It would be better if i start with a small flashback before i jump into the thing i wanted to write. I have been learning to play the musical instrument veena from 14-10-1994. Yes! That is precisely the date. When I was barely five years old and when I was so small that I couldn't reach the ends of the veena with my hands, when my hands would start paining and reddening the moment i played two notes continuously. My mom must have had loads of perseverance and hope, to run behind a five-year old asking her to play veena! I actually went to the music school for vocal music and the kid in me chose to play the veena instead. Of course at that point of time it was just like I had to learn some art or the other and the girl next door learnt it and so i was naturally attracted to it. I learnt and learnt, with no great progress but some real nice grasp of basic fingering, which i now realise is extremely important, (and that's the one i am complimented for very often :P) and a lots of practice sessions on basics, that, again as i now realise, helps me understand the larger perspective, to look beyond notes and ragas, an aspect i shall probably write in future posts. Looks like it's all the same, science/research or music or architecture - stronger the foundation, the higher you reach. I did make some good progress after that - some nice competitions won, played infront of good scholars who have an amazing depth of knowledge, got some good attention, finished a lower grade degree. This by the start of 10th class - somewhere in 2003. And then it all stopped - mam shifted to some other place, i got into studies( i know that's such a sick, lame and cliched excuse, i did a thousand other things other than studying during that time, i could have done this as well) and i stopped going to veena classes - something i am really really sad about, i havent still rejoined a class in the proper sense of the word, and if there is one thing I am really ashamed about myself, its that - not nurturing the skill that i had got with so much of pain, meticulation and time investment. Not to mention my mom's efforts and time, to keep me motivated and take me back to classes even when i am fed up about the scoldings i get from veena mam! Now, there ends the flashback part.
The next issue, jumping to the present, I have always been this last minute person when it comes to studies, well, not just with studies with almost everything else, guess it's pretty much the same with many of us. I have forced myself to study in the days before exams but I havent been able to complete even 1/10 of the portion in a considerable amount of time. But somehow, the day before exam, your level of grasping, concentration and attention scales a super - high peak. On an exam day, you do some 15 times the portion you would do on a non-exam day, in the same time. How is it possible? You study some 5 units in the same time you struggle to study a small part of one unit during the cycle tests. I call it the last-minute-syndrome, clearly an impressive misnomer, nevertheless fine for now. The brain performs better under compulsion and pressure, they say. But how? How nice would it be if we can harvest and cultivate a method to have that attention all that time! Call it greed, man!
Now the link between veena and this exam thing. Its this... my mom keeps attributing this whole grasping and concentration phenomenon of mine, the last-minute syndrome, to my veena classes and more importantly to my strict music teacher. That my mind has been 'conditioned' to concentrate on a number of things at the same time and a number of other allied effects thereby making my cognitive skills better over time. To name a few, selectively hear what the mam plays, ignoring what the other students in the same room play, though i hear them to the same level of audibility ; focus on where she gives the stress on the fingers ; focus on the timing ; focus on the taalam counts, (yes maths doesnt leave music too! ) ; how long she stays on a single note and a hundred other subtle, maybe unimportant or extrememly important things. And play it back to her! Omg! That is probably the toughest part - the input is a combo of audio-visual and the output is motor - after a complex processing of 'god-knows-what' type by the brain. Add to it the audio feedback of what you play and the visual feedback of the fingers on the string and the mam's angry face! And all of it is seemingly so easy! It is all over at the moment, the moment i grasp what she plays and repeat it! Or the worse case - get scolded for not being able to play it, hear it being played once more and play it back to her! Its done! As simple as that! There it ends!
But apparently this simple momentary thing has 'conditioned' my mind for this last-minute syndrome! What exactly is the connect between both? Seemingly very different things... Well, what i am coming to say here is, how can such a input - processing - response behavior, probably performed at the moment only for the fear of punishment, influence more complex cognitive functions like learning and memory in totally a different context- the last minute syndrome? (darn! monkeys can be tested only on reward oriented behavior, i guess, thanks to animal rights ppl, we experience both reward and punishment moderated behavior! )
Could there be a connect at all at the first place? Could it be a cause- effect relation? After years of arguing with my mom, and with myself, plus recently reading a considerable bit on cognition, I think i have come to a rather vague conclusion on this issue. The conclusion is based more than intution and experience than anything else. And the answer is YES! My veena classes could indeed have had a bearing on my attention and concentration. My veena teacher scolding me badly for not playing a strech properly the first time i hear it might have actually been responsible for a couple of good grades in college. They might actually make me learn a topic or two extra on the day before an exam in lesser time, which i would not have done otherwise.
Now, clearly, it's a rather abstract relationship, not definitely a clear cause-effect, but nevertheless, I guess, if there were a study, it would indeed find some statistical significance. The effect might be due to a number of things - could be the magic of music in it, could be the multi-tasking or parallel processing or a series of quick processing by the brain (That humans can multi-task is a topic of intense research debate, so i safely stick to parallel OR a series of quick processing), it could be punishment oriented behavior, it could be inherent, acquired by practice, a combination of all these and whatnot! But the end result is, it influences more important things in life, later in life, in a complex way.
So this comes to say, small, everyday acts of ours, done unconsiously most often, have an influence on more complex things and our behavior, especially when repeated over time. This is just a very blind hypothesis, with no base to support, with no previous knowledge, rather it's a description of how i feel. But something tells me there is some amount of veritability in this, isn't it? These things do seem to have an impact on the person you are. I wonder if you have felt similar things.
There is a problem here - the issue is not just mine! How many out there are last minute people? Almost all of the student community is, except for a few. Not everyone who has this last minute study habit attends a veena class. But i might have an answer to this. In other cases, I would say there might be something similar that hones your brain and its processing - video gaming, music (listening i mean), multitasking habits (including chatting on 6 windows in gtalk! Yes that indeed counts and that's indeed a skill!) to name a few. The degree to which they influence cognition (learning, behavior, language) is different for sure, but they must have an influence, if we are to go by popular experience. After all, there have been popular papers in reputed journals about how gaming can alter our reaction times for the better, alter concentration and attention profiles, most often for the better.Now all this happens ofcourse with a plethora of negative effects that people attribute to gaming. One thing is clear from all these - all these do influence our brain in some way - forget about positive or negative effects, it becomes too relative to compare and varies from person to person. What's positive for me out of gaming might actually be a negative for you.
Now this brings us to a scary juncture - we say, the day-to-day habits and actions have an influence in the long run on the personality, rather the cognition of a person. If small day-to-day acts can have so much importance (assuming they have, say the hypothesis is proved!) what if we do them the wrong way?? Because how they exert their influence is not known, what works in a positive way might just as well work in the negative way too. Oh my, how many things have I done today that would reduce my concentration in the long run! And more importantly, what are those activities??? How do i find out?? How do i optimise them so that i have good concentration?? How can i work today so that i get a better cognitive capability in the long run??Call it greed!
Wait, at this point, there is another voice inside me that is shouting : Come on! Who bothers what influences your cognition? Why is it important anyway? What difference does it make if you have a miniscule difference in concentration levels anyway? You probably wouldn't come to know if your attention span has increased or not, given the very small magnitude of increase by such habits. You have been living althrough without being really bothered about all these for so long. The brain after all, is a self balanced and regulated system. It must be able to juggle with all these, why bother your consious self with so much of endless thought? Yes. very true. I wouldn't probably trace down my concentration, attention, cognition increase or decrease to one particular habit. It is fine the way it is and it is meant to be that way!
So now why this post? Moral of the story?? We can probably give due credit to people and things and habits that have helped our cognition so much that it is of some consipicous, discernible help to us - Recognise people and habits that have made our day a better and an easier one to live, however sublime their influences might have been. So let's stop it at that!
Now i don't really know how to conclude - I have said that i somehow feel my veena classes have helped me for the better with respect to grasping, concentration and cognition. That's the bottomline. So what? Doesn't really matter to us, eh? Okay! For the sake of conclusion, lemme put it this way : Now i just like to say a big thank you to my veena mam. For making me what i am today, for scolding me badly to the point of frustration(!), for teaching me this wonderful art, for increasing my cgpa by a few grade points, for helping me in my effort in trying to distinguish people and things, and gauge their worth at the first glance,something very important in this world and a hundred other things. And thanks to my mom, for having brought out this whole hypothesis, for being there bearing with all my tantrums in veena class, for being my biggest critique and a billion other things. More importantly, thank you both of you for being the starting point for a very different, and a rather personally gratifying post on my blog!
And the post has indeed ended, folks! Thanks for the enormous patience if you have read through fully :P The post is probably long because it is rather a self-talk and an outpour, not per se meant for public blogging. Promises for a shorter post next time!
