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I’m a musician, so I considered the example of playing an instrument. It’s an interesting example, because it certainly requires a lot of muscle memory that bec
by baddox 8y ago
I’m a musician, so I considered the example of playing an instrument. It’s an interesting example, because it certainly requires a lot of muscle memory that becomes “automatic” with practice, but it also usually requires conscious thought about what you’re playing (which basic bicycling does not). I would expect that the basic muscle memory parts would be hard to forget, but that the conscious decisions would be easy to forget.
I’ve never taken long breaks from my main instruments, but it sounds like you forgot both aspects of playing. I did play trombone for a few years starting in middle school, but haven’t played in over a decade. I definitely remember the basic slide positions for notes and a few of the common scales, but I wonder how well I would be able to play the trombone now.
- aidenn0 8y agoI didn't play my clarinet at all for 5ish years (and was only playing it once or twice a year for the 5 previous years), and getting a good sound out of it was impossible[1], but basic technique (e.g. scales, arpeggios, sight reading) was still about as good as 4 years in to when I was learning as a kid. 1: At least some of this is mouth muscles just being too weak (in another thread an ex rock climber talks about climbing a tree and that's a similar effect), some of it is that when I quit, I was still learning to make it sound good, so I never had unconscious control for a lot of the subtle changes I had to make. The rest is probably just things I forgot.