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Thread: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

  1. #1
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    Default Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Hello,

    I heard in a scientific and serious radio broadcast that smiling have physical positive action on your brain that can help concentration, relaxation and well-being.

    I noticed that when practicing a difficult exercise my face is all uptight and my lips make grimaces.
    So I tried to relax my face, forced my lips to smile instead of making grimace and tried again my exercise.
    Believe me or not but it really helped!!!
    My difficult exercise seem to be more easy and although I still make mistakes and doesn't master it perfectly yet, I have made more noticeable progress in a few minutes than I could do before!

    Another advantage is that my forced smile of the beginnig has been changed in a natural smile after this.
    Life is beautifull now!

    Just wanted to share this little discover.

    Smile!!!
    My english is not perfect.
    Nor my french anyway...

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    Mindin' my own bizness BJ O'Day's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Pickin' and Grinnin'?
    BJ

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    Registered User AndyPanda's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    I do most of my learning in my sleep - imagining myself successfully playing the scales and tunes that I practiced during the day. Power of positive thinking and all that. I have no doubt that smiling and having a joyful attitude helps the playing.

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Fifty years ago, folks always made fun of me when I was playing (banjo then) because of all the ever changing variety of grimaces I produced. My facial expressions were probably more entertaining than my playing.

    Nowadays I try maintain a constant expression while playing my mandolin. My videos mostly show that I am somewhat successful in that. But it's not a smile. It's a grimace. Smiles are reserved for the really BAD messups.

    Maybe if I get really good at this odd pastime I'll be able to smile. On the other hand, maybe if I learn to smile, I'll get really good. Go figure.
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    Registered User Randi Gormley's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    I find when I'm learning something, I usually lean forward tensely and grimace a bit (especially if I've left my glasses someplace!), but when I'm playing around (at a gig or session) I'll find myself smiling if I notice everybody around me is looking dour! And I also smile when either I or someone I'm playing with screws up -- and someone told me last night at a session that every time I switch mandolins with one of the other players that I smile. I think I've made a conscious effort to smile more while playing just because Irish musicians tend to look unfocused unless they're professional performers. I'll admit a smile a lot in general, though.
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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    I have read that uncontrolled inadvertent facial ticks while playing are not uncommon. The reason seems to be that many of the circuits in the brain used in the mechanics of music are right adjacent to the circuits controlling facial muscles, and there is some "bleed through". I can't speak to the veracity of that explanation, but it sounds very plausible.

    I know several musicians who have this "feature" and fight it very deliberately by forcing a smile, or keeping their mouth firmly closed and jaw locked tight. I have also heard the advice of playing something you know while watching yourself in the mirror. Apparently it forces you to confront your facial expressions and be deliberate about them.

    I am very lucky in that I don't have any facial tics or inadvertent movements when I play. Whether I overcame them early on or never had them I don't know, but I have full control over my face while I play, and I use that control to catch everyone's eyes and smile and show appreciation with what someone is playing along with me.

    Well that is most of the time. I watched the video from last summer's at FMCM and I had a pretty serious face on. That music was challenging and it took all my concentration to play it. I didn't grimace or mouth secret words, but I wasn't smiling.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    I often caption ensemble photos with things like "inside we're really smiling" as some of the serious expressions could scare the women and horses. I have to remind myself to relax, lean back and smile when I first start.
    Otherwise it'll be 1/2 way through the performance and I'll begin thinking "what is my face doing? Have I been giving people weird looks?" Normally I just find I either had an innane grin on, or I look like I need to use the loo"
    Eoin



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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    One of my secret weapons when trying to record vocals, and not getting a good take...
    "Try smiling when you're singing"....

    Has worked several times, in critical situations...

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    Registered User mee's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    This is where you get "pickin and grinnin" from LOL. Seriously I watch all the funny facial expressions when I watch another group and keep it in mind when I am up in front of people. I have learned to relax and keep smiling while playing and the results are many comments from the sweet elderly people that I sure smile a lot and look like I am having fun They notice and comment on my smile and not my mistakes

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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    At last. No we can finally go and kill Batman.

    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    you're not a likely to be tense or tight when you're smiling

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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    I had a bad habit of squinching up my face whenever I made a mistake. It wasn't a tic so much as my nose wrinkled up as if the clunker note smelled like rotten eggs or something.

    In order to correct the habit I purposely started smiling whenever I made a mistake. It worked surprisingly well. I had to laugh though when a lady came up to me after one of my first public gigs and said "You must really enjoy what you're doing - everytime I looked at you, you were just smiling away."

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Hey!
    Kenny Baker never did no smilin'.

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    Registered User mee's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    "You must really enjoy what you're doing - everytime I looked at you, you were just smiling away."

    HAH! Yeah that's what I get!

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)



    I also smile a lot when I'm on stage.
    I smile to the audience when I mistake, I smile to the singer when he forgets his words, I smile to the drummer when he makes a huge breack at the wrong time etc...
    (The only one I rarely smile is the bassist because he is always on his cloud )
    I already knew that smiling when playing on stage helps communicate better to the audience.
    Anyway, my smile comes naturaly in front of people.
    But playing for an audience is much more fun than practicing scales at home...

    More seriously, what I discovered is that the muscles you use to smile activate some nerves in your brain which help concentration. (I can't explain it, it's too much scientific for me.)
    From this theory, a forced smile could be used to help thinking, resolving a hard mathematic problem, or anything that requires concentration.
    You can also use it only to relax and feel better.
    Having heard this, I applied it while studiing scales and arpegios and I have the feeling that I learn faster and with very less effort.
    And besides, it makes me happy!

    My english is not perfect.
    Nor my french anyway...

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    "More seriously, what I discovered is that the muscles you use to smile activate some nerves in your brain which help concentration. (I can't explain it, it's too much scientific for me.)
    From this theory, a forced smile could be used to help thinking, resolving a hard mathematic problem, or anything that requires concentration."

    I agree. One day as I was getting back into tennis after a long hiatus, and getting a bit frustrated with my game, I decided to kind of "fake smile" when I was returning serve, and it helped me to concentrate. No kidding. It worked for awhile. I stopped whining, too. Sort of a wake-up call: "Idiot, you're supposed to be enjoying this. That's why they call it 'playing'." It would definitely turn into a grimace if I did it while doing mandolin exercises...and golf, not so much.

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    Middle-Aged Old-Timer Tobin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    I will smile when I'm playing if I'm really in the groove. But aside from that, I'm kind of known as the frowny-faced guy. My fake smile looks very fake (more like a grimace), and is painful to hold. I'm just not the person who can fake a smile for an audience or anybody, and it has worked against me every time I've tried it. I guess my personal inability to look like Smiling Bob (remember him?) has made me doubtful of others who go around with goofy grins all the time. I don't even smile for cameras; I think it's a foolish automatic response that people have been trained to do, like circus monkeys or Pavlov's dogs. It's so ridiculous that there are a lot of arrest mug shots out there where people smile, simply because they don't know what else to do in front of a camera.

    I guess that makes me a terrible person, to hate on the smilers. Oh well. I'll go stand in the corner.

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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Two corners occupied so far. Space is running out
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tobin View Post
    I don't even smile for cameras; I think it's a foolish automatic response that people have been trained to do, like circus monkeys or Pavlov's dogs. .
    Grrrr.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
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    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Smiling for a camera is showing an awareness of the future audience and an appreciation of the effect on the end viewer.
    It is an extension of affability to the unknown stranger as often done by many human beings.
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

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    Middle-Aged Old-Timer Tobin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Beanzy View Post
    Smiling for a camera is showing an awareness of the future audience and an appreciation of the effect on the end viewer.
    It is an extension of affability to the unknown stranger as often done by many human beings.
    Pfft! Smiling for the camera is something that only started in the last few decades. Maybe since the 1950s? If you go back and look at old portraits of people from centuries past, nobody smiled. They would put on a stoic or regal look for the painter. Even the early days of photography kept this tradition. I have family portraits going back to my great-great grandparents in my house; nobody smiled until my mother's generation (and even then, it was only when she was older). I don't know how or why it started happening, but I suspect it was the commercial photography industry that started it. And now it's just plain out of control. The old "say cheese" trick is to put on a fake smile for no good reason, and it does nothing but ensure that your face is captured for posterity with a completely unnatural expression. 99% of posed photograph smiles are not genuine happy smiles, and don't accurately represent the people in the photos. It's madness. Madness, I say! (fake smile for posterity)

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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    Quote Originally Posted by Tobin View Post
    If you go back and look at old portraits of people from centuries past, nobody smiled. They would put on a stoic or regal look for the painter. Even the early days of photography kept this tradition.)
    I know what you mean. In our old city hall conference room there are photographs of past mayors and city officials and all of the early ones had a serious face.

    An awful lot of that was because folks had such bad teeth in the past. Seriously. Modern dentistry of the last half century or more has "freed up" folks to smile pleasantly.
    A talent for trivializin' the momentous and complicatin' the obvious.

    The entire staff
    funny....

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    Unfamous String Buster Beanzy's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    As people became more exposed to photographs they developed the understanding of how they work, and the skills to deal with that; hence the smile, so you would be smiling at whoever sees your image. It is an adapted skill learned from exposure to the new technology, led by the photographers themselves with their "cheese". They got paid better and more often for producing better photographs which would be well received by the viewers. I can see there is still some way to go before this appreciation of the effect becomes universal.
    Eoin



    "Forget that anyone is listening to you and always listen to yourself" - Fryderyk Chopin

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    Registered User John Soper's Avatar
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    Default Re: Smile helps practicing (not a joke!)

    I like to smile for many reasons, not the least of which is that I can pass my wrinkles off as laugh lines... Also, I'm lazy: it takes only 3 muscles to smile, but at least 9 to frown.

    A smile connects to your pleasure center and activates neuronal activity in that part of your brain. Reverse for a frown.

    And a smile is infectious - others pick up on your facial expression and the other members of the group &/or audience start smiling, too.

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