[HN Gopher] Covers as a way of learning music and code
___________________________________________________________________
Covers as a way of learning music and code
Author : zdw
Score : 111 points
Date : 2025-07-21 15:20 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (ntietz.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (ntietz.com)
| RickJWagner wrote:
| An interesting comparison.
|
| Also in both cases people will be more than happy to tell you
| your version sucks.
| recursive wrote:
| If no one is telling you you suck, you're not doing anything
| interesting.
| ozim wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| RankingMember wrote:
| It's unfortunate that the time we're most vulnerable to the
| scars of unreasonable criticism is also the age we're most
| likely to get it from our peers. Glad you kept going!
| michaelterryio wrote:
| Benjamin Franklin talks about this in his autobiography.
| hamburga wrote:
| 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
| MomsAVoxell wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| datameta wrote:
| Even re-typing code verbatim will teach you much more than copy-
| pasting.
| jedimastert wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| on the contrary it's probably more relevant than ever as LLMs
| rot the brains of half your peers
| layman51 wrote:
| 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.
| sunrunner wrote:
| I've always wondered how much is gained through the act of re-
| typing (in a positive sense). For example, does the process
| itself help embed the concepts?
|
| I've always liked the idea that familiarity doesn't breed
| repetition, rather repetition breeds familiarity (I think this
| is a quote but can't find the source now) and it's always made
| me wonder how much is gained from some of the repetitive parts
| of re-typing, such as does this help embed concepts?
| datameta wrote:
| There was a study somewhere that proved handwritten notes
| encoded into memory more effectively than typed notes, but
| both were still vastly superior to just reading.
|
| So I think it depends on how much the person is thinking
| through what they are typing?
| dhosek wrote:
| In my creative writing practice, I retype a piece at least
| once in the process of revision1 which forces me to
| consider every word along the way. I've heard of people
| doing this with other peoples' writing, something I've
| never had the patience for, but I can imagine that again,
| the process of getting words (or code) from the page
| through the eyes-brain-fingers to the keyboard does require
| some mental consideration of what you're doing.
|
| [?]
|
| 1. This has its roots in my high school writing practice
| where I wrote using a manual typewriter (sitting on the
| floor of my bedroom in my parents' basement) and the only
| way to revise my copy was to retype a clean version of it.
| dhosek wrote:
| That was what we had to do back in the day: Most computer
| magazines would have pages of code listings that you were
| expected to type into your computer to get the software to
| work. When _SoftTalk_ came out in the mid-80s, it was
| revolutionary in that it only talked about software, it didn't
| include program listings.
| empressplay wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| analog31 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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).
| jarmitage wrote:
| Why not both? I often write code covers of music
|
| E.g. Aphex Twin - Avril 14:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdSiv7unrx8
| wahnfrieden wrote:
| try turning down the attack
| RankingMember wrote:
| nice job
| stephenhumphrey wrote:
| 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.
| modernerd wrote:
| Artists call this practise "master studies", which is a nice term
| for music, code and other disciplines too.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| This is why someone should start a karaoke standup company.
| boterock wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| It depends on your objective. The process you describe is
| excellent for achieving technical mastery. Less so for
| compositional mastery, but it can still be educational to see
| written parts up close.
|
| What it wont prepare you for at all is impovisational mastery
| and just jamming over some chord changes.
|
| Also, I don't know many musicians who would completely ignore
| technical exercises like scales, chord voicings, and arpeggios.
|
| So, it depends on what kind of musician you're trying to be.
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| This site can't provide a secure connection ntietz.com sent an
| invalid response. ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR
| ElijahLynn wrote:
| This turned out to be Comcast marking the site as malware. I
| reported to the co-working space to get it unblocked.
| tsumnia wrote:
| 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
| aquariusDue wrote:
| 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/
|
| I'm really happy to see that there is something actually valid
| to this repetitive practice!
| bdcravens wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| > 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
| Slow_Hand wrote:
| 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.
| stillpointlab wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
| wredcoll wrote:
| This is an interesting thought. I've been learning how to paint
| some things and there are a lot of youtube tutorials where
| someone paints a thing and tells you how to do each step, but
| my issue is always "what if I want to change something?".
|
| I feel like if I don't know _why_ they chose to do a specific
| thing, I won 't know how to properly alter it.
| somethingsome wrote:
| It's because you aim for a false objective!
|
| There is no a 'proper' way to do it! It goes like this, you
| change it, if it looks good, well, good job, if not, ask
| yourself why, and try your best to take that into account
| next time.
|
| It's by doing millions of small mistakes that you improve.
| The teacher teaches one way that is kinda easy to grasp, it's
| not the only way and far from unique.
|
| The further you go, the further you will see the same
| mistakes, and you will start to think in terms of volumes,
| shapes, shadows, perspective, even anatomy if you still
| struggle on some human body parts
| stillpointlab wrote:
| This is a common feeling, and it is in some respect related
| to western culture. We prize "knowledge" very highly because
| it is demonstrably effective.
|
| My comment isn't meant to devalue knowledge but to put it in
| relation to "something else". That something else is the
| thing you have knowledge about. The thing to appreciate is
| that you can become an expert on knowledge itself, without
| ever becoming expert in the thing the knowledge is about.
|
| Consider some painting theory topics: color theory, contrast,
| perspective, proportion, etc. Imagine someone who attains
| expert level knowledge of any one (or combination) of these
| subjects but they are still unable to draw a picture that is
| a pleasing representation of their subject. You can easily
| study all of these topics for a lifetime without every
| picking up a pencil or a brush.
|
| My other comment mentions the map vs. territory distinction.
| So let's deeply consider this. You are in unfamiliar
| territory and you feel lost. You think to yourself: "If I
| only had a map then I wouldn't feel so lost". But does that
| mean you should spend the rest of your life studying map
| making? An alternative is to survey the territory with your
| own eyes and learn to pick out the trails that many others
| have cut into the wild. And then follow some of those trails.
| You might end up at a dead end and have to turn back to a
| previous fork in the road. You may find yourself scratched up
| as you try to get through dense thickets, or bogged down up
| to your shins in a swamp. Those are the kinds of experiences
| that teach you the land in a way no map could ever. And they
| are experiences you can't get by sitting in a tent studying a
| map. If your goal is to find a _new_ trail through the
| territory - no map will even show it. That will only come
| from the hard won experience of trekking relentlessly through
| the wild.
|
| As the philosopher Mike Tyson once said: "Everyone has a plan
| until they get punched in the face". It sucks getting punched
| in the face by other people, by learning a new language,
| learning to paint, learning music. Some people avoid it at
| all costs, thinking that studying the theory is the same
| thing.
|
| Just remember that all of the scratches and bruises you are
| getting as you fail at painting are scratches on your _ego_.
| It can take it. You will get better, as long as you keep
| trying it is inevitable you will learn. And it is very useful
| to glance at a map now and again. Just don 't get too reliant
| on it.
| gooseyard wrote:
| I've struggled to teach this to jazz students, I know when I
| was a kid I read the same kind of advice in guitar magazines,
| and while I don't think that the theory-first advocates are
| malevolent, I think most of them were not serious jazz players
| and were getting paid to deliver a monthly column.
|
| The analogy I've tried to use in teaching is that learning to
| play jazz is like being a comedian; when your skills are at
| their peak you're going to be inventing jokes regularly, but in
| the decades before you get there, you're going to be delivering
| other people's jokes putting a little of your own spin on them.
| The delivery matters a lot, and like good jazz playing it's
| pretty much impossible to write a book called "How to be Funny"
| that wouldn't just be an academic analysis rather than an
| instructional guide.
|
| I struggled with jazz for the reasons I've alluded to above,
| and it wasn't until I started studying with a teacher who just
| had me memorize hundreds of standards that I got my playing
| together. We definitely talked about the technical bits of what
| was happening in the tunes, but those were really just
| interesting observations; repeatedly playing them in a group
| setting after woodshedding them at home between lessons, then
| taking a lot of solos was really what made it happen.
|
| It really makes me happy to see up-and-coming killer players
| like Patrick Bartley espousing this same approach. Yeah it
| means you're going to spend thousands of hours memorizing
| tunes, but if that's not fun then playing jazz isn't going to
| be fun either.
| dhosek wrote:
| 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).
| 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 wrote:
| 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.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-07-24 23:00 UTC)