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Why is learning stuff harder as you get older?

Why as children we effortlessly absorb new skills, such as learning the guitar or playing golf, but as adults we don鈥檛

Have you taken classes to learn a new sport or musical instrument or a language? It鈥檚 hard work! Why is it that as children we effortlessly absorb new skills and we don鈥檛 as adults?

That鈥檚 what 50-something listener Gary Grief wondered about playing guitar. Do you need to play more frequently as an adult to attain the same level of expertise? Does the 10,000-hours theory still apply?

Presenter and budding tabla-player Anand Jagatia embarks on a musical journey to discover what neuroscience can tell us about muscle memory and learning. Do musicians and sportsmen share the same challenges? By understanding what鈥檚 happening in the brain, can we learn how to learn better?

With tabla-teacher Satvinder Sehmbey, neuroscientist Dr Jessica Grahn, viola-player Dr Molly Gebrian and sports scientist Prof Yannis Pitsiladis.

Presented by Anand Jagatia
Produced by Dom Byrne for the 大象传媒 World Service

[Image: Adult and Child learning Piano. Credit: Getty Images]

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36 minutes

Last on

Mon 10 May 2021 12:32GMT

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Broadcasts

  • Fri 7 May 2021 19:32GMT
  • Sat 8 May 2021 01:32GMT
  • Sun 9 May 2021 01:32GMT
  • Mon 10 May 2021 03:32GMT
  • Mon 10 May 2021 04:32GMT
  • Mon 10 May 2021 08:32GMT
  • Mon 10 May 2021 12:32GMT

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