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Comment by chayleaf | Hacker News Reader

Playing piano doesn't require analytical thinking either. Motor memory is just another set of patterns, and rest helps establish the patterns in our mind.

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I'm not sure that's entirely true. There are many ways to approach playing piano, although they all require muscle memory there's a huge cognitive portion to improvisation for example. Some do that by feel, and some do that by actively thinking about the theory they're playing.

I feel we need to flesh that out more. Because if we just say sleep establishes the patterns, it's almost as if we say a pianist who has been playing for decades forgets how to be a pianist without a day of sleep, and then while sleeping he remembers how to be a pianist.

I feel I need a more detailed explanation here.

Apparently something gets depleted from the brain during the day, that we get back during sleep. Maybe it's structural, not chemical, but something gets depleted.

In the aforementioned anecdote, the pianist was struggling with a new composition, not general piano skills. Which would make sleep a catalyst for making new neural pathways for that specific composition, not how to be a pianist in general.

That's my take as a layman.

Learning a new piece usually requires learning novel movements, stuff you've never done before. Maybe you've played a C major before, but you don't always use the same fingers depending on where you're coming from and where you're going, maybe the cadence or intensity is different, and so on.

Still, I can witness myself if I haven't slept well not only my ability to figure out complex programming code suffers, but the mere ability to type fast without a ton of typos.

Otherwise I agree after sleep, what we learn seems more readily available.

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