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Playing the sanshin without a sound
The slot machine and the checklist: a dilemma in feedback design.
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Last night I practiced the sanshin until almost midnight, without making a sound.
The sanshin is a three-stringed instrument from Okinawa. I live in an apartment, and at that hour my neighbors deserved quiet. So I pressed the strings without plucking them and mimed the rest.
It was much harder than I expected.
I had never played music as a hobby before, and I had always assumed an instrument was played with the eyes and the hands. We read the score, press the right string at the right moment, and the music follows.
But when the sound that should have followed my fingers never arrived, I kept losing my place. Pressing the right position became oddly difficult. Apparently, when I play the instrument normally, I am judging, almost unconsciously: was that last note right? What should come next to feel natural? Take the sound away, and that quiet judgment has nothing to work with. The practice became difficult, and a little dull.
