Any Change Is a Big Change

I use this phrase often with my private students. In musical terms, what it means is, you don’t have to do a lot for the new thing you do to matter. Repetition with a difference is a powerful musical tool. In fact, it is at the heart of all classical-era compositions: announce a theme, then spend the composition incrementally varying that theme until suddenly the listener is somewhere new without even knowing it. The eventual return to the original theme at that point is exhilarating—a “woosh” of recognition and excitement.

Tell me you’ve ever heard anything quite as sadly familiar as when Beethoven sends the melody of Moonlight Sonata’s first movement down into the lower register at the end of the movement.

Repetition with a difference.

Developing musicians often feel stymied when they play a song. Their vocabulary is limited, and all they hear is all the stuff they are not able to play. Instead, they will play the same chords—the same way, every time—and feel stuck. That is when I share this phrase/input: You don’t have to do a lot for it to sound new. In fact, ideally you should not be doing a lot or you will sabotage the song. Any change is a big change.

I was reflecting recently at how powerfully this also applies in non-musical contexts.

Humans are creatures of routine. Our brains are very efficient, and our bodies are very “expensive” to run. That means that we set about sending any repeated activities or motions to automatic memory almost as soon as we learn them. It’s why you don’t have to think about how to tie your shoe, and why you go on autopilot as you drive home and sometimes don’t even remember getting to your street. (Or at least, let’s hope that’s why!)

Familiar input/automatic memory involves higher brain function. It means that the stuff we’re perceiving has gotten past the doorman and walked right into the club. No ID, no pat-down, just an escort to the VIP section.

Unfamiliar input is a different story. That’s a red alert, even if it’s completely benign in the end. It doesn’t even get into Club Brain until it’s been vetted at the door, waved with the security wand, patted down, and interviewed for possible terrorist intentions. This same process holds true whether it’s a mosquito or an Indiana Jones-style rolling boulder, since, in the moment, it’s safest to assume everything is a boulder.

Obviously, we can’t always be in emergency mode. But we can’t always be in comfort mode, either. If we were, our guard would drop, and splat. Boulder.

So, our brains have a preference for comfort colored with surprise. We are novelty-seeking by nature. It’s a holdover from the feverish hunger for information we display as developing babies and toddlers—information we receive within the safe confines of our parents’ arms.

It’s why we like the sound of the ocean, but tire of the sound of white noise machines repeating predictable ocean loops.

But we are also comfort-driven. We need a safe place to do unsafe things.

My father used to have a theory that you could change the course of your day by switching which sock you put on first in the morning. He didn’t ascribe any magic powers to the socks, obviously. He meant that simply shaking up a small part of an otherwise automatic routine would have beneficial (or at least, tangible) ripple effects through the day.

We all get stuck. There is comfort (and benefit) in stuckness, but also danger. Stuckness can result in us turning against our various sources of comfort, for no other reason than we tire of the familiarity. This can affect relationships, friendships, careers, and even living situations/locations. Worse, it can muddy the waters as to whether the elements we are responding to are inherent in the relationship/location or a byproduct of us simply repeating the same moves just because we don’t know which new ones to make.

On the flip side, we don’t want to counteract our ennui with recklessness. No one can survive a permanent Middle Age Crisis (at any age) of constantly pursuing new and different input.

What we want is comfort, colored with surprise.

So, this month’s unsolicited advice is to remember: any change is a big change. Reward your brain for doing the smart thing and finding comfort by feeding it with the fuel of surprise. But don’t do too much and sabotage the song. That same kick comes from a mosquito as from a boulder.

Drive around the block once before heading home. Brush your teeth with the opposite hand. Put your socks on in the “wrong” order. The ripple effect through the day will turn the old stuff new. Then, when you return to your routine, it will feel like coming home—exhilarating and exciting, instead of numbing and oppressive.

In other words, keep the themes—ethics, relationships, professionalism, whatever your guideposts might be—and vary the approach. Try it out this month and let me know how it goes.

In the meantime, enjoy the way Beethoven handled “repetition with a difference,” with that incredible low melody at 4:30:

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On a separate topic, I am proud to say that my song “Jesus of Neverland” has been nominated for a San Diego Music Award this year. I love the SDMA’s—they bring respect and attention to the music community here, while raising money for a nonprofit serving the cause of music in public schools. If you’re so inclined, would you mind visiting https://dosd.com/p/sandiegomusicawards and voting each day until March 27? You can vote once a day per email address. I’d be most grateful.

(You can hear my song here, if you’d like, in a video made by the great Cathryn Beeks.)

Any thoughts about what I should address in future columns? Shoot me a line via the contact form at joshweinstein.com.