Bryan Reyes 1

Bryan Reyes
Dr. Richard Kravchak
MUS 199
9/21/2016

The Talent code

While I was reading the Talent Code book, by Daniel Coyle. I just realize how
important our practice habits can be. In his first chapter, his describes every single moment of
our practice routine. Also, He claims and shows us a very good examples in real life in order
to get a good practicing or how we should be practicing. At first in his introduction, he
explains about a girl, whose name is Clarissa. This girl Clarissa is from Australia, and Coyle
shows us how this little girl made a significant progress in her habits of practice. I just
realized when I was reading that part, I was wrong with my own practice, or maybe half-way
to get it as good as this little girl did. Because I am a clarinet player, a found one thing that I
felt identified with, that thing was this girl playing the clarinet. Coyle describes how this girl
started to practice a piece that she had to learn for her weekly class, all of the details and very
good writing skills made me feel like a I was that girl playing the clarinet. Was amazing how
he explained the process of this girl and her achievements. Nevertheless, this girl is not a top
worldwide clarinet player, but the thing behind this examples was how she did a very good
progress with her practice skills. Yet, the introduction was a very good text to start this book.
I felt prepared to move onto the next and first chapter. On the other hand in this few intro, one

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of Coyles quotes was; 6 minutes of good practicing can be an entire month of practicing.
He claimed. Therefore, all of this introduction prepared me for the next amazing chapter.
In the first chapter, Coyle took a trip around the world to try to figure out how people
became into a genius. How could that be possible? He claimed. He went to the most prolific
hotbeds around the world, one of those were situated in Moscow, Russia. He went there to
see how a tiny tennis court became the home of many great tennis players around the world.
Also, he came into a poor neighborhood in Brazil to watch a boy trying to learn a very
complicated soccer skill. So, he just realized that practice is the key for those people. At the
beginning, he got so excited thinking about he was going to see an amazing hotbed where this
incredibly talented people became into a genius. However, Coyle was expecting for more, not
just people practicing. After he realized about his trip was not as he thought I would be, he
started to look and observe more carefully. He did research and went to visit many recognized
and expect people in the psychology field. Also, he talks about a big issue America had in the
1940s about pilots. He read and researched about how a guy who had nothing to do with
flying planes, became an important person to resolve on of the big problems America had.
But how do we link all of this things? There is just one thing, practice. Therefore, I realized
how our practice routine can change what we are trying to achieve either sports, arts,
business, or also medical purposes.
The second chapter, talks more deeply about what makes us practice? What is in our
bodies that has the capacity to makes us learn? Therefore, there is something that makes us
connect all of this learning process in just a electrical reaction into our brains. All of this is
called, Myelin. This little thing that is located in our brains, and connects every single
electric pulse in order to make a movement either used for play soccer or sing Mozart.
Coyles second chapter explains a lot of this little thing or cell that every single human
being has in their brains. Also, one thing that attracted my attention was; myelin is universal.

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As he wrote One size fits all skill. Our myelin doesnt know whether its being used for
playing shortstop or playing Schubert. He wrote. That made me think we as humans have
the same tools or bodies to make something great; such as music, art, sports, and even
buildings. As he explained with a lot of arguments and research about this little thing called
myelin, All of this amazing explaining and comparations just made me feel that I had to
practice and put all of this quotes or research he made together. Its amazing and powerful
how a human being is like. Also, not all of this cell is good, you can learn something in a
wrong way and it will last for a long time, even if you try to fix it. Besides, he explains that
age matters, for instance, a children mind is like a sponge that absorbs everything faster than
an adult, so if a child starts to learn in the right way, he will be successfully good at what hes
doing and that would take it a few hours, days, or even weeks. On the other hand, the whole
learning process would be harder in an adult rather than a child, even worst if the adult has
already learned in the wrong way. For instance, I put myself in this because as a musician and
clarinet player, Ive been struggling with my embouchure position and my fingers posture. I
learned the wrong way and years without practicing the right way, I feel that I just wasted all
of those years. Today, I am receiving lessons with Dr. Mackllwain, who is the clarinet
professor at USM, we both have been trying to change my embouchure and Ive notice after
reading this chapter that I have to change drastically my practice habits. Even though Ive
been improved, I think I should be change more my way to practice.
Finally, this amazing two chapters made me change the way I used to think about
practice, Ill try to change and apply all of this good advice into my practice-life in order to
be a good clarinet player. Also, I found this very helpful and interesting because as a musician
Ive never thought about how to practice, even though my teachers have told me how to, but I
really could not understand and I got frustrated, so the result of that was a bad practice and
waste of time. I think every single musician has to read this book and try to apply this really

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good practice habits for you practice time. Finally, the whole reading for this two first
chapters have changed my life in a good way or have made to see the musical world different
than I used to see it. I really recommend this book for everyone and not just for musicians.
This book could be change your way to think about something so simple that is making you
get frustrated at. Therefore, this book has a lot of things that can make you change your mind
about a lot of things.