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Your muscles remember what your brain forgot!

In: Rocking in the free world Friday Mar 21,2008

Did you ever happen to see a (once) good guitar player that didn’t practice for a long time? I guess most of you did(probably in yourself too), because usually guitar playing, when not a profession or a serious hobby, happens in young age. Then life rolls over us. It happens! Or to put it an other way, “life’s a bitch and then you die”(well, that is the pessimistic point of view that does not define me, just that I like how it sounds).

So, if you look at this guitar player that now plays like a 14 years old, it’s quite embarrassing. For someone at 14, sounding flat works. For someone who’s supposed to have some experience and history in playing the guitar, sucks!

I have seen such persons. Damn, I have even seen myself! I have seen how some good player that I used to look up when I was a teen, couldn’t solo anymore…

But, at one point this guitar player started to practice seriously, and man, what a learning curve he had! Soon, in only a few months he became again someone to look up to! What happened? Nobody really learns that fast, right?!

Dr J spoke on his guest article here a bit about muscle memory, and boy, he’s right:

“We musicians rely so much on muscle memory and I firmly believe that the most productive time you can spend teaching your brain to remember the movements is really only the first 15-20 minutes of a practice session. After this amount of time, the brain is no longer interested in storing muscle memory information and if you continue to practice without taking a break, all you are doing is exercising your muscles.Give your brain a rest and go do something else for a while, then get back to practicing.”

When learning to play the guitar, you actually store patterns in your brain and in your muscles. It happens in music practicing, but it also happens in domains that have less to do with skills, but with capabilities, like in lifting weights. Really! This is why you find yourself taking some automatic actions in some particular situations, without “thinking” about it before. Like if you practiced box, wrestling, etc, if attacked, you will find yourself reacting fast and precise without recent previous training. It’s in you, sleeping, people!

So, when starting again to practice, your muscles start to remember things they were used to before! And if you really enjoy what you do, it comes so fast to you that you will be amazed. What the 14 years old will need to fight and struggle for a few years in a row, you will get in only a few months with a good, relaxed but constant practice!

All it takes is will, because the skills, you have them in you! Start practicing and you will see how fast you will learn it again.

I can not tell you how I felt when after a longer period of not playing constantly I started again and after only a few weeks I gained that joy and feeling of knowing my way around the neck. In the first days I had the impression that my fingers were some kind of cucumbers while after a while I started to feel the guitar neck as very comfortable and friendly.

If you find this familiar, let me hear you, guys, don’t let me feel alone out here

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13 Responses to “Your muscles remember what your brain forgot!”

Ruben Cardos
March 21st, 2008 at 2:15 pm

This is excellent material. I had always tried to come up with some theory about this due to the ups and downs in my playing quality. I am now 42 and had never stopped playing until about 2 years ago when I took a break due to other projects. When I got back into playing and seriously studying, I realized that my fingers didn’t take very long at all to get up to par.

Also, when you take a break from studying (due to saturation in my case), you later look at the exercises that you couldn’t pull off at that time and realize that now you can do them effortlessly.

You’re right about one thing, especially. If your brain is out to lunch when trying to study for a long period of time, you’re not really learning anything new. You’re just doing exercise.

PS Can I use this post in my blog?
Ovidiu
March 21st, 2008 at 2:22 pm

Thanks, Ruben, for commenting on my blog! Indeed, I have also faced this kind of situations because life does not allow you to always focus on music, some of us, less lucky from this point of view, need to work

When coming back to playing the guitar, I have seen I am rusty, but after a short period I started to feel good again. It happened more than once.

Well, why don’t you write an article around this one, using it as a resource, if you like? Just specify the source please.
Ruben Cardos
March 21st, 2008 at 7:54 pm

Good idea!

I’ll get to it right away.
Ovidiu
March 21st, 2008 at 10:54 pm

Great! I’ll be the first one to read it!
Jol
March 22nd, 2008 at 2:57 am

When I first started gigging on a regular basis in my late teens and 20s I was a bass player. I practiced and played out, jammed with friends and did sessions constantly. Then I switched to guitar. For almost 15 years I rarely touched a bass other than to test it.

Then, I brought a bass that I had at home hanging on a wall, to work. A guy in the shop was playing a song one afternoon, so I grabbed the bass and joined in. Woah! It was so foreign, yet so familiar at the same time. It was almost as though I’d picked up a saxophone—and could instantly play it well! It was such a revelation that I started to play bass every chance I got. The joy of playing returned, just like when I was first gigging and jamming. Songs I hadn’t played or heard in years came easily and intuitively.

So I know exactly what you mean… it’s like riding a bike. I’m sure happy about putting in all those hours back in the day.
Ovidiu
March 22nd, 2008 at 9:03 am

Yes, nothing compares to this joy! There are so many things in us that we think we forgot and actually are there. I know what you mean because I used to play harmonica when I was a child and I haven’t picked it up since about 10 years and recently in a particular situation I tried to play it and everything went quite fine! Man, I was happy!
Dr. J
March 23rd, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Researchers are studying what you guys are saying; –I know this looks scary but skip down and read the last 3 paragraphs of this article> http://www.miller-mccune.com/article/227

J
Ovidiu
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:28 pm

Wow, Dr J, quite impressive that article. Improvisation is not easy and accessible to everybody, and beside implying work and experience to master the technical skills, for sure you need some particular brain “features”. I liked that part with “the development of talent — practice, practice, practice — is crucial to creativity”, the more you study the more creative you get.

Great tip: “I have no idea how to promote getting into (the jazz musicians’ creatively fertile) state,” Limb said. “But our study suggests that the notion of ‘letting go’ is meaningful. That’s why amateur musicians can’t get there. They can’t let go — they’re far too concerned with the execution of the notes, the mechanics of playing their instruments. That’s too much at the forefront of their consciousness.

“When you’re masterful at what you’re doing, it becomes second nature (and the self-censoring part of the brain can switch off). Then you can focus on ideas.”
Dr. J
March 23rd, 2008 at 10:41 pm

Amen!
Ruben Cardos
March 24th, 2008 at 10:52 pm

Ovidiu,

The promised article on this matter is now live at Ezine Articles. Nothing fancy, just a testimonial. Check it out here:
http://ezinearticles.com/?Getting-Back-Into-Playing-Guitar&id=1060970

Enjoy!
Vallium » Your muscles remember what your brain forgot!
May 8th, 2008 at 4:29 pm

[…] skills because of muscle memories. It is the same as in boxing, riding the bicycle, weight lifting.read more | digg […]
Ricky Sharples
June 15th, 2008 at 2:50 pm

It’s still a clear memory now after thirty years, the first time I became an outside observer to my fingers playing independently of my mind. It was a quite a tricky flamenco falseta (theme) that I’d only been playing for a few weeks and I was amazed my fingers knew how to play it while “I” stood back in amazement. The thing is this experience has been repeated lots of times, but I still can’t say that I “know about muscle memory”. It’s not a stored kernel of wisdom that you can draw on at will. I need to prove it to myself again and again by real world experience.
Ovidiu
June 15th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

I also had this impression, I couldn’t quite remember how a song should go on but my fingers knew what they should play. It is interesting

Your muscles remember what your brain forgot!

13 Responses to “Your muscles remember what your brain forgot!”

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