Solution Focused Mandolin Playing

[Gerry Hastie]

Hi folks, I am interested in Solution Focused Brief Therapy and mandolins. What am to do with these interests if not clash them! Here's a little motivational exercise that those who choose to can benefit from.

What's your best hopes for playing mandolin?

What are you already doing to help get there?

What will be the first sign that you're a little closer to being the player you want to be?

Imagine yourself on a scale of 0 to 10. 0= no mandolin playing ability at all and 10= the best that you can imagine. Place yourself where you are just now on that scale. Imagine yourself being a point higher up the scale and then make a note of all that you did get there!

There's no rules apart from honesty and fun!

[catmandu2]

I tried this today while scanning my junk email folder...during which I became virtually hypnotized by its content of dross. I'm now a mediocre mandolin player (about a 5), but with enlarged physical attributes..

[OldSausage]

I don't understand any of this. What was the middle one again?

[mandopete]

What's your best hopes for playing mandolin? - To be in tune.

What are you already doing to help get there? - Using a tuner.

What will be the first sign that you're a little closer to being the player you want to be? - People don't grimace when I play an open G chord!



Sorry, I could not resist!

[Marty Henrickson]

Gerry, maybe you should give us a more specific example, or we're all going to try the hypnosis thing!

[Gerry Hastie]

Let's see if I can rescue this post...

Solution Focused Brief Therapy when used as counselling focuses on using a persons own strengths, resources and ideas to get the changes they want from therapy. The task of the therapist is to elicit a clear idea of a better future from the client and the therapist and client then co-construct a way to get there using the clients own strengths and resources. There is no analysis of why the problem has arisen. The model can be applied to coaching and motivation as well as 'problems'. The Solution Focused coach will use questions - such as those above and reframing for clarity when required - to enable those who choose to engage in the exercise to meet their goals. Steps to goals are always small, realistic, achievable and observable.

Mandopete's answer was very good (as well as funny) as he broke it down into a small, realistic, achievable, observable steps towards the goal.

For example:

What's your best hopes for playing mandolin? To be able to play Brilliancy in front of a crowd

What are you already doing to help get there? I've practised the tune and I know all the parts off by heart

What will be the first sign that you're a little closer to being the player you want to be? That i can play Brilliancy all the way through without mistakes

Where am I on the scale just now? About a 5 - if i were 1 point higher up I would know that I'd practiced the middle section enough that I'd hit all the right notes

You're answers to this can be as long or as brief as you want. You don't even need to post them - as long as you find this a useful exercise...

[Jack Roberts]

What's your best hopes for playing mandolin?

--To play in time with the other players. Don't speed up, don't slow down

What are you already doing to help get there?

--Tap my feet when I have to, listen closely to the bass.

What will be the first sign that you're a little closer to being the player you want to be?

--My singer doesn't complain about my tempo.

Imagine yourself on a scale of 0 to 10. 0= no mandolin playing ability at all and 10= the best that you can imagine. Place yourself where you are just now on that scale. Imagine yourself being a point higher up the scale and then make a note of all that you did get there!

--Huh? I'm a 5, but no matter how good I get I'll always be a 5: it's a sliding scale, isn't it? Unless I am comparing myself with other people, which I don't. I roomed with a tennis player in college who was all wrapped around where he was relative to other players. That's O.K. if you are trying to get a slot on the Olympic tennis team, but I only imagine myself half as good as I want to be, no matter how good I am. Or is this supposed to be a logarithmic scale?

Although I read your explanation, I am not bright enough to understand what this is all about, but in my case, I play at home and I play in a band. As long as I'm having a good time, I don't stress over it. But I did start playing mandolin as a self administered therapy to reduce stress, and it works pretty well. So I can't imagine wanting therapy to improve my therapy.

[Steve Ostrander]

Sounds like something my boss would ask me....I prefer to keep work and fun separated

[mandopete]

You know, eventhough my response was meant to be a bit sarcastic, there is something a little more significant in the notion of being tune that represents my goals in music in general. With an instrument such as the mandolin, being in tune is a relative statement and oftentimes a study in compromise. I find I can tune the G, D and E strings to the tuner, but the A has to be placed a bit flat so that the fretted at the fifth fret (D) it's in tune. This works for me on my mandolin.

I spent quite a bit of time trying to unlock the working compromise for my octave bartione mandolin with a bit of success, but still room to improve. It seems there's a different paradigm at work here since the chord structures I'm using are more "jazzy" and seem to reveal a different set of tuning challenges (I like to use open strings a lot).

And isn't that what music (and art in general) is about? I'm not trying to be a professional or anything, I gave that up years ago. It's about finding the right level of compromise to make every thing work. I don't know if any of this has anything to do with original question, but it was my Monday morning observation.

[JeffD]

There is an aspect of this that is real important, and has little to do with getting better necessarily.

An honest and realistic identification of where you want to be and how you will know when you are there can be a motivator, sure, but also a reality check, an effective method to limit frustration and envy and guilt and hopelessness, a good way to enjoy the journey as well as the progress towards the goal.


And limiting frustration, envy, guilt, and hopelessness is a gigantic thing, and can result in a renewed joy in practice and play.

[OldSausage]

This was probably a great idea until they tried to package it so it could be sold to people. Mike Marshall inspired me this week (Academy of Bluegrass) when talking about improvising, when he said that what he does is try to paint himself into a corner with an improvisation, and then try to figure out a way out of it. If it goes wrong, as is likely, don't beat yourself up about it, but instead find a way to make that weird thing that went wrong really work, and then you have a new solution to your improvisation problem. To me, that sounds like real solution focused mandolin playing.

The only way to "enjoy the journey" is to keep finding new threads to pull at so you can continue to move forward, and doing so is hard work. But I also find the less I focus on enjoyment, the more fun I have.

[JonZ]

Solution Focused Brief Therapy

I thought I would be helpful and provide a link to a more comprehensive description of this method for people to ignore before telling you that it is best not to "over-think" these things.

[OldSausage]

Interesting. It's probably best not to over-think these things, though.

[greg_tsam]

JonZ, if you were a smurf your name would either be GrumpySmurf, BrainySmurf or VitrolicSmurf or NobodyCaresHowSmartIamSmurf or NobodyListensToMeSmurf. Heehee... Before you get to offended at my juvenile humor please know I wouldn't kid ya if I didn't like ya. You're obviously a intelligent, science minded individual Type A and (just a little OCD) and pessimistic BUT I like folks who push the rest of us to think. BTW, your signature pointing out how to ignore your posts is classic.

Solution Focused Brief Therapy

I thought I would be helpful and provide a link to a more comprehensive description of this method for people to ignore before telling you that it is best not to "over-think" these things.

[JonZ]

To me this looks like defining a long-term goal and breaking it down into dependent sub-tasks. Is there an essential difference?

It sounds deceptively simple: define a realistic goal and the necessary steps to achieve it.

I have failed at choosing realistic goals. I have chosen good goals, and abandonded them for new goals. In general, I have more goals than I can hope to achieve. I have also chosen the wrong steps to achieve goals.

In therapy, there is usually a "big issue". So it is easy to settle on a goal. But, take losing weight; it is a simple goal, and you can define the steps to achieve it. Yet most people fail.

Modern life seems to be about reconciling competing goals.

(Excuse me--I am just over-thinking this out loud.)

So, I wanted to learn to play several blues tunes. I bought a book and am working through it. First step = first tune.

I also want to improvise well over bluegrass chord progressions. The steps to achieve this are not clearly defined. In fact, I have posted threads about learning to improvise, and there were many strategies to choose from.

Interesting question. Thanks for posting.

Greg--I am unfamiliar with the "Smurfs", but your back-handed complement is accepted in the spirit it was intended. Oh, and your description is accurate, except I am not Type A or OCD. I am very laid back, and think a lot about organization and efficiency to compensate for my lack of self-discipline.

[bmac]

I think he is serious.

[JonZ]

I am serious about wanting to understand this method.

Am I off track, Gerry?

[greg_tsam]

What's your best hopes for playing mandolin?
To crush my enemies, see them driven before me, and to hear the lamentation of their women.

What are you already doing to help get there?
Purchasing a Shmergel Devastator. http://shmergelinstruments.webs.com/ (NFI)

What will be the first sign that you're a little closer to being the player you want to be?
See answer for Question #1

[Beanzy]

What's your best hope for playing mandolin? Play mandolin as well as I can.
What are you already doing to help get there? Practice mandolin as well as I can as often as I can.
What will be the first sign that you're a little closer to being the player you want to be? Sitting down to practice mandolin as well as I can.
Where am I on the scale just now? Practicing mandolin as well as I can as often as I can.

It's not a goal for me, it's an experience I've decided to give myself in life, I don't really feel any need to focus, maximise or quantify the experience. It will be whatever I make of the journey deciding as I go. Being focussed would spoil the ability to wander about in the musical woods sniffing the flowers I'd never have found on a direct path.

[mandocrucian]

What... is your name?
It is 'Arthur', King of the Britons.

What... is your quest?
To seek the Holy Grail.

What... is your favourite colour?
Blue.

What... is the air-speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
What do you mean? An African or European swallow?



(Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.)

[Don Grieser]

Note to self: try to avoid that tsam guy at jams.

[greg_tsam]

You can try but Shmergel will find you!

Note to self: try to avoid that tsam guy at jams.

[SincereCorgi]

Mike Marshall inspired me this week (Academy of Bluegrass) when talking about improvising, when he said that what he does is try to paint himself into a corner with an improvisation, and then try to figure out a way out of it. If it goes wrong, as is likely, don't beat yourself up about it, but instead find a way to make that weird thing that went wrong really work, and then you have a new solution to your improvisation problem.

I am curious about this. I'm familiar with getting yourself out of a corner in a composition, like writing a convincing transition between two dissimilar sections or something, but how is this practiced in improvisation? Do you just keep taking stabs at the same passage and try different continuations of phrases? When I do that, I kinda worry that it might be a bad habit, like I should plow on as a matter of principle since nobody stops to let you work it out when you're outside the practice room. And, once you've come up with solutions, are you improvising, or have you written a canned break? Or are most of the things I hear guys like Marshall and Thile doing basically chains of canned breaks? And how do I create a self-actualizing empowering goal out of it?