparring) while some friends in more musical families were learning accompaniment from day 1.
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Maybe conclusion from this thread is that kata/etude like things don’t just fail in engineering, but they don’t even really work where they are common by tradition. Probably overstating the case, but why not. Null hypothesis: all kata-like things are bullshit work. Any defenders?
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I’m tempted to connect kata like things to pattern language type ideas and call bullshit on that too, since they’re clearly cousins. But I don’t want to be murdered by the Christopher Alexander mafia 😆
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Friction is real action, flow is self-indulgence? 🤔
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Replying to @rhettford and @vgr
I’ve even seen this in software where folks become so adapted to their mature project that remembering how to compile a quick snippet to test out an idea creates real friction. Friction means you’ll search for a different way.
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The problem here is that there’s no real value to repeating the exercise. It’s a one-time thing, and doing it again or even on a new board doesn’t do much. The essence of kata is repetition. I don’t think anybody would do 100s or 1000s of led-blink or hello-world programs.
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Replying to @vgr
Would a simple exercise like plugging an LED and resister into a breadboard and making it blink with an Arduino count as a Kata? I think it’s real easy to get lost in specialization and forget how to start something from scratch.
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The value is in not forgetting the skill. I’m not saying I actually have the patience to do my exercises every week, but if I did I might feel more confident with the basics.
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Maybe an even better example would be soldering. If you solder one thing every day I bet you’ll be a lot better when you actually need it for a project than if you only do it every 6 months. Is is worth the extra time to have your basics be effortless? Maybe?
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I'm actually literally trying to do that with soldering, but more like 1/week
though I'd call it not kata level, but one level below in basic drills/forms (kihon)
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