Procedural memory, the better option?

sketch

So, i'm playing a lot lately. I'm playing manouche for a year or something more, and i'm starting to figure it out a lot of things... Now i find here and there a lot of transcription, and i guess there's a lot of people trying to figure out nearly anything they can put their hands on... Then there's my experience, which is i think different: Just play! if you like a phrase of somebody else, slow it down, try to play it, if you can't figure it out maybe it's not time, come back later, if you can, just play it at slow tempo now and then, without loosing too much time on it.

In the end my philosophy it's just "play trying to understand, but don't waste energies trying to do things beyond your reaches, find you things, and eventually you'll came up same licks you hear and feel amazed by naturally", and i may say it's working... I mean, to me playing just seams to be the better option in the process of learning. Except for triads and arpegios i don't really see the reason to waste time in learning nearly impossible phrases while they can be played naturally once you become the owner of you neck... At least to me it's seams some thing just are coming out by "pratical" memory exercize... The hands know it, the mind just push the hands in directions, and they just go..

So here's the quaestion: I actually exercize with metronome a couple of pieces (la gitane, montaigne saint genevieve), and a couple of complete solos, then i focus on some more challenging triads also with metronome, and for the rest of time i let it go... Sometimes while playing i remember some phrase or lick by some records, then i try to figure it out and play it, but this is really sporadic, and this way i really suxceed in learning evrything it passes by my hands... I also focus on things i do better, rather than to force me on things i do worse, for example minor tracks seamed better in the beginning, and just becoming better on them, major tracks slowly came out naturally, without forcing them... In the end, my feeling it's that procedural memory it's the basic reason i suxcead in doing things, and my mind aswell needs to learn to imagine accurate notes, and where to go. And the most intelligent way i found to do this it's just to do mistakes... To risk! just "going" it appears the best way to me. Don't be ashamed to do horrible things, just experimenting, and the procedural memory just excludes the wrong area of the neck, while the mind get more experienced, and learns what the hands can and what they cannot...

So, am i wrong? am i wasting energies? What's your opinion?

Another thing i found, it's a lot of people don't try to play alone, improvising chords, which is i think the main reason many people just can't solo without back players or back tracks... Understanding the directions, understanding the triads, and the game seams almost done...

Elliot

One of my close friends from Asia says that Americans especially always feel like they have to approach everything"head first". You can take it from there...

Shawn

Interesting topic. I guess I don't really think about anything I'm doing when playing, except hearing what everyone else around me is playing. It's almost like I can spend all day memorizing solos and trying to gain some sort of deep understanding of the licks and phrases, but when I play live I completely forget everything and just play like myself. I chalk it up to all the years I spent playing Free Form Jazz where there are really no predetermined parts of a song, even including a recognizable melody sometimes...it's more of a guessing game. This is why I like Free Form more than earlier forms of Jazz like Swing and Bebop, because you're always trying to guess what another person is going to play before they even play it and you're not constricted by preset chords and rhythms...it's just totally spontaneous.

I definitely agree about the mistakes. I think a person can only learn from their mistakes, but a mistake to someone may not sound the same to someone else...meaning that sometimes mistakes actually might sound better and more interesting than what a person intended to play.

Cool topic,
Shawn

Jazzaferri

A form of practice on a song that I find very useful is once I have learned the melody (head) I arppegiate all the chord changes at a slow tempo in different positions. Once I have that grooved so it is automatic then I find the song to be much easier to improvise on.

Another technique that is very useful is to transcribe a solo that one really likes. That learning process forces one to figure out all the ways that a phrase can be played and decide which one is the easiest or best sounding or best transition. Excellent learning.

javier

Jazzaferri wrote:

A form of practice on a song that I find very useful is once I have learned the melody (head) I arppegiate all the chord changes at a slow tempo in different positions. Once I have that grooved so it is automatic then I find the song to be much easier to improvise on.

Thanks for the help. I came across this and think this could really help.

Good Luck and I'm going to get my Gypsy On!