The Best Way to Learn

I think I have formed another band.

I don't know this for sure because no one has really said "Hey, we're a band!" and because, if it is a band, it's not a very good one. Of the three consistent regulars who show up between 5:30 and 6:00 PM on Wednesday afternoons, I am the only one who has ever really played in an official band where we were paid money, from time to time, to play for people who really wanted to listen. The other two have played their guitars in their living rooms and occasionally with other people who have not played in real bands. There is one man who shows up from time to time, who has played professionally before. When the four of us play and the other two screw up the changes, we look at each other and share the same thoughts as we smile and start over.

We have been asked to play at the upcoming ward campout on the Friday evening of Labor Day weekend. There is no way we will be ready enough for anyone to sincerely say "You guys are great!" This is particularly problematic because one of the guys agreed to an hour's worth of music when we might have been able to pull of two songs... maybe. An hour is a set and a set contains at least 15 songs unless they are all the long versions of "Light My Fire", "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" and "El Paso". Then you only need 4. No one but me knows "Light My Fire" or "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", the other former pro knows "El Paso" but the key change between stanza and chorus kills the other two.

Still, in three weeks, we will play for an hour and people will pretend to like it.

During the last rehearsal, the request was made that I not just give them lyrics and a chord progression like this:

/ C Em Am C / F Am Dm F / G G7 Em G7 / C Em Am C /

We skipped the light fandango

Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor

I was feeling kind of seasick

But the crowd called out for more

But rather something like this:

C Em Am C

We skipped the light fandango

F Am Dm F

Turned cartwheels 'cross the floor...

etc. through every one of the five verses and the chorus of this song.

Then I have to show them, often, how to play the minor and 7th chords. Heaven forbid we have a song with major 7ths or 9ths!

I asked them why they needed this and they both explained that they couldn't remember the words and the chords if the chords were not directly above the lyrics. I said that is why we practice at home and during rehearsal... but it really came down to making it easy for them to learn and for them, theirs was the best way.

Later that same Wednesday evening, I had the occasion to sit with a friend who serves with me in the High Priest Group leadership in our ward. For a number of weeks know, he has been carrying a heavy, secret burden that, a week earlier, he had confided to me and for which I gave him a priesthood blessing last Monday morning.

During this conversation he asked me what I thought was the best way to learn, explaining that he had lost all confidence in learning through experience. This because he had known one thing to be true for 35+ years and only learned when he was 50, that he was wrong about it.

As we talked it because clear that he had not really gathered this misinformation through experience, but through supposition that was based on fallacy. I suggested to him that rather that trust our assumptions, especially when they make no logical sense, we should test our assumptions on others. In this particular case, he believed he had been sinning for those 35 years but after reading a book by Elder Packer, he learned that he had not. He was 50 when he read the book. I asked him if he had ever consulted a bishop to repent of what he thought was a sin over that time period and he had not. I made the case then, another value of confessing to one's bishop. It just might be that there is nothing really to confess!

That conversation, as all do, wandered off into strange and diverse paths until I kicked him out of my truck sometime after 10:00 PM.

Since then, however, I have been considering what might be the best way to learn. I have determined that it depends very much on what we are trying to learn.

One cannot learn history by experience unless one has access to a time machine or panoramic, prophetic vision. I have neither so I have to read history books or listen to historians who, presumably, have read history books or the sources for them.

I cannot, however, learn how to cook by reading a cookbook. That comes with the application of the information found in the cookbook.

Paul taught us that the Savior: "Though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things which he suffered..." (Hebrews 5:8)

The Lord, in the 105th section of the Doctrine and Covenants teaches that we are probably supposed to learn obedience the same way:

"And my people must needs be chastened until they learn obedience, if it must needs be, by the things which they suffer." (V. 6)

This verse may give us an "out" with the "if it must needs be" caveat; but I don't think so.

As I pondered those passages, I thought of others, including the entire 93rd section of the Doctrine and Covenants wherein we learn that the glory of God is His intelligence which is light and truth, which light and truth forsake the evil one...

The 26th through the 28th verses are quite enlightening as far as this topic is concerned:

"The Spirit of truth is of God. I am the Spirit of truth, and John bore record of me, saying: He received a fulness of truth, yea, even of all truth; and no man receiveth a fulness unless he keepeth his commandments. He that keepeth his commandments receiveth truth and light, until he is glorified in truth and knoweth all things."

Section 130 teaches the same principle really, that intelligence, knowledge, light, etc. are the results of obedience to the commandments of God. That's how God got His intelligence and, according to the 88th section , God knows all things (see verse 41).

I conclude, then, that the foundation to all learning is obedience and that the method means little to nothing unless that method hinders obedience. So my friends are perfectly fine in their method of learning how to play and sing songs but my other friend, because of his disobedience to the council that we confess our sins for complete repentance (D&C 19:20) did not learn that what he thought was a sin, was not.

The next time I see him, I will tell him what I learned...