Thanks for the tag and the kind words! Hope the reading group is great.

One big question is, start with songs or start with rudiments/scales/exercises! Holistic top down or bottom up foundations.

In college teaching, we have to figure out whether we want to start with the history/foundations/principles compared with compelling examples (“songs”).

In contrast, the worst have learning goals like “expose to X” or “show Y”… they’re a bit like pedagogical concerts but not like real teaching.

For example, I loved a class on playing clawhammer guitar. It was an hour long and the teacher made you do the basic clawhammer motion on the guitar literally for the entire hour to solidify a complicated motor routine. All the rest was gravy because you left having put in that practice…

The best have really clear and immediate learning goals. I liked your AC/DC example because some of the best classes I’ve taken define a learning goal that matters and take immediate steps to get you moving on it in class time.

At various times I’ve studied mandolin, guitar, bass, cello, and voice. Right now mostly mando and voice. Bluegrass and folk music has a very robust group teaching tradition (eg in camps and festivals). Often these have very uneven pedagogy.

I play music a lot and study with many music teachers. :)

oh great - thank you!!

Bonus: full text of the paper "The Yerkes-Dodson Law Repealed" pasted below:

There is a flaw
In the evidence for the Yerkes-Dodson Law.
To call it “ubiquitous”
Is pretty iniquitous.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.2...

Thank you!!

This project used literally every trick I know about measurement, experimental design, and modeling (and I learned many more along the way by following Anjie Gal and Rebecca). I hope it looks clear and obvious from the paper but it was a wild voyage of discovery!