There's value in discovering your own way, before learning the right way.
When we decide we want to learn something, we may start by looking for someone to teach us.
Take a class.
Watch a tutorial.
Buy a book.
Hire an instructor.
Ask an expert how it's done.
That makes sense. Why struggle to discover something other people have already figured out? My conversation with jazz pianist and composer Rick DellaRatta made me wonder whether we skip an important step.
What if we tried first?
What might we discover before someone tells us how we're supposed to do it?
Rick didn't know he was improvising.
Rick's introduction to music began with a piano that arrived at his family's home around Christmas when he was six years old. He became fascinated with it.
Rather than immediately asking someone how to play, Rick wanted to figure it out himself. When nobody was around, he experimented.
He pressed keys.
He listened.
He made his own notes.
He tried to figure out how the thing worked. He didn't know what he was doing. Looking back, he realized he was improvising. Nobody had taught him improvisation. Nobody had explained which notes he should play. He was discovering relationships between sounds by experimenting.
Eventually he took formal piano lessons. He studied classical music, became a professional musician at a remarkably young age, discovered jazz, and later studied at the New England Conservatory.
He learned the rules.
Something important happened before that: He experienced the instrument before someone explained it to him.
What Happens When Nobody Tells You the Answer?
There's an advantage to having a teacher. A good teacher can save you years. They can show you what works, point out mistakes, introduce techniques you might never discover, and pass along knowledge accumulated over generations.
There's also something about the period before instruction:
You don't know what you're supposed to do.
That sounds like a disadvantage. In some ways it is. It also means you don't yet know what you're not supposed to do. You're forced to experiment.
What happens if I press this?
Why does that sound good?
Why does this sound terrible?
What happens if I do it again?
You're not reproducing someone else's solution. You're trying to discover one. The process of discovering the answer yourself may teach you something different from being given the answer.
The Lesson Can Change the Question
Suppose I hand you a guitar and say, “Make something that sounds interesting.”
You have a problem to solve. You might pluck a string. Move your finger. Listen. Try another string. You don't know the names of the notes or chords. You're simply trying to make something happen.
Now imagine I begin differently. I tell you:
This is an E.
This is an A.
Put your fingers here.
That's an E major chord.
Now practice changing from E to A.
That's useful.
Notice what happened. Before the lesson, your question was:
What can I do with this thing?
After the lesson, it may become:
Am I doing this correctly?
Those aren't the same.
Being Wrong Is Different Before You Know What's Right
There's an advantage to experimenting before instruction: It's difficult to make a mistake when you don't yet know what the correct answer is supposed to be. You can produce something that doesn't work. Instead of thinking: I did it wrong,
You may think: That didn't work. What happens if I try this instead?
Once we know the accepted method, deviations acquire labels: Wrong note. Wrong technique. Wrong process. Wrong answer. Before we know the method, those same deviations may simply be experiments.
Ignorance creates a freedom that knowledge removes.
I Had the Opposite Experience With Songwriting
This part of my conversation with Rick reminded me of now of my own experiences. I played piano in church, and for years I had an assumption about songwriting. I imagined people like John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Mozart and other great composers simply sitting down and having original music come out.
I'd sit at a piano and wait for that to happen.
It didn't. That was frustrating.
Eventually someone taught me a process for writing a song: Start with the story.
Where are you?
What's happening?
What are you thinking?
What happens next?
For the music, start with a couple of chords.
Which chords?
I wanted someone to tell me. The answer was essentially, pick some.
Then play.
Experiment.
Listen.
Songwriting became something I could do. I hadn't lacked the ability. I had been stopped by my preconceived notion of how songwriting was supposed to happen.
The Order Matters
This makes me wonder, does learning work better in this order:
Try → encounter a problem → learn → try again.
Or this order:
Learn → learn → learn → try.
Once you've tried something, the instruction has somewhere to land. If I've picked up a guitar and struggled to make it sound good, learning what a chord is can help solve a problem. If I've tried building a website and can't get two elements to line up, an explanation of layout matters. If I've tried taking a photograph and can't capture what I'm seeing, learning about aperture or focal length answers a question I have.
The knowledge isn't abstract anymore.
I know why I need it.
Don't Wait Until You're Qualified to Begin
During our conversation, I mentioned people who tell me they're going to learn guitar. Often the next sentence is, “I'm going to take lessons.”
My reaction is, why wait? Pick up the guitar. Do something with it. You're probably not going to sound very good. That's okay. The lesson can come later.
This isn't an argument against teachers. It's the opposite.
A teacher may be more useful once you've encountered the problems the teacher can help you solve.
Rick eventually received extensive formal musical training. His childhood experimentation wasn't a replacement for that knowledge. It was something that came before it.
What Are We Protecting Beginners From?
There's a reason we hesitate to experiment: other people might see us being bad at something. Rick initially played the piano privately. He didn't want an audience while he was figuring it out. That may have given him something valuable: room to be bad, without being judged.
Imagine if someone had heard six-year-old Rick experimenting and said. That doesn't sound good, maybe he would have ignored them. Maybe not.
Beginners are supposed to be bad. Yet we often evaluate ourselves, and others, as though early performance tells us something about eventual ability. Beginners sometimes need less evaluation, and more opportunity to experiment.
Learn the Rules. Discover Something First
I'm not suggesting we throw away instruction and make everyone rediscover mathematics, music, engineering or medicine from scratch. Progress depends on our ability to inherit what others have already learned.
There's value in having space before the answer arrives.
Before watching a tutorial, try it.
Before asking AI, think about it.
Before reading how someone else solved the problem, see what solution you can come up with.
Before taking your first lesson, pick up the instrument. You may discover that the expert has a better way. You may, as John Mayer did, find some of the techniques you end up using the most during your career are those you discovered on your own, before you took your first lesson.
Occasionally you may discover something different, precisely as nobody had told you yet that it wasn't the way things were supposed to be done.
What If You Tried First?
We think knowledge expands possibilities.
It does.
Knowledge also creates boundaries. Once we learn the standard solution, it's difficult to un-know it. The next time you want to learn something new, consider giving yourself a little time before asking someone, or AI, to tell you how.
Touch it.
Build something.
Write something.
Play something.
Try to solve it.
Get confused.
Make mistakes.
Develop questions.
Then find a teacher.
There's value in learning the right way.
There's value in discovering your way, before someone tells you what the commonly accepted right way is.
Listen or Watch
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About Rick DellaRatta
Rick DellaRatta is a jazz pianist, vocalist, composer, and founder of Jazz for Peace.
https://rickdellaratta.com
Linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rick-dellaratta-08199818
Editor's Note
This article is based on my podcast conversation with composer Rick DellaRatta. The ideas discussed here originated in that conversation, while the structure, emphasis, and commentary are my own. Any errors or interpretations are mine, not Rick's.
About the Author
Daniel Stih (danielstih.com) is an aerospace engineer, software engineer, indoor environmental consultant, and author of 12 books. For more than 30 years, he has investigated complex problems spanning engineering, technology, the built environment, and human decision-making. His work explores how evidence, assumptions, and systems shape the conclusions we draw—and whether we're solving the right problem. Learn more about his approach in Why I Think This Way.