complex sets of simple instructions

[juldea]

Bear with me, please: this will be a long entry, but I think it's rather important and has spent a long time in coming. It starts off talking about bellydancing but really the topic is the particular way my brain works and how it applies to my WHOLE life, so really, please listen. It might be a bit rambly since I've been up for 20 hours...

The topic of tonight's bellydance class was the taxim, which is a slow unmetered type of dance typically danced to a solo by the person playing the oud (guitar-like). Sabrena, my instructor, gave us a little choreography and told us that due to the nature of the music, she wasn't able to tell us, "Do 3 undulations and then 2 hip circles," because there's no real way to count, you just feel the music. This was all fine with me until I thought about trying to do this on the spot with a live band, when you neither know what music is next nor what moves you're supposed to do next. I brought this up with Sabrena, basically asking her a very fundamental question about "real" bellydancing: how do you know what to do when dancing with a live band that doesn't follow sheet music?

Her answer, basically saying, "You just know," included the line (or at least something like it), "This is what transforms the dance from being technical to being art." When she said that, I knew that it was pointless for me to keep questioning her on the topic. I left class early (by which I mean, actually on time) and for the whole ride home have been trying to decide whether I should go with my inclination to find another dance instructor... and writing this post in my head.

It's not that I disagree with her, dislike her, or am not learning things in the class. It's just that her style, and what she is trying to teach us, are things that I don't think I'm made to learn. I have always been a bellydancer who learns choreography and then performs it, not a dancer who improvises on the spot. I am the technical - my point in dancing is to perfect a piece, perfect moves, build a dance and then perform it.

Improvisation - creation really - is not something I do well. This is not just in bellydance. I look at all aspects of my life - work, school, relationships, hobbies - and I see that my talent lies not in creativity but in execution. I am a great administrative assistant because the boss gives me a list of things to do and I do them. I write papers that are technically flawless (spelling, grammar, opening-paragraph-body-body-body-closing-paragraph) but fail to ever cross the line into being innovative. I am a musician; I can pretty much hash out any sheet music you put in front of me, but I don't write music or play by ear. I have knitted some very beautiful things because I can follow patterns. I loved marching band.

Basically, londo hit the nail on the head a month or two ago when he told me that what I enjoyed was, "following a complex set of simple instructions." I look around all the time now and marvel at how well it applies. Marching band formations, sewing/knitting patterns, dance choreographies, bending Excel to my will by using Help to find the proper commands to use in what order (yes, this makes me VERY satisfied), writing geometric proofs, following furniture assembly diagrams, elementary level computer programming. Someone has already figured out how to do all of these things, but the patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time is rough for some people. Not me. I can juggle the different sections, fit the puzzle pieces together according to the given diagram, and present the final product.

A little leftover part of the Objectivist me from a few years ago gibbers in fear at this. I'm not a creator? I'm not an innovator? Well, what use am I then? Wasn't I "supposed to" be one of the übermensch... and now I turn out to just be a servant? Well, crap.

Luckily, I've grown up since then. I might not be Einstein, but my talents are useful somewhere. I just need to figure out where.

Obviously (at least to me), Letters was not the right major for me. Yes, one of the reasons I was drawn to it was because of my love of the rigid grammar structure of Latin, and yes, one of the reasons I did well was because I can follow an essay formula really damn well. But inherently, a Letters degree isn't about following a complex set of simple instructions. But... is any degree? Is my talent fit for a college degree at all? I mean, yeah, already done it. But now I'm doing some hindsight analysis.

So, right. I have learned this thing about myself, and for the most part am accepting it. Sometimes it gives me problems - such as today in class, where I basically felt like I was being told I'd never be an artist. I might learn how to... well... improvise improvising, but it's never going to be natural. I'll always be more comfortable performing a set choreography to a pre-recorded piece of music.

Now that I've learned this... I should apply it. Yes, my personality means that I make a good administrative assistant. But I don't want to be one of those forever, because I like complex sets of simple instructions, heh. Admin assistants get simple sets. It kills my brain. So what else can I do? Does anyone have any ideas?

It was proposed to me last summer by someone who I had a random getting-to-know-you conversation with that I might like to go back to school and study statistics. That seems likely to fit the bill, but I don't actually know much about it. Actually, I have etherial's statistics book borrowed - I should really give it a look and get back to him.

siderea, if you've read this far - I'd be really curious to know if you have any Meyers-Briggs flavored insights. ;)

Back on the bellydance topic, the fact that Sabrena's style is all about improv and my desire is to perfect choreography and technique, added to the fact that the classes are late in the evening in Quincy, an hour+ away by public transit, and we often run late... makes me think I should be in another class. Something closer, with more technique and choreography emphasis.

Hmm.

Comments

[adalius.livejournal.com]

Welcome to metal fabrication. Today you'll follow a complex set (a blueprint) of simple instructions (welding, drilling, etc) to make a final project. Come, join me in my effort to get a bunch of people together to form a company.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Nod, I've pondered something in the mechanical 'arts' ... maybe becoming a girl car mechanic! It's not too late! ;)

But yeah. Blueprints = awesome. (Like maps.)

[karlean7.livejournal.com]

What she's talking about, to a certain extent, is patterns in music. Which do exist, and can be reasonably easily pieced together. That, combined with a set of basic moves, makes that improvising thing not QUITE so abstract. I could probably improvise a dance on the spot that wouldn't be particularly complex, just because I've built up a physical vocabulary over time.

Her teaching style doesn't really appeal to me, either, though. 90% of my dancing ability comes from borrowing moves from choreography that I've already learned, and my so-called "improvisation" falls apart when I don't know the music really well, which is one of the reason I don't like going clubbing.

As for everything else...well, there's a lot to be said for being able to execute something really well. Seriously. As far as the performing arts are concerned, it's highly essential in all fields, and most of them don't require much improvisation. There's improv theater and jazz, and stuff like that, but more often than not, it's just do it they way the composer is telling you to.

I really don't know what to say as far as other careers are concerned, but there is DEFINITELY a call for that sort of ability, and goddamn, Rock on for coming to that conclusion, though, because now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

...WHOO!

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Nod, patterns in music - I do know. That is why I don't cry and say, "I suck and I'll never improvise!" about most bellydancing - well, okay, sometimes I do cry and say that. ;) But I can dance along with most 'normal' bellydance songs, because they'll at least have a familiar underlying drumbeat I can play with. It's these free-form drum/oud solos that I just don't get, though! There really is no pattern! ;)

Rock on for coming to that conclusion, though, because now that I think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

A lot of sense in regards to me, you mean? :)

[rufinia.livejournal.com]

But you LARP.

Isn't LARP essentially improving within what's reasonable for your character to do? It sounds like a similar thing... or maybe not, because I'm hardlyy an expert in role playing in general or LARPing in general.

My brain is fried right now. I'll ponder this more and talk mroe later. Like you can stop me.

[isaiahblake.livejournal.com]

She was terrified of LARPing for the longest time for exactly this reason.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and don't you remember how much trouble I had when I first started LARPing? I still sometimes fall into periods of, "Omg, wtf do I do next, I suck at this..!"

The only way I have gotten over this is that LARPing is a group of people concentrating on their own parts more than on me - it's not me performing for them!

[sammid.livejournal.com]

Just be glad you know what you want now at least.
Addy you crack me up ;p
Jul,and Karlean-you two should videotape yourselves doing some dancing-I love that shit-would like to see it :)
And Jul-here's some links for career (meyer-briggs type) tests:
http://www.careerkey.org/english/
http://similarminds.com/career.html

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Someday I will have videos to share, yeah... :)

[descant.livejournal.com]

So you don't create, but you do implement well. That means that you are capable of high levels of abstraction and organisation. Trust me on this. To be good at execution, you have to be organised enough to perform efficiently. After you toss in experience, suddenly you have a person who is very good at getting things done AND knows enough to change what needs to be changed if it needs changing. So good execution is a very nice skill to have.

Like Mike said, improv takes experience. When I first started jazz, I certainly couldn't improv or comp worth beans, but after a while, I learned how to listen to other people in the band and figured out the musical language of jazz. I'm not reading notes off a page anymore. I'm reading the sounds and gestures from the other performers, but I'm still using my technical knowledge of performance and music theory to respond to what they are doing. It's not an entirely different mindset; you just have to figure out how to make it all work with your learning and execution style.

I have a friend who feels that she isn't creative enough to make webpages. I tell her that's not true. She just doesn't have the experience to know how to make a design quickly or knows what would be pleasing to the eye in terms of readibility and artistry. Lack of experience is a BIG impediment in many ways. You don't get things done quickly. You don't know what works together. You don't know what to change to make things just as good or better.

There is a language to all forms of art. When you look at a painting, you see the artist's message presented in colors and forms. When you listen to a piece of music, you are hearing sounds put together in a fairly predictable way. [C'mon! Most everything is IV-V-I or some variant thereof these days.] There are patterns. There are ways things are and have been done. [Color/music theory, anyone?] When you learn to recall those patterns on a moment's notice, you can take it to the next step: changing it in a way that makes sense to the rest of the piece of art. Do that well enough and it seems like you're being creative at a moment's notice. Are you really being creative though? Or is it all learned from experience?

You CAN be an artist. It just takes A LOT of practice. You say you follow knitting patterns well. How about changing one or two to see what will come out? See how far you can go. Test your limits. Develop new skills. Have fun. :D

So Sabrena is right. She was just not very good at explaining it. ;)

Anyway, I'm prolly not making much sense since I'm babbling here .. but if you have the time and money, take a look at this book: Do What You Are (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316880655/qid=1103089074/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-7973302-8245551?v=glance&s=books&n=507846). It's a career guide based on personality types. It looks fun, if nothing else. ;)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

But - I do have a lot of experience! I have played the piano for over half of my life... shouldn't that have given me some extra bit of preparation for trying to comp in jazz band in high school? But oh boy, how I sucked at that - the band director ended up having to write me a solo! ;)

I have altered patterns multiple times. Hell, the hat I'm making for my cousin's neice right now is an original design, made up on the fly - that I've had to rip out and redo twice so far. ;) So I'm not saying that I can't improvise and create, just that it's not my forte (Har! I said forte!) and that I don't enjoy it as much as I enjoy following instructions. That's the part that makes me weird! I love being able to sight-read, but improving just leaves me... unfulfilled. Even when I manage to pull it off.

Type <i>and</i> performing arts... whoohoo!

[siderea]

siderea, if you've read this far - I'd be really curious to know if you have any Meyers-Briggs flavored insights. ;)

I do indeedy.

1) I can't reconcile what you write above with what I know of your personality type. Something is going on.

2) You and I should have a leisurely conversation about improvisation, in music and elsewhere.

3) Please do not forget that just because something is not natural or does not come readily to you doesn't mean you can't learn to do it, or even attain excellence in it. Pitch didn't come readily to me. The question is "how badly do you want it, and how long are you willing to suck at it."

4) I'm not sure, but I suspect your belly dance teacher is Full of Shit on this topic. Just because she can't tell you how it's done doesn't mean other people haven't figured out a systematic way of doing it. And "art" is not about not needing clue and just going with a magical instinct; art is how it's done -- with taste, with good aesthetic choices -- not what is done.

Yay, I'm an enigma! ;)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

1) Interesting, because I think that this issue is a major part of who I am. This should be a discussion topic too. ;) Along with point (2), which I'm more than happy to do with you. What're you doing tomorrow night?

3) Yes, I know. :)

4) I skipped over a lot of what she said in my summary above - when I was questioning her on how she was preparing us for improvisation, she did go on quite the soapbox rant. She covered points such as how a familiar band or genre of music will have underlying patterns that you can familiarize yourself with to make it less of a guessing game.

But yes, she works differently than I do, and therefore I don't think that I'm actually learning a useful method for improvisational dancing from her. I am learning a little simply because for a little bit of each class we are "forced" to just dance without a choreography, so I'm being pushed into the water to learn to swim! But perhaps there's a better teacher for me out there...

I don't know if you're interested, but...

[jicklet.livejournal.com]

if you'd ever like to work on bellydancing improv, come to Manray sometime when I'm there (like this friday, heh:). I don't have my garb together yet, but I do try to improv the whole time.

Re: I don't know if you're interested, but...

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Heh, Manray doesn't really fit my sleep schedule anymore, and it costs money! ;) But keep me informed... It's not likely I show up this Friday (dinner plans and then londo will be over, and I know he's not at all interested) but I could probably do so again!

Are you creating a goth bellydance outfit?!

[ex-krink990.livejournal.com]

i left my old guitar teacher for the same reasons. he couldn't provide written music that was challenging enough for me. he could play beautiful pieces that i would have loved to learn, and could have played, if he could have written them down for me. he wanted me to hear and remember, and i didn't think i could. i needed music. prime example of classically trained musician versus improvisational musician. so i quit taking lessons, and now i hardly ever play anymore. moral of the story: find another teacher if you must, but don't give up dancing due to frustration. find someone who can explain it in a way that you understand. and if you keep it up, someday you'll look back on what she said and go "ooo-kay now i get it!"

and i repeat, yet again,
read the parachute book. read the parachute book. read the parachute book!

economics, statistics, database management, programming.. the options would be endless.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I don't plan on giving up dancing. Just possibly finding a better (for me) instructor!

Sigh, I did read half the parachute book, and I just wasn't getting anything from it. I guess I will go back and finish it... :P

Improv

[cristovau.livejournal.com]

Improvisation is something that can be learned like any skill. It takes practice and learning by doing. Honestly, I think your teacher does have a set of perhaps a dozen tricks to handle transitions. The fact that she doesn't pay attention to them or categorize them doesn't mean that they aren't there.

Pulling an answer out of nowhere, I'd say pause and isolate one body part in a slow movement for one measure and hope you can catch the rhythm to adjust. That's one trick of 12. Take it in simple steps. Perhaps you can isolate the tricks where she can't.

Re: Improv

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Heh, no offense, but I'm not sure where you got the idea that transitions were a problem for me. ;) It's not going from one move to the next - it's knowing what music will be coming next, and therefore being able to perform a dance step that matches up with that music. Because interpreting the music through dance steps is VERY important to me... I am not one who feels like a shimmy can be done at any time to any music. It has a Time and a Place, dammit! So I can't just say in my head, "Okay.. wait for the music change... and SHIMMY!" because who knows what the music will be changing INTO?

Also, keep in mind that what I'm talking about right now isn't a change from, say, a 4/4 rhythm to a 12/8 rhythm. It's a change from UNMETERED to UNMETERED for 3-4 minutes straight! I can't find a pattern to latch onto after a moment of transition, because it keeps being patternless! ;)

[alliecatpurrrrr.livejournal.com]

Wow, it's crazy to read someone else write something that sounds so much like what goes on in my head. I can totally and completely understand and relate to you on this, because my mind works the same way. I know that I was talking to you earlier about this, but I just wanted you to know, you're not alone in this, because I work the same way.

[en-ki.livejournal.com]

Consider the notion that the music contains coded instructions, and you merely need to figure out how to decode those instructions. A more improvisational approach would creating the decoding on the fly, but there's no reason you couldn't work out a table in advance. (And it may be reasonable to expect a teacher to work out that table, or show you how to.)

[juldea.livejournal.com]

I don't consider my ESP powers to be sufficient enough to - on the spot - decode the instructions inside a piece of music made-up on the spot.

[mr-teem.livejournal.com]

Software testing.
Technical editor.
Network installation technician.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

Technical editor? I like both of those words. What do they mean when combined?

[flyingindie.livejournal.com]

I know exactly how you feel because I feel the same way with singing. When I sing opera/classical music, I don't get anywhere near as nervous as I do when I sing with the jazz band.

However, I can scat, and no other people who sing with the jazz band can scat. This is because my high school jazz choir director made us do a scat solo every single day. It was awkward at first, but feeling awkward is the only hump to get over. I sang scat every day for three years, and now it's not scary anymore. I even enjoy it.

What I'm trying to say is that if you are serious about wanting to dance with a live band on a regular basis, the only way it will feel comfortable is to practice with a live band as much as you can. Somewhere in my three years of high school jazz choir, my nervousness about vocal improvisation went away and it became a skill instead of a thing of dread. Your teacher might have been saying something similar, but didn't say it well.

I also get nervous singing jazz because jazz is my "real" and natural voice, not my trained voice. But if you are anything like me, once you break through the barrier of shyness, you won't be so scared to let the "you" come through in your improvisatory performance.

[juldea.livejournal.com]

if you are serious about wanting to dance with a live band on a regular basis

Heh, that's the thing. I'm not. That seems to be the 'default' for bellydancers here - or at least in the surroundings of this professor - but I totally prefer dancing onstage to prerecorded music! That's how I started and that's how I like it. ;)