[Menvi-discuss] Conscious Playing Versus Muscle Memory

[Chris Smart]

Hi folks.

I just read the following from a book by Mac 
Santiago, called Beyond the Metronome.
www.inchronicity.com

"People basically execute movement in two 
different ways (or a combination of both). These 
are cognitive responses and reactive responses. 
The cognitive response is movement that you 
consciously set in motion by telling yourself to 
perform an act. Most of the time this happens 
when executing an action for the first time. With 
cognitive response the actual signal from brain 
to muscle moves at about three meters per second 
or from head to hand in about a third of a second 
(10­11 km/hour). This is why practicing slowly at 
first helps you to learn any movement or music 
correctly, and eliminates poor or inaccurate motor responses.

Now as you learn the movement and your muscles 
begin to take over (some call this “muscle 
memory”), what is actually happening is that the 
signal from your brain to your muscle becomes 
quicker, or reactive. At this point the signal is 
moving at about 70­100 meters a second, so about 
1/100 of a second from head to hands (250­350 
km/hour). As you can see, the two responses are vastly different.

With this information I believe that timekeeping 
can be viewed as an indication of how much the 
performance has become a reactive response. This 
is also a measure of how familiar one is with the 
music. The great jazz alto saxophonist Charlie 
Parker once said, “I want to be able to play as 
fast as I can think.” When one listens to Parker 
with the above science in mind, it’s apparent 
that he was, in fact, extremely reactive to every 
musical thought that came into his mind. The 
speed and clarity with which he played made it 
seem as though his mind and body were one and the same.
This is the goal for all musicians—to unify 
thought and execution seamlessly."

I've always observed that one can play something 
faster once one knows it inside and out, but it 
was fascinating to see actual numbers given.  A 
third of a second versus one one-hundredth of a 
second... That would have been good to learn 
years ago when I was starting out. :)

Chris

--------------------------------------------------
CTS MASTERING, affordable and professional mixing 
and mastering: http://www.ctsmastering.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/CTSMASTERING
BLOG: www.ctsmastering.com/blog
Linked In: http://ca.linkedin.com/pub/chris-smart/46/824/536
Dropbox, Share Files Easily: http://db.tt/bQ2GuIt