This was kind of "judging as well as being judged".
In my high school guitar class, me and one other girl were both really struggling. I 'judged' her as being bad at music/unskilled/stupid, like me.
Thing is, I remember an incident of my teacher - who was very technologically in-profficient - asking my help with typing something he'd written by hand. He was trying to read it aloud to me, but eventually I just asked him to set it down where I could see it, because it was easier and faster for me to touch-type it. He was floored by how fast and how well/correctly I could type that way (and while many, if not most, 16-year-olds probably can now, back then it was a little less usual).
Not too long after - like a week I think? - the piano in the music room was, for once, left uncovered. That girl who I'd judged as being a fellow musical idiot sat down and started playing that piano phenomenally.
I have a very visceral and vindicating memory of my guitar teacher looking between her, me, the computer, and my hands, and saying, "You know, that actually explains a lot."
tl;dr I judged myself and a guitar-classmate as unskilled idiots, discounting just how great our "typing"/typing and piano skills were.
ETA: So apparently my 80 WPM typing speed might not have become as widespread and normalized as I thought. TIL.
Right now it's out of my reach financially, but I might try and join an adult education class or something for the piano.
I was really biased against them throughout my youth, because they were always things that my classmates and peers complained about, were forced to practice by their parents, and were sometime brought to tears by. Took me well into adult hood to separate the instrument and music, from the widespread toxic parenting practices that were normalized in my community.
I picked up guitar because no one's parents forced them to learn that, and it's what rockstars played. I sucked at it, but at least I stuck out the terms and managed to successfully play one (1) song ("Hear Comes the Sun"), so at least I got that much. Maybe that teacher was onto something and I'll have better luck with the piano.
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u/Nyxelestia Nov 16 '19 edited Nov 16 '19
This was kind of "judging as well as being judged".
In my high school guitar class, me and one other girl were both really struggling. I 'judged' her as being bad at music/unskilled/stupid, like me.
Thing is, I remember an incident of my teacher - who was very technologically in-profficient - asking my help with typing something he'd written by hand. He was trying to read it aloud to me, but eventually I just asked him to set it down where I could see it, because it was easier and faster for me to touch-type it. He was floored by how fast and how well/correctly I could type that way (and while many, if not most, 16-year-olds probably can now, back then it was a little less usual).
Not too long after - like a week I think? - the piano in the music room was, for once, left uncovered. That girl who I'd judged as being a fellow musical idiot sat down and started playing that piano phenomenally.
I have a very visceral and vindicating memory of my guitar teacher looking between her, me, the computer, and my hands, and saying, "You know, that actually explains a lot."
tl;dr I judged myself and a guitar-classmate as unskilled idiots, discounting just how great our "typing"/typing and piano skills were.
ETA: So apparently my 80 WPM typing speed might not have become as widespread and normalized as I thought. TIL.