What I Know About Playing the Bass

Damian Conway spoke here at U of T last night. He’s very engaging, though I think I would have enjoyed the talk more if the examples had been shorter (and if there had been less Lara Croft at the beginning — still not sure what that was all about). The best part came right at the end, when he said (roughly), “One of the reasons I’m a good hacker is that I write code every single day.” My first thought was the number of times I’ve told students to try to find balance in their life: play Ultimate, knit, anything to avoid a one-note existence. But then I thought about what a jazz musician named Al Gorman once told me: you can learn how to play bass like John Paul Jones or Ron Carter in six hours — every day, for ten years. Nobody tells them to get a life; instead, society recognizes that if you want to be the best there is, you have to focus single-mindedly. When programmers do it, they’re called geeks, but maybe that level of geekery is essential. (And maybe that’s why I’ll never be Damian Conway… ;-)

0 thoughts on “What I Know About Playing the Bass”

  1. Geofrey Flores

    All I can utter after the talk was along the lines of Conway having a twisted and sick mind. I’ve never imagined anyone being so masochistic although it encouraged me to take latin and ask girls for their zodiac signs. Maybe I should start programming in Mueller’s brainf*ck from now on…

    ,>++++++[-],[-],.

  2. Bill Mill

    When I link to ultimate (fairly frequently) I tend to use ultimate handbook, since the UPA’s site is pretty intimidating to beginners.

    I don’t think I knew you were an ultimate fan before. Did/do you play?

  3. Brian Hayes

    Sometime in the 1970s Ivan Sutherland told me exactly the same thing: He always wrote at least a little code, every day. He showed me the program he’d been working on that morning, on a flight from Utah to New York. This was in the days before laptops. For that matter, it was before desktops. He was coding on a legal pad.

  4. Ben

    Unfortunately years of destroying my wrists on the keyboard has made me one awfully poor frisbee thrower …

  5. Olivier

    Although when Damian said that it did light up a bulb, your comment really says it all. I still think that although dedication and determination are essential to become really good, one must not forget about all the other stuff… Be it to let the subconscious work on it (the “Eureka” factor), or to have a bigger picture of it all (therefore better approach) or better yet; motivation. Life cannot be lived in a single dimension, results would come about way slower… Why use a one headed TM when you can use one with 2?

  6. Shahan K

    I’ve also heard the line that doing something for 10 years makes you an expert. I don’t believe it’s true, I believe actual experience counts for a heck of a lot. I’ve played squash for 15 years and I’ve beaten people who are way more fit and I’ve also been beaten into the ground by 14 year olds who have racquets almost as big as they are (at least I’m old enough to make to the bar after the game).

  7. Sacha Chua

    There’s something to be said about focus. The people we really admire for their skill aren’t afraid to unbalance their life and get really deeply into something. There’s also something to be said about generalists who can draw connections between different fields and people who can take advantage of a wide range of interests in order to connect with far more people. =)

    I think students should develop both depth and breadth. We need to be deeply enough into something in order to distinguish ourselves, but we also need to explore all sorts of opportunities in order to get a better idea of what we want to do in life. Or, well, at least that’s what I think as a student… It’s worked pretty well for me so far! <grin>

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