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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...

This is exactly right, and there is no other way, really. True improvisation is "playing what you hear in your head".

Sure! I probably play, or have played, as much jazz as anything else I have played- and lots of music styles incorporate 6ths.

I won't put words in Tobin's mouth, but what I was getting at is...