There’s a scene in Drumline where Nick Cannon (is hilarious) is doing late night tryouts. The unofficial signal comes from the current drumline parked off in the distance. If you play the rehearsal piece and they honk their car horn, they’re signaling approval.
This is what writing online can feel like sometimes. You write your thing and send it off into the void and then someone way off gives you their approval.
I’m not saying NOT to do that. I’m just saying not to ONLY do that.
Also in the movie, he’s able to play without reading notes. He just watches other people play and can pick it up quickly.
Watching other people working can be incredibly effective for learning. Exposing yourself to how an expert in your indstry works will teach you things they wouldn’t think to teach. Because they forgot some incredibly valuable nugget is even worth teaching in the first place.
Even if that expert chooses to teach what they know, there’s a bottleneck in how well they’re able to teach. So a lot of knowledge is just locked up but you’d be able to soak it in if you watched them work.
Luckily there’s a growing number of people streaming their work process or otherwise documenting as they build in public.
That said, take the time to read books. Figure out the good ones with principles standing the test of time. Not being able to read music catches up to him eventually, but this line sets him on the right path:
If you don’t have the honor and discipline to learn your craft, then quite frankly you don’t deserve to be here.