No one has fun on their first run. The first time you touch a new instrument, you'll be hard-pressed to play anything resembling your favorite song. With any pursuit, your output is constrained by the level of your capacity. Whether you measure your output through quality, speed, benefit, or enjoyment, you will struggle to achieve your goals without first increasing your capacity. But how do you efficiently build up capacity when you're starting near zero?
After a few years of dedicated practice on the piano, I have recently started learning the upright bass. For those who have never seen an acoustic bass, imagine a hunk of wood taller than you and twice as wide as your body. With no frets to demarcate the finger positioning for notes and 200 pounds of pressure across the four strings, it's quite literally a full body pursuit to learn the instrument. And while I have a decent grasp of music theory from my time on the piano, I was ill-prepared for the physicality required to play the bass.
My first month of practice was directly limited by the strength of my hands. I didn't have enough physical stamina to play along with a song, and even playing through a simple scale was at the limits of my abilities. This steep skill curve can quickly become discouraging, and I imagine the vast majority of pursuits are abandoned in this early phase. The difference between what you're able to do, and what you desire to, can be considered the capacity gap.
Beginner runners always make the same mistake when first starting out. They run too fast. When you imagine doing something new, you typically envision the ideal output, in this case, running a race as fast as you can. So what do you do? You head out for your first run, going full speed, and within minutes you are out of breath, with a painful cramp and aching legs. The next morning you wake up and try again, full of hope that things will start to click and feel easier. Unfortunately, this second run feels even harder because your body is already fatigued from the day before. At this point, who can blame you for thinking running is miserable?
But the problem isn't inherent to running. Instead, it stems from how you are attempting to build your capacity. Instead of modeling your actions after a desired end state, you must look at it as if you are teaching a child, and begin with the basics.
To build capacity, start easy.
To progress in running and increase your speed and distance, you need to balance two opposing forces: time on your feet with risk of injury. To improve as a runner, you must spend more time running, and more time running increases your exposure to injury. The dreaded shin splints, a plague to new and experienced runners alike, are the direct result of overtraining. And while plenty of online resources focus on how to increase your training mileage, not enough people talk about the importance of running slowly.
Doing something slower is easier, and when something is easier, you can do it longer.
When you run slowly, your heart rate is lower and the stress on your body is reduced. This easy pace is what allows your body to increase its aerobic capacity, a requirement to being able to run further and faster. Even the best runners in the world spend the majority of their time running at an easy pace. Eliud Kipchoge, who holds four of the top ten fastest marathon records, spends 75% of his training time running at a low intensity.
Beyond the performance benefits, the slower you run, the more comfortable you'll feel. And the more comfortable you are, the more likely you are to continue running in the days and weeks ahead. Given that time is a key factor in building capacity, you need to optimize for what enables you to spend more hours on your feet.
While doing something easy helps you to do it longer, there's another key benefit of going easy that will help you overcome the capacity gap.
For this, I turn back to the bass and the importance of playing scales when learning a musical instrument. Scales are commonly derided as boring. When you pick up an instrument, you dream of making beautiful music, not of playing the same notes over and over again. However, it's this repetition of notes, a growing accumulation of memorization and muscle memory, that drives every amazing guitar solo and high-flying jazz improvisation.
Concentrating on an easy aspect of a pursuit allows you to deeply focus on the fundamentals.
On the upright bass, you need to learn precise finger positions while also ensuring you have the correct form for optimal strength and dexterity. If your finger is half an inch in the wrong direction, you won't play the intended note. Slowly you begin to train this finger positioning into your subconscious, with your ear learning to distinguish between the subtle variations of tone along the way. This awareness and increased capacity is only possible through the repetition of these small details.
If you pick up an instrument and try to play a song straight away, you'll be measuring your output by the wrong metrics. Spending time worrying about how closely you're following your favorite music is not useful at this stage. Again, this is an example of trying to replicate an end state goal, when instead you need to begin by focusing on what's easy.
When you're a beginner, it's not the output that matters, it's the inputs. These inputs, like how much time you've spent running and where to place your fingers to make certain notes, are the base ingredients of your development. To most efficiently bridge the capacity gap, you must start easy. It won't be as flashy or as fun as what motivated you to start in the first place, but you can't get to where you want otherwise. Doing these easy things allows you to accumulate time and focus, the two requirements for further development in your pursuit. There will be plenty of time to ramp up the intensity as you go, so there's no need to worry about it in the beginning.