Community & Drums Part II
So the threads I posted the other day about collaborating on drum charts have worked out well! I’m pretty hopeless at transcribing drum music into tab, but I can convert tab into chart. One of the community members has offered to tab some of the songs I’m interested in getting and I’m going to chart them in exchange. However what interested me in particular was that the community member in question actually offered to do the transcriptions for me without anything in exchange – only after did I offer to conver to chart. This sort of selflessness in an online community is interesting. I mean you see it in file sharing communities, where people put up albums or tv episodes or whatever for nothing in return but in all the music (as in instrument) communities I’ve been involved in it’s usually “i have sheets for x if you can track down y for me.” So I wonder about the implications of learning in the more selfless regard. I suppose really in terms of one’s learning, what’s in for you? Learning to be a better music transcriber because you’re making the effort to do it? Learning to be a contributing member of the community? Just generally being a nice person? Or am I the learner in this case? Learning how to ask for help (in this case with transcribing music)? Learning how to play a piece I didn’t know how to play? Or maybe I’m actually overthinking it, which raises another question – does EVERY interaction involve learning to some degree, or some aspect of learning, or are there some interactions that are just that – interactions?
