7 ms·

Covers as a way of learning music and code

158 points by zdw 1y ago

michaelterryio 1y ago
Benjamin Franklin talks about this in his autobiography.
- hamburga 1y ago
  Yup, though he was also intentional about not copying word-for-word, but rather trying to predict the next token (or phrase). https://muldoon.cloud/2025/05/17/frankin-llm.html https://muldoon.cloud/2025/05/17/frankin-llm.html
  - MomsAVoxell 1y ago
    This worked wonders for me as a kid, learning computer programming. There was so much knowledge to be gained by typing in 1000’s of lines of other peoples code, published in magazines. I think I probably learned so much more in between the lines during that period, than if I’d just read the user manuals. And the same is true even today - spending a few hours code-reading some wonderful open source project will enlighten you immensely. Code is a social construct - just like music. It prospers in the space between minds, in my opinion.
- hyper57 1y ago
  Also Hunter S. Thompson: > If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it. Amazingly it's like music. And from typing out parts of Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - these were writers that were very big in my life and the lives of the people around me - so yea I wanted to learn from the best I guess.
RickJWagner 1y ago
An interesting comparison. Also in both cases people will be more than happy to tell you your version sucks.
- recursive 1y ago
  If no one is telling you you suck, you're not doing anything interesting.
ozim 1y ago
Worst people I think I met would criticize me for attempting to copy stuff saying "oh you're just copying, stuff someone else made" or "oh that's simple this sucks, this music is only loops not real music". I was a teenager trying stuff out I was trying to just show what I am doing not sell them "a product". If you are making a copy for yourself to try things out or learn and then just to share because you think is cool — do it copy stuff and don't listen to negative folks. Usually those folks would not even attempt doing anything and I will skip all the bad words that I would like to tell them.
- matula 1y ago
  The Beatles spent YEARS only playing other people's music. Five/six hours a night performing covers. It seems self-evident that gaining such an intimate understanding of chord structures and melodies and harmonies from OTHERS helped them when they eventually created their own songs. I think the same ideas can be applied to any hobby/job/industry. Picasso first learned how to paint a realistic apple... Wozniak spent years making calculators ... and I'm sure there are modern plumbing techniques created by someone who spent years learning the traditional techniques and decided to try something better. (Are there any famous, non-video game plumbers? There should be.) Ignore the haters and copy other people's stuff.
  - sunrunner 1y ago
    And classical musicians _very literally_ make a living 'covering' the work of other composers and likely get started learning through 'copying'. Any differences around 'Oh, but it's their job to play other works' (ignoring that some trained classical musicians also count themselves as composers) is ignoring the fact that learning _anything_ is a process that involves mimicry.
    - ozim 1y ago
      Lots of people are stuck into believing genius ones that didn’t have to practice, they would go out and make all great things. Where in reality they don’t see years of experience or time spent honing the skill. As much as I am not fan of Gladwell those 10k hours somewhat opened up some people heads it is usually not „overnight success”.
datameta 1y ago
Even re-typing code verbatim will teach you much more than copy-pasting.
- jedimastert 1y ago
  When I was tutoring freshman computer science, I used to do some live coding demos on their computer, but use swear words for pretty much every variable and string. They saw the code, they would have to attempt at least to understand the code, and then they would have to destroy the code so they wouldn't accidentally send the professor something laden with swear words. Good times
- svaha1728 1y ago
  I grew up in the Amiga era when we would type code from magazines to write games. I learned a ton debugging those programs.
- zer0tonin 1y ago
  There used to be a series of book called "Learn code the hard way". It was basically exactly this, you would have a bunch of code, and you were expected to retype it. The examples would progressively increase in complexity. It helped me learn C 10 years ago when I was a student. Sadly, I doubt it's still relevant nowadays.
  - dingnuts 1y ago
    on the contrary it's probably more relevant than ever as LLMs rot the brains of half your peers
- layman51 1y ago
  I was wondering about this because there is a part in the blogpost that specifically says his developer friend would not even do real-time copying from the other screen. Personally, I think that makes more sense to try to learn because I think if I am good enough at typing, I can get into a flow state where I’m just typing code that I’m not really making much sense of. There are moments where I realize that I don’t understand what I’m typing and that’s when I have to decide to keep transcribing or to slow down and read documentation. It is also just a little bit tricky to do this if you are working with an LLM that is able to add additional code or do some other kind of refactoring.
empressplay 1y ago
Creative coding (still art and animations) combines these in a way, often people see something they like that someone else has done, and figure out how to recreate it in their language of choice, then put their own spin on it. Concepts range in technical complexity so it can be a great place to get started coding, there's no giant expectation of making a game or app.
- datameta 1y ago
  On Dwitter (JS codegolfing/demoscene site) the philosophy is to make it as accessible as possible to remix someone's demo and post it. Even if not directly editing, one could reverse engineer the code to gain new understanding which can then be incorporated into the next effort
y-curious 1y ago
In the spirit of the article, I invoke a bastardized version of Chesterton's Fence[1] when writing code. If something looks overly complex (especially code written before the advent of AI slop), I try and intuit why it was written this way before changing it. 9/10 it's been for a good reason. I go ahead and add a comment to the code if I don't change it. 1: From Wikipedia, '"Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.' In my own words, you don't rip out a seemingly-stupid thing without first figuring out why it's there.
IAmGraydon 1y ago
This seems to have been mostly lost as it isn't a popular technique anymore, but copywork used to be commonly used in learning how to write. Basically, learners copy out high-quality material word-for-word. The goal isn't just rote repetition, but to internalize structure, style, and rhythm, observe expert-level decisions, and build muscle memory for good habits. Yes, it works, and it's a great way to approach learning to code as well.
- card_zero 1y ago
  Drawing too. ...take pains and pleasure in constantly copying the best things which you can find done by the hand of great masters. [...] take care to select the best one [...] If you follow the course of one man through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from it. Then you will find, if nature has granted you any imagination at all, that you will eventually acquire a style individual to yourself, and it cannot help being good; because your hand and your mind, being always accustomed to gather flowers, would ill know how to pluck thorns. --Cennino Cennini, about 1400.
  - Doxin 1y ago
    I really wish "learn to draw" resources would bother to mention this. I've been trying to learn to draw for years. A couple weeks ago I discovered doing copy work is actually pretty fun, and it's kind of wild how much I've improved in a short time since then.
- analog31 1y ago
  Musicians are still trained this way. The tunes in the Suzuki violin books are the ultimate covers. You can go to a beginning violin recital anywhere in the world and hear exactly the same tunes. Musicians still use transcriptions of past recordings for their own performances. Jazz musicians learn "standards." Even jazz improvisation, which you'd think should be 100% original, is taught using virtually the same short list of tunes, such as "Autumn Leaves." Many musicians don't bother with original material at all, until they're absolutely sick of the standards.
apercu 1y ago
I was hoping for more about music in the article. I have played electric bass and guitar for a long time. It did't take long to realize that you'll find a a few patterns: - Players have tendencies that they repeat - Genres have vernacular which you need to learn in order to sound right - Often original sounding bands and artists "found" their sound by trying to emulate something else (another artist or band). I don't read a lot of code these days, but I do remember some of this from back in the day - we all have style tendencies (e.g., tabs, spaces or where we start parens, etc.).
- dhosek 1y ago
  It always amuses me when you look at what some bands were emulating and how far from it they ended up. A few notable cases include Yes (Simon & Garfunkel), Genesis (The Bee Gees) and Sheryl Crow (80s Genesis).
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    Or the opposite: you look at an artist's influences and discover that they didn't just emulate, they basically plagiariased: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuiZqjlZLyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuiZqjlZLyU
- poulpy123 1y ago
  if you like coding and music, there are many many languages like strudel, tidal cycle, sonic pi, sardine, renardo or glicol that could interest you (and many even lower level)
jarmitage 1y ago
Why not both? I often write code covers of music E.g. Aphex Twin - Avril 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSiv7unrx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSiv7unrx8
- wahnfrieden 1y ago
  try turning down the attack
- RankingMember 1y ago
  nice job
- stephenhumphrey 1y ago
  Your video is so pedagogically beautiful. The subtext of what you’re doing in those two minutes hints deeply at the cyclical, iterative process practiced by most engineers and many other creatives. Concise, illustrative, memorable. I’ll be showing this to students regularly. Well done.
- zahlman 1y ago
  What programming language is this?
  - lioeters 1y ago
    I saw in the title of another video by the same author, they're using TidalCycles. > Live coding music with algorithmic patterns https://tidalcycles.org/ https://tidalcycles.org/
modernerd 1y ago
Artists call this practise "master studies", which is a nice term for music, code and other disciplines too.
fellowniusmonk 1y ago
This is why someone should start a karaoke standup company.
ElijahLynn 1y ago
This site can’t provide a secure connection ntietz.com sent an invalid response. ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR
- ElijahLynn 1y ago
  This turned out to be Comcast marking the site as malware. I reported to the co-working space to get it unblocked.
boterock 1y ago
I think US culture overall frowns upon non-original works. From school there's some push against working on something that is a copy of someone else's work. In the meantime China has mastered copying and made it a big part of their culture and economy. Nowadays I'm learning game engine techniques by reading Godot code and implementing the damn same thing in my engine... Also, nowadays I like tracing pretty anime drawings... I enjoy it more and end up with something I like better than if I were to draw something original.
- analog31 1y ago
  It's a real two-edged sword. On the one hand we claim to value originality. On the other, people will eschew originality if it hasn't been validated by some kind of gatekeeper. Conventional wisdom among musicians is that the best way to attract an audience and make money is to play covers or familiar works. It's hard to get an audience to show up for "originals," whether it's in Classical or contemporary music. It's hard to get people to visit a restaurant that's not part of a chain. Disclosure: Musician in an "originals" band. ;-)
CuriouslyC 1y ago
Covering music can be fun but is a bad way to learn. You spend a lot of time memorizing note sequences, a good amount of time nailing the exact timing of lines to make them sound right and usually some time working out the challenging technical aspects of a song you're not at the level to play yet. The problem is the memorization and song-specific timing practice have very low carry over to general musical skill. If you're trying to get as good at an instrument as possible, it's much faster to do a combination of scale/chord/arpeggio and technical challenge drills.
- sunrunner 1y ago
  > You spend a lot of time memorizing note sequences, a good amount of time nailing the exact timing of lines to make them sound right and usually some time working out the challenging technical aspects of a song you're not at the level to play yet. > it's much faster to do a combination of scale/chord/arpeggio and technical challenge drills. Classical musicians that wasted their time training on existing note sequences learning pieces intentionally picked to be at the edge of their current skill level are going to _hate_ when they hear about this one weird trick ;)
  - CuriouslyC 1y ago
    I mean, if the entire piece is "exactly" at your skill threshold across the board, that's great. But then you also had a teacher that knew your skill threshold very well and also had an exceptional repertoire to draw on to direct you towards that piece that was just as your skill level. That's not your average music teacher. Looping arpeggios/chord tone sequences together at progressively higher BPM, while sprinkling in stuff like string skipping, dynamics control/accent patterning, etc lets you stay close to your edge of ability and really focus on specific techniques heavily. If you're trying to make it sound good to a backing track at the same time, it also develops improvisational abilities and musical originality in a way that playing existing music won't.
    - sunrunner 1y ago
      I agree with all of that and was thinking that I hadn't mentioned the role of etudes and exercises directed at specific techniques or dexterity, though I guess I had classical music in mind and wasn't thinking about genres or instruments that perhaps favour improvisation over the 'other side' of a highly refined performance of a well-known piece (which still have the performer's own personality in except in a way where the listener likely already 'knows' the piece). > That's not your average music teacher Tangentially (or perhaps not as every other topic in 2025 is 'AI'), I was always facinated by the episodes of Star Trek: TNG that showed the holodeck and crew members being able to use that environment to essentially learn skills from the greatest performers (or even a blend) in their area.
tsumnia 1y ago
If anyone is interested in some other ways non-traditional learning anthologies have been applied to CS education, I will shameless promote my paper [1] on typing exercises as an interactive worked example. I'm drawing my influence from martial arts, but the same "show-mimic-modify" mechanic is there in my opinion. I even use music, dance, and cooking as additional examples on where this type of learning is very prominent. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3373165.3373177 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3373165.3373177
- aquariusDue 1y ago
  As an example of this in the wild a few years ago I attended an online course teaching HTML, CSS and a sprinkle of JS where most attendees had their first encounter with a source code editor there. One person used to retype over and over work they've already done in a previous session, sort of like karate katas in a way. At the time it felt a bit silly to me but in hindsight it totally made sense. For something in a similar vein but more short form there's HackerType: https://www.hackertype.dev/ https://www.hackertype.dev/ I'm really happy to see that there is something actually valid to this repetitive practice!
bdcravens 1y ago
I've been working on learning Fusion 360 for 3d modeling recently. I made a little progress. Then I recently tried to recreate a model I've already downloaded, because I needed to make some changes to it. Recreating it 1:1 taught me more than all of the learning I've done.
- sunrunner 1y ago
  > Recreating it 1:1 taught me more than all of the learning I've done. Which nicely fits into the idea that repetition leads to familiarity, and that the act of re-creating those examples is a form of study and source of learning. I'm not sure what the name for the 3D modelling equivalent of a musical etude is but perhaps this seems like that. Incidentally, I've also been trying to learn some amount of 3D modelling (with Blender) and in some cases have got to, say, half way through some structured courses before having to pause for a bit. After finding some more time to get back to it it seemed easier to just start over instead of pick up where I left off, and not only did the process seem a bit easier the second time around, being able to refresh and reinforce general concepts and specific techniques felt very valuable. Incidentally, Mike Acton's talk 'Solving the Right Problems for Engine Programmers' [1] includes a part on deliberate practice with small focused examples. Wax on, wax off... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B00hV3wmMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B00hV3wmMY
Slow_Hand 1y ago
As a record producer, some of the best practice you can do by yourself is to recreate a record you like from scratch. Remake it from the ground up: the drums, the instrument parts, the mixing, the sonics, the loudness. Everything. Match everything perfectly to the best of your abilities. You will learn a tremendous amount as you listen deeper and deeper into the record, as it will force you to ask questions about intent and process and balance that a casual listen does not challenge you on. It’s just like art students with an easel and paint in the museum recreating an existing painting. You will experience every brush stroke and interaction of color, and in doing so learn far more about the masters then you ever could otherwise.
- swyx 1y ago
  yeah theres a term for this folks. very validated over time https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork
  - dag11 1y ago
    Is that a wiki or something? That link just shows a login page with no other info.
    - arrowsmith 1y ago
      Kagi is a paid search engine. Presumably it's a link to a search results page, except you can't see it without a paid account. Here, try this: https://www.google.com/search?q=copywork https://www.google.com/search?q=copywork
  - bengesoff 1y ago
    FYI if you click the share icon on a Kagi search, then others can see the results without needing to have a Kagi subscription themselves, e.g. https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork&r=ae&sh=d9jIEVVKaHzifbixhe48qg https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork&r=ae&sh=d9jIEVVKaHzifbixh... (https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/share-results.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/share-results.html)
stillpointlab 1y ago
Something you hear often in the jazz community, especially from experienced pros is "everything you need to know about theory is in the songs". It is usually in response to newcomers thinking they need to learn everything about every scale, every mode, every chord. They ask questions like "what scale should I play over this chord" or they get in really deep into some obscure theory thinking. I see it all the time with posts, even here on HN, where someone says "I figured out music!" and then you get some dry 1000 word essay on harmonic overtone series, and the maths of intervallic relationships. But all of that intellectualization is replaceable and improved upon by learning a massive number of songs. Not just chord progressions, not just melodies in isolation, but beginning to end tunes. I was watching a live stream by industry veteran Jimmy Bruno and he was asked how many songs he knew and could play mostly from memory and he pondered for a minute and said "probably 2000".
- ACCount36 1y ago
  The same applies to learning languages. You can learn a lot from textbooks... or you can use textbooks to give you the absolute bare minimum, and then just use the language itself repeatedly.
  - stillpointlab 1y ago
    I think the idea is very deep and applicable to many aspects of life. Learning grammar, vocabulary, semantics, etc. is definitely valuable. But immersing yourself in a culture where the language is spoken, listening how it is used in practice, speaking it yourself with a native, that is a truly powerful way to learn the language. I'm not religious but I am reminded about a story where Jesus was challenged about his disciples picking some wheat on the Sabbath, breaking a law. The Pharisees demand an answer and Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He was pointing out the inverted relationship and the corruption that results. The same can happen with music, programming, language learning, etc. Another analogy most people will recognize: the map vs. the territory. Music theory is the map, the songs are the territory. No matter how much you study the map you will benefit tremendously from walking the territory.
- 1y ago
dhosek 1y ago
Another thing that comes to mind is reading Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art by Nicholson Baker (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/donhosek http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/donhosek). Baker talks about tracing other artists’ work as part of his practice and cites an art teacher who initially recommended this, but then chose not to retract the advice when Baker wanted to mention her by name in his book, but Baker himself found that this practice of tracing did, in fact, help him become better at drawing freehand.
- klondike_klive 1y ago
  I'm a longtime fan of Nicholson Baker's work since I first read The Mezzanine. His close attention to detail and his careful choice of words really impressed me.
- aspenmayer 1y ago
  Non-referral link: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/ https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/
dingl3berry 1y ago
i start blank on my code kata after debugging, i conpare to the worked examples
reactordev 1y ago
Nothing wrong with covers. Anything that gets you where you want to be. The issue I have is with musicians who just play covers and didn’t learn what went into making/writing the song. Like @Slow_Hand mentioned, being able to recreate a song is the epitome of a cover. You’ll be able to write a song then, given you had an idea of course. I also like the idea of doing that for programming. There’s so much out there you can learn from. Just start building…
norir 1y ago
> Sometimes, he'd run into things which didn't make sense. Why is this a doubly-linked list here, when it seems a singly-linked list would do just fine? And in those moments, if you can't find a reason? You get to go down that path, make it the singly-linked version, and then find out later: oh, ohhh. Ohhhh, they did that for a reason. Everything is done for a reason. Unfortunately, often the reason is the author didn't know what they we were doing.
atoav 1y ago
As an university level educator my experience is: Copying is a good way to learn if there are no exact instructions. E.g. covering a song is learning to listen as much as it is learning to play. But if someone made you a "10 steps to cover this song" video those lessons won't really stick. My experience is that most people will only start to deeply think about a topic once they encounter it practically themselves. I can tell people about different signal levels and impedance all I want, it seems only once they plug wrong things together and wonder why the result sounds bad the light bulb goes on. Copying can be great if it is done on your own as you will encounter all kinds of questions that matter in practise.
dingl3berry 1y ago
within my code kata, i always start blank after debugging, i conpare to the working codes between katas, i try to improvise by combining several ideas and reducing bugs so katas are moving objects

158 points by zdw 1y ago

michaelterryio 1y ago

Benjamin Franklin talks about this in his autobiography.

hamburga 1y ago
Yup, though he was also intentional about not copying word-for-word, but rather trying to predict the next token (or phrase). https://muldoon.cloud/2025/05/17/frankin-llm.html https://muldoon.cloud/2025/05/17/frankin-llm.html
- MomsAVoxell 1y ago
  This worked wonders for me as a kid, learning computer programming. There was so much knowledge to be gained by typing in 1000’s of lines of other peoples code, published in magazines. I think I probably learned so much more in between the lines during that period, than if I’d just read the user manuals. And the same is true even today - spending a few hours code-reading some wonderful open source project will enlighten you immensely. Code is a social construct - just like music. It prospers in the space between minds, in my opinion.
hyper57 1y ago
Also Hunter S. Thompson: > If you type out somebody's work, you learn a lot about it. Amazingly it's like music. And from typing out parts of Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald - these were writers that were very big in my life and the lives of the people around me - so yea I wanted to learn from the best I guess.

RickJWagner 1y ago

An interesting comparison. Also in both cases people will be more than happy to tell you your version sucks.

recursive 1y ago
If no one is telling you you suck, you're not doing anything interesting.

ozim 1y ago

Worst people I think I met would criticize me for attempting to copy stuff saying "oh you're just copying, stuff someone else made" or "oh that's simple this sucks, this music is only loops not real music". I was a teenager trying stuff out I was trying to just show what I am doing not sell them "a product". If you are making a copy for yourself to try things out or learn and then just to share because you think is cool — do it copy stuff and don't listen to negative folks. Usually those folks would not even attempt doing anything and I will skip all the bad words that I would like to tell them.

matula 1y ago
The Beatles spent YEARS only playing other people's music. Five/six hours a night performing covers. It seems self-evident that gaining such an intimate understanding of chord structures and melodies and harmonies from OTHERS helped them when they eventually created their own songs. I think the same ideas can be applied to any hobby/job/industry. Picasso first learned how to paint a realistic apple... Wozniak spent years making calculators ... and I'm sure there are modern plumbing techniques created by someone who spent years learning the traditional techniques and decided to try something better. (Are there any famous, non-video game plumbers? There should be.) Ignore the haters and copy other people's stuff.
- sunrunner 1y ago
  And classical musicians _very literally_ make a living 'covering' the work of other composers and likely get started learning through 'copying'. Any differences around 'Oh, but it's their job to play other works' (ignoring that some trained classical musicians also count themselves as composers) is ignoring the fact that learning _anything_ is a process that involves mimicry.
  - ozim 1y ago
    Lots of people are stuck into believing genius ones that didn’t have to practice, they would go out and make all great things. Where in reality they don’t see years of experience or time spent honing the skill. As much as I am not fan of Gladwell those 10k hours somewhat opened up some people heads it is usually not „overnight success”.

datameta 1y ago

Even re-typing code verbatim will teach you much more than copy-pasting.

jedimastert 1y ago
When I was tutoring freshman computer science, I used to do some live coding demos on their computer, but use swear words for pretty much every variable and string. They saw the code, they would have to attempt at least to understand the code, and then they would have to destroy the code so they wouldn't accidentally send the professor something laden with swear words. Good times
svaha1728 1y ago
I grew up in the Amiga era when we would type code from magazines to write games. I learned a ton debugging those programs.
zer0tonin 1y ago
There used to be a series of book called "Learn code the hard way". It was basically exactly this, you would have a bunch of code, and you were expected to retype it. The examples would progressively increase in complexity. It helped me learn C 10 years ago when I was a student. Sadly, I doubt it's still relevant nowadays.
- dingnuts 1y ago
  on the contrary it's probably more relevant than ever as LLMs rot the brains of half your peers
layman51 1y ago
I was wondering about this because there is a part in the blogpost that specifically says his developer friend would not even do real-time copying from the other screen. Personally, I think that makes more sense to try to learn because I think if I am good enough at typing, I can get into a flow state where I’m just typing code that I’m not really making much sense of. There are moments where I realize that I don’t understand what I’m typing and that’s when I have to decide to keep transcribing or to slow down and read documentation. It is also just a little bit tricky to do this if you are working with an LLM that is able to add additional code or do some other kind of refactoring.

empressplay 1y ago

Creative coding (still art and animations) combines these in a way, often people see something they like that someone else has done, and figure out how to recreate it in their language of choice, then put their own spin on it. Concepts range in technical complexity so it can be a great place to get started coding, there's no giant expectation of making a game or app.

datameta 1y ago
On Dwitter (JS codegolfing/demoscene site) the philosophy is to make it as accessible as possible to remix someone's demo and post it. Even if not directly editing, one could reverse engineer the code to gain new understanding which can then be incorporated into the next effort

y-curious 1y ago

In the spirit of the article, I invoke a bastardized version of Chesterton's Fence[1] when writing code. If something looks overly complex (especially code written before the advent of AI slop), I try and intuit why it was written this way before changing it. 9/10 it's been for a good reason. I go ahead and add a comment to the code if I don't change it. 1: From Wikipedia, '"Chesterton's fence" is the principle that reforms should not be made until the reasoning behind the existing state of affairs is understood.' In my own words, you don't rip out a seemingly-stupid thing without first figuring out why it's there.

IAmGraydon 1y ago

This seems to have been mostly lost as it isn't a popular technique anymore, but copywork used to be commonly used in learning how to write. Basically, learners copy out high-quality material word-for-word. The goal isn't just rote repetition, but to internalize structure, style, and rhythm, observe expert-level decisions, and build muscle memory for good habits. Yes, it works, and it's a great way to approach learning to code as well.

card_zero 1y ago
Drawing too. ...take pains and pleasure in constantly copying the best things which you can find done by the hand of great masters. [...] take care to select the best one [...] If you follow the course of one man through constant practice, your intelligence would have to be crude indeed for you not to get some nourishment from it. Then you will find, if nature has granted you any imagination at all, that you will eventually acquire a style individual to yourself, and it cannot help being good; because your hand and your mind, being always accustomed to gather flowers, would ill know how to pluck thorns. --Cennino Cennini, about 1400.
- Doxin 1y ago
  I really wish "learn to draw" resources would bother to mention this. I've been trying to learn to draw for years. A couple weeks ago I discovered doing copy work is actually pretty fun, and it's kind of wild how much I've improved in a short time since then.
analog31 1y ago
Musicians are still trained this way. The tunes in the Suzuki violin books are the ultimate covers. You can go to a beginning violin recital anywhere in the world and hear exactly the same tunes. Musicians still use transcriptions of past recordings for their own performances. Jazz musicians learn "standards." Even jazz improvisation, which you'd think should be 100% original, is taught using virtually the same short list of tunes, such as "Autumn Leaves." Many musicians don't bother with original material at all, until they're absolutely sick of the standards.

apercu 1y ago

I was hoping for more about music in the article. I have played electric bass and guitar for a long time. It did't take long to realize that you'll find a a few patterns: - Players have tendencies that they repeat - Genres have vernacular which you need to learn in order to sound right - Often original sounding bands and artists "found" their sound by trying to emulate something else (another artist or band). I don't read a lot of code these days, but I do remember some of this from back in the day - we all have style tendencies (e.g., tabs, spaces or where we start parens, etc.).

dhosek 1y ago
It always amuses me when you look at what some bands were emulating and how far from it they ended up. A few notable cases include Yes (Simon & Garfunkel), Genesis (The Bee Gees) and Sheryl Crow (80s Genesis).
- arrowsmith 1y ago
  Or the opposite: you look at an artist's influences and discover that they didn't just emulate, they basically plagiariased: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuiZqjlZLyU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MuiZqjlZLyU
poulpy123 1y ago
if you like coding and music, there are many many languages like strudel, tidal cycle, sonic pi, sardine, renardo or glicol that could interest you (and many even lower level)

jarmitage 1y ago

Why not both? I often write code covers of music E.g. Aphex Twin - Avril 14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSiv7unrx8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSiv7unrx8

wahnfrieden 1y ago
try turning down the attack
RankingMember 1y ago
nice job
stephenhumphrey 1y ago
Your video is so pedagogically beautiful. The subtext of what you’re doing in those two minutes hints deeply at the cyclical, iterative process practiced by most engineers and many other creatives. Concise, illustrative, memorable. I’ll be showing this to students regularly. Well done.
zahlman 1y ago
What programming language is this?
- lioeters 1y ago
  I saw in the title of another video by the same author, they're using TidalCycles. > Live coding music with algorithmic patterns https://tidalcycles.org/ https://tidalcycles.org/

modernerd 1y ago

Artists call this practise "master studies", which is a nice term for music, code and other disciplines too.

fellowniusmonk 1y ago

This is why someone should start a karaoke standup company.

ElijahLynn 1y ago

This site can’t provide a secure connection ntietz.com sent an invalid response. ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR

ElijahLynn 1y ago
This turned out to be Comcast marking the site as malware. I reported to the co-working space to get it unblocked.

boterock 1y ago

I think US culture overall frowns upon non-original works. From school there's some push against working on something that is a copy of someone else's work. In the meantime China has mastered copying and made it a big part of their culture and economy. Nowadays I'm learning game engine techniques by reading Godot code and implementing the damn same thing in my engine... Also, nowadays I like tracing pretty anime drawings... I enjoy it more and end up with something I like better than if I were to draw something original.

analog31 1y ago
It's a real two-edged sword. On the one hand we claim to value originality. On the other, people will eschew originality if it hasn't been validated by some kind of gatekeeper. Conventional wisdom among musicians is that the best way to attract an audience and make money is to play covers or familiar works. It's hard to get an audience to show up for "originals," whether it's in Classical or contemporary music. It's hard to get people to visit a restaurant that's not part of a chain. Disclosure: Musician in an "originals" band. ;-)

CuriouslyC 1y ago

Covering music can be fun but is a bad way to learn. You spend a lot of time memorizing note sequences, a good amount of time nailing the exact timing of lines to make them sound right and usually some time working out the challenging technical aspects of a song you're not at the level to play yet. The problem is the memorization and song-specific timing practice have very low carry over to general musical skill. If you're trying to get as good at an instrument as possible, it's much faster to do a combination of scale/chord/arpeggio and technical challenge drills.

sunrunner 1y ago
> You spend a lot of time memorizing note sequences, a good amount of time nailing the exact timing of lines to make them sound right and usually some time working out the challenging technical aspects of a song you're not at the level to play yet. > it's much faster to do a combination of scale/chord/arpeggio and technical challenge drills. Classical musicians that wasted their time training on existing note sequences learning pieces intentionally picked to be at the edge of their current skill level are going to _hate_ when they hear about this one weird trick ;)
- CuriouslyC 1y ago
  I mean, if the entire piece is "exactly" at your skill threshold across the board, that's great. But then you also had a teacher that knew your skill threshold very well and also had an exceptional repertoire to draw on to direct you towards that piece that was just as your skill level. That's not your average music teacher. Looping arpeggios/chord tone sequences together at progressively higher BPM, while sprinkling in stuff like string skipping, dynamics control/accent patterning, etc lets you stay close to your edge of ability and really focus on specific techniques heavily. If you're trying to make it sound good to a backing track at the same time, it also develops improvisational abilities and musical originality in a way that playing existing music won't.
  - sunrunner 1y ago
    I agree with all of that and was thinking that I hadn't mentioned the role of etudes and exercises directed at specific techniques or dexterity, though I guess I had classical music in mind and wasn't thinking about genres or instruments that perhaps favour improvisation over the 'other side' of a highly refined performance of a well-known piece (which still have the performer's own personality in except in a way where the listener likely already 'knows' the piece). > That's not your average music teacher Tangentially (or perhaps not as every other topic in 2025 is 'AI'), I was always facinated by the episodes of Star Trek: TNG that showed the holodeck and crew members being able to use that environment to essentially learn skills from the greatest performers (or even a blend) in their area.

tsumnia 1y ago

If anyone is interested in some other ways non-traditional learning anthologies have been applied to CS education, I will shameless promote my paper [1] on typing exercises as an interactive worked example. I'm drawing my influence from martial arts, but the same "show-mimic-modify" mechanic is there in my opinion. I even use music, dance, and cooking as additional examples on where this type of learning is very prominent. [1] https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3373165.3373177 https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3373165.3373177

aquariusDue 1y ago
As an example of this in the wild a few years ago I attended an online course teaching HTML, CSS and a sprinkle of JS where most attendees had their first encounter with a source code editor there. One person used to retype over and over work they've already done in a previous session, sort of like karate katas in a way. At the time it felt a bit silly to me but in hindsight it totally made sense. For something in a similar vein but more short form there's HackerType: https://www.hackertype.dev/ https://www.hackertype.dev/ I'm really happy to see that there is something actually valid to this repetitive practice!

bdcravens 1y ago

I've been working on learning Fusion 360 for 3d modeling recently. I made a little progress. Then I recently tried to recreate a model I've already downloaded, because I needed to make some changes to it. Recreating it 1:1 taught me more than all of the learning I've done.

sunrunner 1y ago
> Recreating it 1:1 taught me more than all of the learning I've done. Which nicely fits into the idea that repetition leads to familiarity, and that the act of re-creating those examples is a form of study and source of learning. I'm not sure what the name for the 3D modelling equivalent of a musical etude is but perhaps this seems like that. Incidentally, I've also been trying to learn some amount of 3D modelling (with Blender) and in some cases have got to, say, half way through some structured courses before having to pause for a bit. After finding some more time to get back to it it seemed easier to just start over instead of pick up where I left off, and not only did the process seem a bit easier the second time around, being able to refresh and reinforce general concepts and specific techniques felt very valuable. Incidentally, Mike Acton's talk 'Solving the Right Problems for Engine Programmers' [1] includes a part on deliberate practice with small focused examples. Wax on, wax off... [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B00hV3wmMY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B00hV3wmMY

Slow_Hand 1y ago

As a record producer, some of the best practice you can do by yourself is to recreate a record you like from scratch. Remake it from the ground up: the drums, the instrument parts, the mixing, the sonics, the loudness. Everything. Match everything perfectly to the best of your abilities. You will learn a tremendous amount as you listen deeper and deeper into the record, as it will force you to ask questions about intent and process and balance that a casual listen does not challenge you on. It’s just like art students with an easel and paint in the museum recreating an existing painting. You will experience every brush stroke and interaction of color, and in doing so learn far more about the masters then you ever could otherwise.

swyx 1y ago
yeah theres a term for this folks. very validated over time https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork
- dag11 1y ago
  Is that a wiki or something? That link just shows a login page with no other info.
  - arrowsmith 1y ago
    Kagi is a paid search engine. Presumably it's a link to a search results page, except you can't see it without a paid account. Here, try this: https://www.google.com/search?q=copywork https://www.google.com/search?q=copywork
- bengesoff 1y ago
  FYI if you click the share icon on a Kagi search, then others can see the results without needing to have a Kagi subscription themselves, e.g. https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork&r=ae&sh=d9jIEVVKaHzifbixhe48qg https://kagi.com/search?q=copywork&r=ae&sh=d9jIEVVKaHzifbixh... (https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/share-results.html https://help.kagi.com/kagi/features/share-results.html)

stillpointlab 1y ago

Something you hear often in the jazz community, especially from experienced pros is "everything you need to know about theory is in the songs". It is usually in response to newcomers thinking they need to learn everything about every scale, every mode, every chord. They ask questions like "what scale should I play over this chord" or they get in really deep into some obscure theory thinking. I see it all the time with posts, even here on HN, where someone says "I figured out music!" and then you get some dry 1000 word essay on harmonic overtone series, and the maths of intervallic relationships. But all of that intellectualization is replaceable and improved upon by learning a massive number of songs. Not just chord progressions, not just melodies in isolation, but beginning to end tunes. I was watching a live stream by industry veteran Jimmy Bruno and he was asked how many songs he knew and could play mostly from memory and he pondered for a minute and said "probably 2000".

ACCount36 1y ago
The same applies to learning languages. You can learn a lot from textbooks... or you can use textbooks to give you the absolute bare minimum, and then just use the language itself repeatedly.
- stillpointlab 1y ago
  I think the idea is very deep and applicable to many aspects of life. Learning grammar, vocabulary, semantics, etc. is definitely valuable. But immersing yourself in a culture where the language is spoken, listening how it is used in practice, speaking it yourself with a native, that is a truly powerful way to learn the language. I'm not religious but I am reminded about a story where Jesus was challenged about his disciples picking some wheat on the Sabbath, breaking a law. The Pharisees demand an answer and Jesus says that the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He was pointing out the inverted relationship and the corruption that results. The same can happen with music, programming, language learning, etc. Another analogy most people will recognize: the map vs. the territory. Music theory is the map, the songs are the territory. No matter how much you study the map you will benefit tremendously from walking the territory.
1y ago

dhosek 1y ago

Another thing that comes to mind is reading Finding a Likeness: How I Got Somewhat Better at Art by Nicholson Baker (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/donhosek http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/donhosek). Baker talks about tracing other artists’ work as part of his practice and cites an art teacher who initially recommended this, but then chose not to retract the advice when Baker wanted to mention her by name in his book, but Baker himself found that this practice of tracing did, in fact, help him become better at drawing freehand.

klondike_klive 1y ago
I'm a longtime fan of Nicholson Baker's work since I first read The Mezzanine. His close attention to detail and his careful choice of words really impressed me.
aspenmayer 1y ago
Non-referral link: https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/ https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1984881396/

dingl3berry 1y ago

i start blank on my code kata after debugging, i conpare to the worked examples

reactordev 1y ago

Nothing wrong with covers. Anything that gets you where you want to be. The issue I have is with musicians who just play covers and didn’t learn what went into making/writing the song. Like @Slow_Hand mentioned, being able to recreate a song is the epitome of a cover. You’ll be able to write a song then, given you had an idea of course. I also like the idea of doing that for programming. There’s so much out there you can learn from. Just start building…

norir 1y ago

> Sometimes, he'd run into things which didn't make sense. Why is this a doubly-linked list here, when it seems a singly-linked list would do just fine? And in those moments, if you can't find a reason? You get to go down that path, make it the singly-linked version, and then find out later: oh, ohhh. Ohhhh, they did that for a reason. Everything is done for a reason. Unfortunately, often the reason is the author didn't know what they we were doing.

atoav 1y ago

As an university level educator my experience is: Copying is a good way to learn if there are no exact instructions. E.g. covering a song is learning to listen as much as it is learning to play. But if someone made you a "10 steps to cover this song" video those lessons won't really stick. My experience is that most people will only start to deeply think about a topic once they encounter it practically themselves. I can tell people about different signal levels and impedance all I want, it seems only once they plug wrong things together and wonder why the result sounds bad the light bulb goes on. Copying can be great if it is done on your own as you will encounter all kinds of questions that matter in practise.

dingl3berry 1y ago

within my code kata, i always start blank after debugging, i conpare to the working codes between katas, i try to improvise by combining several ideas and reducing bugs so katas are moving objects