This might look like a somewhat odd title for an article. Don’t worry, I’m not going to try to introduce you to a ‘walking dead’ equivalent of piano playing. I’ve adapted a borrowed expression ‘Zombie Learners’ to Zombie Pianists to describe an interesting phenomenon.
Over the past weeks, I have come across a number of articles and videos that talk about how as human beings we can have a tendency to be quite closed minded. I saw the expression Zombie Learners describing how people are more likely to sign up to a course that is going to teach them something they already believe as opposed to teach them something different. Equally, we are more likely to read an article that reinforces what we think rather than something that challenges our preconceptions. This in part explains why some people prefer a left wing or right wing newspaper.
A hard-wired way of thinking?
I was then invited to attend a training course by my employer about how bias operates in decision making and general business and personal interactions.
Of course, we all like to believe that we aren’t biased (or at least not strongly biased). However, according to this particular course (run by an eminent professor), lots of the research into human behaviour points to the fact that we are in fact very strongly biased. Moreover, we’ll fight remarkably hard to resist anything that challenges this bias.
We are all a product of our early environment to a surprising extent. Our formative years are strongly influenced by three major things – our parents, the place (town, country, environment) in which we grow up and the time (era) in which we grow up.
Whether we like it or not, we can’t escape those influences and all of them are highly personal. They mean that we will think in a certain way and make decisions in a certain way. Moreover, our brain is ‘hard wired’ to seek out things that ‘confirm’ what we already believe. In fact, it even goes as far as to automatically discount things that go against that. Perhaps even more surprising, the brain can be almost oblivious to facts in this respect. This is a phenomenon called Confirmation Bias.
Does Confirmation Bias create Zombie Pianists?
So why might this be relevant to learning to play the piano. This brings us back to the Zombie Pianists idea.
If there is one thing I have noticed about most (if not all) pianists, it’s that we are crazily passionate about piano. It’s something that whilst giving us its fair share of challenges, also brings tremendous joy. Whether we’re at the level of Rach 3 or the Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach, the passion can be just as strong.
I have also noticed that there is an almost religious fervour sometimes in piano debates. We all have different musical upbringings of course. However, because of our teachers, the traditions in our country of origin (we hear of the Russian School, the French School etc.), perhaps even the musical tastes of our parents, we are taught that there is a certain ‘way’ to learn piano. This is then backed up by ‘folklore’ (it has always been done this way) and ‘rumour’ (every great pianist does this).
Confirmation bias in action
Let me give an example an example that I have used before. Most of us are obliged to learn scales on piano. Not only that, but to start playing 4 octaves of them, in every key, legato, staccato, in 3rds and 6ths. We are told that no pianist worth his or her salt would let a day go by without practising scales. This, we are told, is the way everybody has to learn piano. This, we are told, is vital to developing a good piano technique.
We will equally see things such as ‘all music is based on scales’. I once even saw ‘if you can’t play a scale, you can’t play anything’.
Given we are almost ‘force fed’ this from a very young age, our natural human make up convinces us that this is the ‘truth’. Confirmation bias means that anybody who says anything going against this is (in extreme cases) nothing short of a heretic.
Evidence to the contrary?
Martha Argerich is on record saying she never did scales! Ever! So, therefore, how on earth can she play piano. How can she even understand music if she didn’t do scales! Our immediate reaction in the face of such contradictory evidence is generally to discount it. In response to my article transcribing a conversation between her and Charles Dutoit, I received a range of comments to the article ranging such as:
- She is obviously the exception that proves the rule.
- The usual rules don’t apply to a genius.
- It is simply luck if she managed without scales.
- She must have done scales when she first learned as nobody can get around them – perhaps she just forgot.
- Many concert pianists aren’t truthful about how they learned …. I could go on.
As you can see, our immediate reaction is to seek refuge in what we believe by explaining why anything to the contrary cannot be relied upon.
However, perhaps what we can learn from this anecdote is that maybe what makes Martha Argerich such a phenomenal artist is that during her most formative years, instead of focussing on mechanics (scales) she actually focussed on music instead. There are other pianists such as Richter where you might come to the same conclusion.
New Fangled or Traditional?
I believe there are plenty of other examples of where Confirmation Bias perhaps is conspiring against us – see for example my article ‘Lies to Pianists‘. However, this is where things get tricky. Sometimes, we have ‘always done it this way’ for a very good reason. If it isn’t broken as they say, don’t fix it. Yet, real progress often happens when people go against the grain. When the iPhone was first released, it was derided by the major mobile phone manufacturers because ‘nobody wants a phone without a keypad’. ‘Phones have always had keypads and they are essential for any serious user’. The people saying this had (relatively) a lifetime’s experience in the design and manufacture of mobile phones. Steve Jobs and Apple had no experience at all in this area. Therefore, we should surely agree with those with ‘real experience’ and not just some ‘gimmicky’ upstart!
Now, a phone without a keypad is totally unremarkable and many of these traditional companies are struggling to compete!
Embracing new ideas
So, what’s my point? Going back to the course I did at work, what we were asked to take away was that it is by embracing different ideas that real progress is made. Just because something is new and unfamiliar doesn’t make it wrong. Any more than just because something is traditional, it doesn’t make it old fashioned or outdated. Therefore, we should remain open to new ideas – even in an art as age old as playing piano. We should recognize that Confirmation Bias (whether we like it or not) will always be at play and that sometimes, it actually helps to seek out opinions that differ from our own. We should not be afraid to challenge ourselves and remember that often, what we are presented with as being the ‘truth’ is little more than an opinion!
