[Menvi-discuss] Conscious Playing Versus Muscle Memory

[Brandon Keith Biggs]

I wonder how good this is when one thinks too fast... I have the hardest 
time when singing with a live pianist because I'm never able to link into 
their rhythm and when I go to hear their rhythm, they slow down because it 
sounds like I'm slowing down... So I wonder if this has something to do with 
the speed we are processing.
I know my piece implicitly, but have very little knowledge of the pianist, 
and the pianist doesn't know the piece that much, but is just reacting with 
me.
Thanks,

Brandon Keith Biggs
-----Original Message----- 
From: Chris Smart
Sent: Wednesday, April 03, 2013 1:26 PM
To: blind-guitarist at yahoogroups.com
Cc: midimag at midimag.org ; menvi-discuss at menvi.org
Subject: [Menvi-discuss] Conscious Playing Versus Muscle Memory

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

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