Brainless playing

[Jeffers]

Just was looking at the "Identifying problems" string from JiminRussia and saw that s1m0n and Duuude advocated playing without thinking about what you're playing. I've been trying to do this myself for a while now with SOME success.

I figure if I can hum or whistle a tune that I've heard, then I should be able to play it on the Mandolin in the same way - but it's just not that easy. When you hum a tune, you don't think about how much to tense your vocal cords, you just hum a note but with the mando I'm thinking about where to put fingers and what key I'm playing in etc ... in other words it seems like the brain gets in the way.

I try to practice this by hardly ever playing from music (unless learning a new tune of course), playing along to albums and learning stuff by ear and just spending lots of time playing. It still feels like my brain gets in the way though. I have a theory that if someone hypnotized me and told me to play Beethoven's 5th all the way through I possibly could - but normally forget it!

I guess this is a weird posting but I wondered if anybody else had any thoughts? Are there people out there who can play exactly the notes they want when they want?

[Adare_Steve]

In my younger days, I used to enjoy a game of table tennis. But, I wasn't much good at it. The biggest problem was that I used to concentrate far too much on hitting the ball with the bat. I was thinking about the stroke as I played it and trying to will the ball onto the other side of the table, in the exact spot I chose.

Only once or twice, I managed to play the best games of my life. I was very fast with my returns, and hit the table virtually every time. When this happened, I was aware that I had not thought through my strokes, but simply let my hand go where it wanted. It was much harder than it sounds - and involves the process of 'letting go' and 'not thinking', which was impossible for me to do most of the time.

Sports people talk about 'being in the zone', and I think this is what they mean. Mind over matter. Harder than it looks, but boy - what a good feeling!

Steve

[evanreilly]

I used to play mandolin while watching teevee all the time; that is a distracting, mindless way to just play.

[Bob DeVellis]

Once your fingers learn, or rather overlearn, what to do to produce a wanted sound, then you can go on auto pilot. But that takes time. It should happen pretty much on its own. I think of playing without thinking more as a sign of a certain level of skill rather than as a method of achieving that level. Not paying attention to your driving doesn't make you a better driver, but as you sharpen your skills, you can easily drive without paying attention to every detail. In fact, if you did ("now I'll move my foot off the gas and press the brake, but not too hard"), it would make you nuts and actually interfere. But just because good drivers and good players don't pay attention (because they don't have to) to every movement doesn't mean that a failure to pay attention will help you become a good driver or player.

[Jasper]

I have only been playing the mando a couple of years, and my natural ear for tone and recognizing is not good. I talked with my music instructor about this because he has an excellent ear and can play just about anything by listening to it a few times. He told me he has always had that ability, just a natural talent...and his knowledge of the fretboard is 20 years in the making.

So for those of us who don't have great tone awareness and haven't been playing that long, we just have to hang in there and work to develop what others have naturally and have developed over many years/decades.

Jasper

[duuuude]

For me it's not actually finding just the note you want when ya want it but rather being in a comfortable area of the fretboard where you're totally familiar with a particular key and it's possibilities, you can move around safely without thinking much. Far from happening all the time but when it does it sure is a gas!

Evan has a good point too, I find I sometimes play better when somewhat distracted, keeps the brain from over-focusing or something, or maybe just ADD.
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[Clyde Clevenger]

We played a gig yesterday in a big tent about 150 feet from the Monster Truck arena. The soundman measured 107db. Now that was mindless playing. All seriousness aside, I find my self playing mindlessly all the time as I have no memory, it's always new to me. For future reference, them Monster trucks generate a G# ringing in you ears that seems to last at least 24 hours, still counting.

[JamesBryan]

Record your playing, then listen to it. Both ways, "mindless," and while playing technically. See what you like. Not that I do this enough, myself. For me, the mindless part feels great but makes me cringe when I listen back. Yet it also produces a few cool ideas which sound good. So then I try to remember those as "licks" to use in the future. Jim

[s1m0n]

Ever had an experience where you're just sitting around holding your instrument--maybe you've been playing or practising and you were interrupted or something--and your fingers absent-mindedly pluck a few notes. Suddenly, without thinking much about it, you're playing a tune. Half the time, I end up wondering wtf it is that I'm playing and wondering if when the change to the B part comes, my fingers are going to recall what to do, because I sure don't.

I think the phenomenon is sometimes caled "the flow"; when the music takes over, and you're just playing. You're attending to the music, NOT to the mechanics of making the music. That's what playing mindlessly means.

The driving analogy is a good one. When you're driving, your thinking about where you want to go NOT about what you have to do to make the car go there. With music, you want to get to the point where you're hearing the tune--as you play it, and as your mind's ear unwinds it--and your fingers look after recreating that sound.

You get here, just as you did when you learned to drive or to walk or everything else you do without thinking through countless hours of practise.

Learn good practise hygiene and put in the hours. There are no shortcuts.

[Keith Newell]

I find myself thinking about all kinds of things when Im playing a gig somewhere. I think about "gee, its time to change the oil in the car", "man I hope the Blazers win tomorrow", "wonder what Im gonna order to eat after we play", " Wow! shes got a nice smile.....oops! I forgot what I was playing"
Keith Newell

[flairbzzt]

Brainless playing? That's easy. I just think about getting married...again!

[Michael H Geimer]

Hmmmm ... "mindless" might be a misnomer. I like the driving analogy, too. But in that scenario, the driver isn't 'mindless' at all. Instead, the driver is 'minding' the road, rather than 'minding' the pedals.

Same thing in baseball. You *could" keep your attention focused on the bat, since that's what you need to swing. But, we all know that it's best to 'keep your eye on the ball'.

In music, that means training your mind to focus on what it hears, and to ignore things like the names of each note, what key, what chord, which finger, upstroke, downstroke when performing. (as opposed to practicing)

I play a game to reinforce the sound of notes intervals independant from their 'proper names'. I'll let my first finger come down *anywhere* on the fretboard. Then I'll pick out the melody to "Do ... a deer, a female deer ... " and work my way all through that trite melody. It covers a lot of good melodic devices, and is easy to remember how it all sounds. Try other common melodies, too.

It is also worth noting that many (most) melodies - and most melodic playing - uses common devices like couplets and arpeggios, so pracing that stuff in all keys will really pay off in the long run as it is the "vocabulary" of musical grammar.

After all, you don't worry about *spelling* the words you're speaking, do you? So, a musican needs to really digest chords, intervals, and scales so they can be used to create 'musical thoughts'.] without uneccessary distraction. That's different from acting 'mindlessly'.

Mindless playing - imho - would entail running around a scale for a whole break just because that's the key of the song. ( ... and I do that plenty enough! LOL)

- Benig

[mandroid]

The son of sam music, just playing along with the voicing in my head.
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[Bruce Evans]

There is a book titled "The Inner Game of Music" about this very subject. I don't remember the author, and I've moved twice since the last time I saw my copy. You might try Amazon.

[mando bandage]

Somehow, this seems related to my experience when practicing. If I stop in the middle of a piece, I find it difficult to resume from that point and proceed on. Much easier to start from the beginning and play through the troublesome part. Seems like the flow of the song helps you know intuitively what comes next.

Anyway, I don't think it's mindless. It's just a different type of concentration than we are use to. Being able to see the forest instead of the trees, if you will.

R

[Jeffers]

Hey wow! All that stuff makes really interesting reading! The ping pong story reminds me of a certain almost brainless Mr. Gump. And I think I'll give the Sound of Music tunes a spin.

I know what you mean about brainless being a bit of a misnomer. I guess it's more a case of thinking about the music, instead of the technicalities of making the sounds. As usual, the message seems to be keep playing and you'll always keep discovering new stuff. Two years since I picked up a mando and I'm still learning so many new things - makes me wonder what I'll be finding out another two years down the line! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

[danb]

we're chatting a bit about it here (http://www.mandolincafe.net/cgi-bin/ikonboard.cgi?act=ST;f=12;t=18264)..

I am getting to the point where I do that more and more. The really satisifying experiences in sessions for me are when you cast yourself into it so far that you are no longer paying attention to precisely what you are doing. "Playing from the heart" perhaps..

For me, the experience that keeps me coming back to sessions is the idea of "optimum experience", which is a psych phenomena I've seen described (there's a book of that title I think). The idea behind it is that you are experiencing "flow", a feeling of being stretched to the extent of your abilities, that uses parts of your brain you don't always tap. I get the sensation that time is slowing down. I feel that I am paying attention to everything in the room *execpt* my own playing. When it happens (maybe every other session or so I hit this high) I find myself able to play in ways that I would normally think are beyond my ability. Hard to describe. I think, to some extent, that analytical thought gets in the way of this phenomena, though maybe it helps you program your hands and abilities to reach it..

[mrbook]

Some people do everything without using their brains. In the beginning, people spend too much thinking (and worrying) about hitting the right notes. Practice trains your fingers, and you eventually learn to play without thinking so much. Eventually you start thinking again, as you are able to plan the licks and variations to put in when improvising. You are back to thinking again, but it comes out slightly different every time. I've watched some of my heroes on stage playing great breaks while they lean over and tell jokes to their bandmates, and decided I want to be able to do that. After 40 years of playing, sometimes I can - only one-liners so far, though.

[mandocrucian]

The <span style='color:red'>brain</span> #is the instrument. Without the brain, just it's autonomic muscular finger spasms (chicken running around without it's head).

When you see these guys talking to each other in the midst of taking a solo, they aren't really playing. Their hands have been put on autopilot. You can put on a CD and hear the same tune again and again, but the CD player isn't thinking.

What you must keep in mind is that all the theory, note names, scales, shifting exercises, fingerings,..... are only training tools and mechanisms, or pathways to help get you to a destination(s). #You get the kids in the car to visit grandma and start driving, but, the car is not grandma's house. #The road map is not the destination, only a symbolic representation of its geographic location, allowing you to get there more efficiently.

So, you've got to distinguish between reading the road map (monitoring your fingerings, or the pick or watching the neck) and whatever you do when you're at the vacation destination. Both entail mental thought, but on different levels.

It's like learning a second or third language (as an adult). You learn vocabulary and verb conjugations and all that, and you may be able to communicate, but your brain is translating back and forth between English and the other, and referring back to the grammatic rulebook and mental dictionary. This is completely different than the day you begin to actually think in the other language, and English doesn't even enter the moment. This is analogous to real playing. #Before that, you are primarily in a translational mode - from logic/analytical thought (English) into mechanically speaking the other language (movement of the hands).

It's not so much that you turn off the analytical thinking, as much as transcending it. You don't need to look at the instrument, think about note names; the hands respond almost magically to the pure sonic notes appearing in your mental ear. (When you no longer need to look, it's actually easier to close your eyes which eliminates distracting visual stimulus, letting your mind focus even more deeply on the sounds in your head. Just watch Santana, SRV and other trance players.)#With the 2nd language, you have to analyze what is said to you and analyze how to respond and then say it while monitoring your pronounciation, etc. while in your native language, you just talk...what ever thought pops into your head can come out simultaneously (if you wish).

Repeated patterns of thought become more ingrained with repetition. #It's like water finding its own channels. Once a pathway is there, it tends to be used over and over, making it deeper, while other potential pathways are ignored. This is why bad habits are such a chore to correct.

So much time/attention is spent in trying to physically play the instrument (mando, or whatever) that one can forget that the instrument is only a vehicle for playing music. #If it's nothing except hands, hands, hands you may well end up as a robot with a bad case of high speed finger-diarhea (but you can tell jokes to your buddies onstage while doing it).

But fortunately, just as you can train your muscles, you can also train your musical mind (as well as your analytical "theory mind") concurrently or even simultaneously with your hand/finger training. And the earlier in your playing you start, the better off you'll be in the long run.

I've got some beginner (Oct 3-6) and adv-beginner/low-intermeadiate (Nov. 7-10) mando workshops/camps coming up at the 4-H Center in Front Royal, VA (http://www.ext.vt.edu/resources/4h/northern/adult.html#L2) and we work on integrating the hands/ear/mind even at the basic levels.

Niles Hokkanen

[Skip Kelley]

""I find myself thinking about all kinds of things when Im playing a gig somewhere. I think about "gee, its time to change the oil in the car", "man I hope the Blazers win tomorrow", "wonder what Im gonna order to eat after we play", " Wow! shes got a nice smile.....oops! I forgot what I was playing"" Keith Newell

I love that Keith! I have been guilty of the same thing and then you realize your hands are still moving across the strings and you wonder just what you were playing!

[Jeffers]

Facinating stuff, Mandocrucian! I'm gonna save that one and read it every time the progress plateau strikes again!

Jeffers

[Arto]

Thanks, Niles. I really was waiting for you to join this thread!