Embracing Amateurs to Get Experts

LessWrong digs into the evolution of live music in contra dancing through three decades of letters from Enid Cocke, president of the Lloyd Shaw Foundation. In nineteen eighty-five, Cocke defended recorded music, saying inexperienced live musicians with limited repertoires actually hurt dance quality. But after mentoring from skilled musicians Glen and Judi Morningstar three years later, she reversed course, advocating for combining recorded and live music. By nineteen ninety-two, she was celebrating the abundance of competent dance musicians in the community. The piece's key observation: those "low-quality" amateur bands she initially dismissed may have been essential to creating the expert tradition she later praised—communities willing to tolerate amateur musicianship created the conditions for real expertise to develop.

Listen to this story

Hear this and more stories in a personalized audio briefing.

Open The Chonkerton