Getting the most out of your practising...with neuroscience

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CarsickPhil
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Getting the most out of your practising...with neuroscience

Post by CarsickPhil »

Sparked by a discussion with Viking Blues, I mentioned a lecture I heard by Gert-Jan de Haas about the musical brain. He's a guitarist and neuro scientist. He gave a great lecture with interesting practical tips. Here's the main points I picked up.

1. In an experiment, people practising a piece of music by physically playing it for 2h per day could reduce their error rate to zero in five days.

2. The experiment went on to show that another group of similar people practising the piece of music in their minds for 2h per day for five days could get to zero errors after just 5 minutes of playing on the fifth day.

3. Physical playing programmes your muscles to repeat their actions and this becomes automatic.

4. Automatic playing embedded in your muscle memory reduces the risks of injury because the movements flow better and reduces the risks of stage fright in performance.

5. The above means that pushing on with physical practice when it is going badly can be a disaster because you will embed the mistakes in your muscle memory in way that is hard to shift and you stand a higher chance of physical injury. So always take a break when things are going wrong and practise it going right in your mind. Better still, put in solid practice time working on your next piece in your mind, before grabbing the guitar, because you're more likely to train your muscle memory to do the right thing straight off, your performance is likely to more resistant to stage fright and you're less likely to injure muscles/tendons along the way.

I'm definitely going to try this sort of practice in the mind waiting for the bus, a lunch at work, etc. Can already see some benefits.

One of his lectures is available at http://www.casttv.com/video/rv9y1c/arti ... haas-video

Hope this is interesting.

Carsick Phil
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VikingBlues
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Re: Getting the most out of your practising...with neuroscie

Post by VikingBlues »

I can see the visualisation technique being of use - it is a useful tool for many activities.

The most impressive demonstration of that technique for me personally concerned golf - I found one of the most valuable lessons was one that got you to visulise in your head the shot you were going to hit, the trajectory the ball would take, where it would fly to, etc. In other words calling on muscle memory to help you do the job. It was very unusual to find a golf lesson that wasn't just concentrating on the physical aspects of making a shot. The results were very impressive, and it was particularly useful, for example, where there was a problem/danger area - eg the sea on the right of the fairway - previously that sea would be what I would notice, then I'd try and play the shot, and guess where the ball would go! Visualising what should happen made a successful outcome far more likely. I think as well as muscle memory though it also helped in getting a good focus on the task.
CarsickPhil wrote:5. The above means that pushing on with physical practice when it is going badly can be a disaster because you will embed the mistakes in your muscle memory in way that is hard to shift and you stand a higher chance of physical injury. So always take a break when things are going wrong and practise it going right in your mind. Better still, put in solid practice time working on your next piece in your mind, before grabbing the guitar, because you're more likely to train your muscle memory to do the right thing straight off
This does make sense. Also suggests why it is so difficult to undo bad techniques resulting from poor learning in the early stages of guitar. Not only do you have to learn the right technique but all that muscle memory has to be disassembled and re-programmed.

Reading the part of your post about practicing makes me realise how little I actually practice - I mainly just play a lot, though I guess that when I do I'm practicing finding the right notes and improving the muscle memory as applied to improvising. Hmmm ... now I think about it .. :think: ... what is parictice?
An improv a day keeps the demons at bay!
mjo
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Re: Getting the most out of your practising...with neuroscie

Post by mjo »

I'm a big fan of this approach. One of my teachers, long ago told me to visualize and it is a great help.
When things are going poorly, definitely put the guitar down, stop and think...visualize ...it shouldn't take too long. Then pick it up and do it right :D

As far as "practicing", it could include running scales, chords, arpeggios ... seeing how they all mesh on the fretboard. I'd recommend doing it in some context - I- IV- V would do for the blues. Then you still have to learn to use it in time, over the changes, so it always comes back to playing anyway -lol

-best,
Mike
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Strummer07
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Re: Getting the most out of your practising...with neuroscie

Post by Strummer07 »

Always interesting to get to learn a bit more about how our brain works and especially how best to work with it in terms of learning and improving Musical skills.
For practical tips there is a book called "Beyond Bedroom Guitar " By an Author and guitar player, Spencer Westwood which uses some of the principles from "Nuero Linguistic Programming" NLP ..I found it pretty useful a while back ... probably more aimed at the early player wanting to break out a bit ...
Setting goals , practice routine, relaxation , Unlearning Bad habits, using BT's etc but the principles are good at any level.

The visual thing is key !!....."All things are created twice" - once in you mind , you have to be able to visualise it 1st.....Before you can produce it physically or explain it to others" ....This is a very powerful technique and used a lot in most psychcologies , especially Sports Psychology.

See your self doing it Right ! visualise the whole process, make it as vivid and colourful as possible, add the sounds if you can ... and store it as a little mini tape and run it before you practise whatever it is you are trying to work on ....mjo.....you had a good teacher ... not so many standard music teachers seem aware of this stuff .. more is the pity.

And as with most behavoiur ..especially as one gets older ..

One has to unlearn stuff ( Bad habits and incorrect techniques) ...before you can learn and truly adopt new stuff

Learing goes through phases ... and you can't just short circuit the flow .... you need to go through the phases in order !!

Unconcious Incompetence ... we are oblivious to our skills, otr lack of and /or anything new.
Concious InCompetence - we become aware of our failings or lack of skill - via feedback / listening to tapes of us etc - we realise our bad habits and have to find ways to break them ( and unlearn them ) ..... and that usually takes 2-3 weeks before one can unlearn an old engrained habit.
Concious Competence - This is where we try the new behaviours or the new skills and we can do it if we really think about it hard .. but its not natural , and its not in muscle memory at all .. so its a bit clunky .....gradually we replace the old habit with the new one and as it become engrained via use and practice ...
Unconcious Competence - we just do it naturally without even thinking about it.

So .. Happy Learning ... or unlearning !! .enough science babble for one morning .. time to play !! :big_smile:
"Death is just a heartbeat away"
lyric from "Out in The Fields"
Gary Moore 1952-2011
meritonemusic
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Re: Getting the most out of your practising...with neuroscie

Post by meritonemusic »

interesting...testament to the power of visualisation! Amazing....
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