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Let's take programming: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%E2%80%B2%E2%80%B2 … It's sort of the minimum concepts of computation. Or, even how the entire early Lisp was defined on 1/2 a page of a book. The concepts from both traditions are very simple.
Now painting: https://www.amazon.com/How-Color-Paint-Arthur-Stern/dp/1626540632 … That book pretty much lays out the basics of painting in the first few pages, but all visual art has like 4 concepts to understand: 1. Drawing as Value and Proportion. 2. Color as Hue and Intensity. 3. Focus as Edges. 4. Composition.
Photography is fairly similar to Painting, but they have better more exact terminology for the same things. You've got value range, focal point, composition, hue, exposure, etc. But after that and the few technical words and concepts it's not that many concepts.
How about music: 1. Rhythm -- Everything is 12/8. 2. Harmony -- There's only 3 chords. 3. Melody -- There's just 2 pentatonics. 4. Lyrics -- Only sometimes. And a lot of that is incredibly subjective and depends on the culture.
But, to be any good at these things you have to study for an incredibly long time, and many times start early in life. Most of what top professionals end up doing is just practicing a hole ton until they internalize these concepts and to the point they don't think about them.
The reason I think these concepts take a lot of practice is because they are something you cannot understand intellectually, but instead have to experience. You could read about painting or music your whole life and still never be able to do either. Same with programming.
There's also a performance aspect to all of these things. Doing them doesn't mean you can talk to a bunch of people about them. You do them for other people, and that's how you get paid or get recognized. That performance aspect requires practice for real time action.
I also think a *LOT* of what you are learning when you practice is how to apply these concepts to replicate cliches of genres. For example, here's Steve Vai doing Little Wing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6HMpoyxisY … I listen to that and it's fucking awful. But, he's a master guitarist.
Well, he just learned a different set of cliches from the Neo Classical genre that don't translate into a Jimi Hendrix cover. In the context of the Blues that's fucking terrible. Compare that to Stevie Ray Vaughn's version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An4uDegHB8s … Now *that* sounds "right".
The same applies to painting. I know painters who do immaculate perfect still life paintings who then can't paint a fucking landscape or portrait to save their life. That's because, they didn't really master the concepts so much as master applying the concepts to a cliche.
Programming is the same as well when it comes to mastery of concepts in the service of cliches. I couldn't code a video game to save my life, but ask me to make a network protocol, programming language, assembler, or anything about "language" and it's no problem.
Walk up to the average game programmer and ask them to write a network protocol and they choke and die. Or, how they all use Lua 'cause they can't code their own languages. Or how they keep using C++ for no reason at all. That's not because the concepts are hard though.
It's more that you have limited time and you get paid to perform and what people pay for is cliches that are known to work. So, we all focus in a genre and master the application of the concepts to cliches that work, and branching out requires re-learning all new cliches.
The significance of this idea is this: If these things all require extensive practice to become viable skills, then telling someone they just need to learn the concepts is denying the fact that a vast majority of what makes you a "programmer", "painter", or "musician" is cliches
And, not just cliches but being able to apply the concepts to replicate cliches. I mean, programmers are fucking notorious as hell for denying people jobs simply for not putting a space before the ( on a fucking if-statement so don't tell me they're ruled by cliches.
Additionally, I think a lot of the people who claim you only need to learn the concepts couldn't actually list out these concepts. I think most programmers couldn't replicate P" or a Lisp from memory, even though they're simple. I've never heard a designer even say "value".
Finally, this questions the wisdom that you CANNOT learn the concepts from simply practicing. If you are judged by your skill in performing cliches, and the concepts are fairly simple, but only understood through experience, then...why can't you learn them while you practice?
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