Sounds interesting. I have been reading the Void by A.H. Almas which, rather than dealing with the evolutionary development of the brain, looks at the individual development and the structuring of the mind through object relations and pychodynamic theory. It focuses on how it is possible to break down that stucture and the boundaries of all memory and regain the experience of the openness and spaciousness without content (Buddhists would call it emptiness), in order to be fully alive and creative in the present.

I use the snow plow method. Start at the beginning and go until you get stuck. Then back up to the beginning and go again. Keep repeating until you make it through the drift and move on until you hit the next difficult spot and get stuck again.

I know chunking is better, and I do some of that, but by my nature, I am a snow plower.

+1 for you sir. I also have to do that often. Otherwise I'd be stuck for ages. There is always some part of a piece I dread playing.

I'm a professional writer. This is exactly how I see it Lain. To me doing the second method is like a normal part of the writing process. It has helped me to understand that practicing on difficult sections, or practicing in general, is similar to writing the draft of a story, and coming back for the many rewrites that I expect to do before I submit my final draft for publication.

PPP, did you notice that I called it my "final draft"? After all of these years I've come to understand that the final draft that gets published perhaps could have been refined even more. However, I let it go to publication because I am confident that I've written it well enough that others understand what I'm trying to communicate, and my intentions. That's how I see taking my piano practice to the performance level.

PS. I hope that I was clear in writing this. I probably did more than a few rewrites on this already

I didn't even notice the reference to writing! That makes sense. I practice the same way I write! (non-professional) Essays were my favorite. lol

ppp



Yes I had this a few times. But it happens pretty rarely compared to all other things so I never thought about finding an efficient method to solve this.

Starr Keys,



And how does this help to "iron out errors" or play better?And why would breaking down structure help in playing?

Just to explain my question, for what I see, music is very much a function of the structures in the music, and the music self (notes harmonies, harmonic progressions etc) are tightly related to interpretation. In other words, recognition of the structure is a key component in playing the music in a coherent manner.

Hi Wouter,

Yes, that is what I've been saying here, learn its structure and it will be easier to learn and remember music. But Almaas shows how the act of remembering and understanding or experiencing and understanding structure (in this case the structure of our personalities) can function so deeply that it actually allows us to dissolve it and or transcend it to reach a state beyond it that is not dependent on it. Great artists get beyond just playing from memory in finding a way to make every performance a unique work of art.

I don't know how being fully present will allow us to create without depending on memory--I wish I did. But I know when I'm playing I'll sometimes suddenly come up with something and I won't be conscious of where I remember it from or even if I've ever heard anyone else do it that way. Or I'll be so focused on listening, it will be as if I'm one with that activity and I'm detached from what my hands are doing. I strive for not thinking about what I'm doing and letting the music sweep me away that way. This doesn't mean you're brain dead, it just means your so attentive to what's unfolding in the moment there isn't any room for the past to intrude in the form of memory or the thought mechanism to operate.

In many of the highest practices of many spiritual traditions, there is the emphasis on not knowing and not thinking in order to experience a primoridal or pristine awareness and unfolding of being. And recently, there have been some contemporary mystics like Krishnamurti, Bernette Roberts, Adyashanti, and Almaas (all educated in the West) who claim to have reached a state where they function this way most of the time, describing the experience of "No Self" as no longer thinking thoughts related to a central identity or defending the boundaries of one, but just having thought function where its necessary to maintain the activities necessary to maintenance of the oranism. I've heard it described as "thought without a thinker" and at least the first three seem to have lived in a constant state of grace where by just being attentive, seeing itself is action. In other words they see the truth of the moment and their being is an expression and embodiment of it, like a perfect work of art is the harmonious embodiment of all its parts in relation to the whole.

Of course when the human life is that work of art, it's impossible to understand it without being it--but people still seem capable of at least recognizing it when they see it, and some will call it "wholeness" and others "holiness." Most of us won't get to see it in a mystic, but it seems at least imperfectly and temporily realized by and recognizable in artists and I find it fascinating to comtemplate how they do.

Starr Keys,

Thanks for that elaboration!



Is this not just playing entirely from muscle memory?

I can understand that not thinking makes you more aware of the actual now, and it can make you be more aware of what you are playing; however I don't see how not thinking can improve that playing? Well maybe afterwards, after you became aware of flaws in your playing, and you start thinking about it, then you can modify the playing? But if you are not thinking, who is going to correct anything, and how would you even play the right notes? Or even any notes?

As been mentioned, a key element to eliminating mistakes is confidence. Kenny Werner addresses this in "Effortless Mastery", basically by telling yourself that you are "a master".

The opposite of confidence is fear. To use the golf analogy, I can drive the ball beautifully on wide-open holes, but get to the tight ones and tension creeps in and I try to steer it, usually with disasterious results. Or walking on a 4 ft sidewalk...no problem, but put it next to a cliff and suddenly you can become paralysed with fear.

So what to do? There are some "mind tricks" that have been written about like the in Werner's book, or "The Inner Game of Music"...turning off the self depricating chatter, the "Oh no, here comes the hard part" etc.. Easier said than done. Rote practice, pounding the music into your neurons is a commonly used tool that has been used over the years, along with analysis, memorization, imagining your audience is in its underwear,etc.....

But I would like to throw out a little "mental trick" I have sometimes used that has helped me shift to a better mental focus:

I lie to myself, and the lie is simply:

"I wrote this"

They say you have to make a piece your own, and have your own interpretation, etc., but also by telling "the lie" suddenly the notes are my friends, not a challenge or problem. I am proud of them. If I err, so what, it's my music, and maybe that's the way I am playing it today.

Now maybe this flies in the face of being "judged" by the ghosts of the composer, the teacher, the audience, looking down on you, seemingly demanding perfection.

But in human endevour, perfection is elusive if not impossible...and actually doesn't sound that good anyway (i.e. MIDI sequences).

Try "the lie" and see if it works for you.

Just my $0.02

Well, I think this will always remain something of a mysterious process, and it may be totally inapplicable to your goals since it involves improvisation -- but I do think skills gained from traditional learning and more freestyle methods can lead to technical ability that can have a cross-over effect between them. And I think I know a little about this from my experience of learning and continuing to play both ways. So I can try to explain it using the terms that were used to explain to me by Mike at Piano Magic.

When we are in a creative attentive space where the right brain is more in charge than the left brain and playing on the fly rather than following a map of how the music is to be structured and where it is to go, then we naturally try to expand our playing in ways we haven't before--that's the nature of creativity. But if we don't have the technical skills, the context or momentum of the impulse to do something beyond our ability and the depth of our attention to that allows us to create what he called a "caricature," an imperfect expression of what we envision for the music to be. When we are in this state again another time, the unconscious remembers and adds something to it making it more perfect. But gaining skill this way is the opposite of breaking things down into disparate parts and repeating them and repeating them over an over again and consciously remembering what we did. Its the context of wholeness and the intention to achieve it with a structure that is familiar that manifests the development of something outside the structure than can be integrated with it.

Also, if I read him right, this process will allow us to develop skills much faster than conscious repetition, in the context of the pieces we use it in, and in a way that will make it easier to transfer more perfectly to any song where the same motiff would be appropriate. I know this a somewhat of vague description and some peope at PM seemed to have trouble with it, but it makes sense to me and it is the best I can do in defining it right now.

>Try "the lie" and see if it works for you.

Well it's most often bloody obvious that I played the wrong notes Maybe in jazz or improvisation you can bluff your way throug but when the harmonies are really beautiful , a sudden deminished or so chord sticks out so bad that it hurts my ears and more... Even if it were my notes, I would scrap them on the spot .

But indeed sometimes we should not bother about a wrong note too much.

Starr Keys,

Thanks again for your elaborations!

>When we are in this state again another time, the unconscious remembers and adds something to it making it more perfect.

Ah so this is what you think might happen.

I can imagine what you mean by what you're pointing at when talking about the right brain. Indeed I have the impression that the right brain if great at determining what sounds good and what not.

Also I agree that having a broader view might on how to make it beautify really is a requirement in order to reach that beauty, and cutting the piece in small fragments is not helpful in that respect.

But I have the impression that the creative part is not so good at achieving what is good... But I might be wrong, as my left hand seems better in some respects than my right, more certain or so

Oh well, my impression is that we need both sides

Exactly!

If I had any problems with the PM philosophy, it was that I thought it placed too much emphasis the right brain and not enough on the left. I was in a Jungian dreamgroup for a year. The leader interpreted spacial position, geometrical shapes of objects, and time of day in dreams as symbolism the "the Self" used to address imbalances in the psyche and personality and messages to shift the focus of our attention in order for us to achieve wholeness.

If we put too much emphasis on one side of the personality, the intuitive over rational, for instance, the dream might express this by having us sitting at the long side of a rectangular table (a square represents wholeness in Jungian psychology) and there might be someone sitting on the short side to our right (right brain and left brain are symbolised by their opposites in dreams) who embodied the repressed thinking function we needed to develop. Or if the dream placed dream persona in the far right of a room, this would indicate we needed to turn left to approach our center (the center of the room in the dream) and focus on more intutive or unconscious part of ourself to solve whatever life situation the dream was addressing and helping us to move through.

I definitely agree we need to use both sides to fully express ourselves--in life and in art!