Amelia Kearl- Coyle- Chapter 1 and 2

 Amelia Kearl- COYLE-CHAPTER 1 and 2 

Chapter 1. 

In the first chapter of “The Talent Code”, Thomas Coyle talks about his travels around the globe collecting stories of “chicken-wire Harvards”, places that despite all odds produced extraordinarily talented people. In these places ordinary people have learned how to practice efficiently, turning their teams, schools, and even cities into “Talent Hotbeds” (somewhere phenomenal amounts of skill is being produced). As Coyle observes these people he is stunned. About half the time they move through their practice with superhuman speed. The other half of the time they struggle and miss something and then stop and think and try it slowly again. Coyle explains that while learning, struggling is actually very beneficial. Engaging in activities just difficult enough helps you remember what you learned better. 

Chapter 2. 

Coyle suggests that mylien may be the secret to these people’s success. Mylien wraps forming a protective sheath around a circuits of nerves called neurons. Myelin sheaths reinforce these pathways making it faster for us to do things like recall information to perform technical motions quicker. These skills become easier and even automatic, he says. Fields suggests that people in talent hotbeds have more myelin than average. Anders Ericsson later explains that savants (someone with extreme skill in one area) don’t have a special feature that ordinary people don’t. They usually have had a large amount of exposure and have a limited area of expertise. He mentions Mozart who he said by age 6 had listened to and studied 3,500 hrs of music. No wonder he was so amazing! He has mylien to thank!

Application

While reading these chapters I realized that I should be practicing in a different way. I need to be more aware when I practice and focus on correcting mistakes and perfecting passages instead of just doing it to do it. In these chapters I learned that mylien only wraps, it doesn’t unwrap; so I want to make sure it’s wrapping up the right things, not my mistakes. I think this applies to teaching voice as well. In my experience at least, voice teachers normally focus on short phrases and sometimes even a single note. When you are a teacher, you don’t want to let your student keep making mistakes; you need to catch the mistakes and correct them.