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JeffD's advice is awfully good.

Another heretical observation:

I have met LOTS of players (mostly mandolin and guitar 'cause that's what I do) that can do whiz-bang practice routines-- they can...

If you turn your wrist a bit clockwise (right handed players) you will rotate the pick just slightly on its axis, such that you are strumming with the flat side of the pick not quite parallel to the...

You can weave yarn or a scrap of wool loosely thru the strings near the bridge to reduce volume.

Jon Z---If you mean an actual physiologically identifiable brain-change, I have no idea. On the other hand, if you define the term more loosely, then I'd say yes, and in a practical sense it seems...

I assume you are asking about how to get past producing music that has been "composed" for you. If so (and it isnt just a question of playing faster like Josh Levine implies above), then my take is...

One opinion- I have, I guess, a pretty rigid definition of "arrangement", having studied Theory and Arranging a bit. In this context, an "arrangement" is a specified score involving specific...

Weird as it seems, I find that taking a given piece of music, practicing it SLOWLY and focusing on cleanness of technique, results in me being able to play the piece markedly faster that I was...

This is a mis-understanding of what is meant by "singing", in this context. Here is an analogy with reading--- One can read silently to one's self without articulating the actual specific words, or...

Have an early Pava.

I'd tell you all about it, and how I feel about it, and how well it plays, and how it does literally everything I have ever asked of it, and how its sustain lets me play...

I get the attractiveness of the concept "here is a group of notes that I can play and none of them will sound wrong". I mean, you get to play along, and not worry about being "wrong".

But there...

Trust me, we were absolutely NOT playing Elton John at these gigs....remember Tommy Smothers counting a song in?? (ONE..ta-three....FOUR). I am certainly dating myself, but THAT is more like what I...

When I was in school (40 years ago) I played in a GB (general bull____) band for weddings, bar mitzvahs, anniversaries, etc. doing covers. We could always tell what kind of night we were going to...

I think there are probably an infinite number of ways to get better, and all of them probably have some merit.

An observation--

I know a number of people who practice their instrument...

Wait... WHAT?? The Earth's not flat???

Well, the horn world sure did...

I have one of the early Pava's.... and it is incredible. I know that you are going to love yours.

If you practice hard at learning to play anything you can hear/imagine in your head, then your playing will be exactly as sophisticated as you are musically capable of being at that particular time....

I probably would have used stronger words... but I completely agree... for example, from a beginning clarinet book----

"All of the music you have played so far in Beginning Clarinet Songbook has...

[QUOTE=Ivan Kelsall;1628120]An e-mail to Tom Ellis would most likely get you your answer. It's something i've never heard before - or since !. It may very well be a piece of music composed & possibly...

Now I am curious--

Is there any evidence that any of the mandolin players that we all admire have actually ever followed some sort of "deliberative" process to achieve their level of proficiency? ...

I play music to escape all that deliberate crap that the rest of the world seems to insist on piling up in front of me every single day.

I hear things in my head-- sometimes heard from others,...

I don't know how to really practice dynamics except to use them..... and using dynamic changes is very important. I was told--- a LOT of years ago-- that a musical passage should mimic the types of...

I asked my Pava if it was suitable for bluegrass.

She said that she was up for anything that I had the talent to ask her to do.

I was trying to think of why I dont get bored practicing... and---

I think I have just realized that I don't ever practice. I just perform.... it's just that most of the time that I am...

Yes.

And for me, this happens when my head, that is creating music in my brain, is hard wired to my hands that are producing those sounds, real-time, with absolutely no intellectual processes...