Tag: practice

Climbing the mountain….. Enjoy the journey!

Nicole NealLeave a comment
English: Mount Buller from the Howqua Valley
Mount Buller, Victoria (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When we’ve set ourselves a certain goal, such as taking a grade exam, or mastering a certain technical aspect of our playing, or getting out there and performing that goal can oftentimes seem pretty daunting, far away and almost kind of surreal. A bit like standing at the base camp of some snow-capped, wind-swept mountain knowing that in a few days time you’ll be all the way up there.

Sheesh. Seems weird.

And really overwhelming too. All the way up there?! But I’m all the way down here!

You’ll have plotted put the best route or routes (allowing some contingency in case something prevents you using your preferred route). But, like all great journeys, it starts with putting just one foot in front of the other and taking each step one at a time and as it comes. Some days you make more progress than others, some days you cross easy gradients and well-worn paths. Other times you struggle onward up sheer cliff faces making millimetres of progress.

So we do with our guitar playing goals.

You want to take that exam by this time next year? This is the top of your mountain. How is the best way to get ready for this summit? Which is your preferred route to take? What other routes can you take in case things don’t quite work out as initially planned?

Break it down month by month or week by week depending on what your “summit” is and when you want to get there.

And then get on with the journey!

Take the first step. And then the next. And then the next. Keep on. Even when the gradient is a little harder than you’d like, and progress is seemingly slow. Just know that the cliff face will even out eventually and you’ll likely have a nice smooth pathway to walk on just over the brow of the next bit. Just keep on.

And whatever you do, remember to stop and take a look around once in a while – check out the scenery, check out how you’re feeling, check out how far you’ve come so far.

And once you get to the summit enjoy it! Celebrate it! Celebrate that you did it and you got yourself this far. Then take a look around… All the way down there to where you came from. You did get all the way up there after all. Just by taking it a step at a time.

And then continue to look around. What do you see?

There’s another peak beyond this one! Another summit for you to conquer, another journey for you to embark upon!

Go get up there! But most importantly enjoy the journey. After all, you spend much longer on the journey itself than at your actual destination at the summit.

What summits are you going to scale in 2013?

Positive Practice – Focus on what you do want rather than what you don’t!

Nicole Neal8 Comments

When we’re setting out on our practice for the day, it’s pretty important to set out what it is you want to achieve in that particular session – gotta have a plan!

Alongside this, it’s also extremely important to set out those goals or thoughts in positive terms rather than negatives. That is to say, be explicit and clear and state exactly what it is you do want rather what you don’t.

It may seem like such a little thing, but changing up your language forces the brain, including our all important subconscious brain, to reframe a situation and approach it differently. And different approaches than you’d previously applied will, in most likelihood, equal different outcomes than you’d previously achieved.

Deutsch: Phrenologie
This noggin of ours has a lot to answer for! (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Say what?

In choosing the words and language for your playing goals, there’s one crucial piece of information to remember – your mind cannot, or struggles at least, to process negative statements.

Let me give you an example….ready?

I don’t want you to think of a pink elephant. Do not think of a pink elephant.

Right, got that?

Did a pink elephant pop into your minds eye in spite of me telling you not to think about it?

Case in point. Your brain tends to filter out the “don’t” or doesn’t recognise it and brings up a lovely image of a pink pachyderm instead. Hah hah!

So what? How does that apply to me as a guitarist?

Be careful to pick words, phrases or sentences about your playing that focus on what it is you DO want to occur and not what you DON’T want to occur.

Lets pick an example relevant to your practice. In figuring put, working out or working on a tricky element or challenging part of a piece, if you chose to use the words “I find this bit quite difficult. I don’t want it to sound so disjointed” the brain, the unconscious mind, tends to pick up on the “quite difficult” and “disjointed” bits and thereby works to create a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy – you’ll probably end up with something sounding exactly that way!

Why?

The subconscious mind is always working to achieve goals, whether you realise it or not. So give it a goal that you really want into work towards!

By reframing the above sentence and using something along the lines of “I find this bit not so easy. I’d like it to sound more flowing and legato“, instead, the subconscious mind then tends to pick up on the “so easy” and flowing and legato“. The subconscious mind then has its own micro goal set to create a situation that is “so easy, flowing and legato” and will work alongside your conscious brain to achieve that outcome.

Hmmmm. Interesting huh? Give it a whirl – it might just work….