Changing the Routine

Hello all,

I found this article online and tried it. Surprisingly enough it actually has worked for me and has altered my playing a bit to make it more fluid and rythmic. Essentially, the author suggests that when practising a routine that involves constant repetition, one should slightly alter the practice each session. He gives as an example practicing the free throw in basketball. The basket is always ten feet from the line and fifteen feet above the court. However, instead of practising from the same spot again and again, he suggests one day maybe moving a few inches to the left, the next a few inches to the right, another forward and another backward. Essentially, the goal is to modify the routine just a bit but not so much that it would actually constitute a new memory. In this minor modification the brain reconstitutes and rewrites the same memory again and again and it is in this reconstituting of the memory that the skill is learned faster and I have found better.

For me, even just the first day it caused me to break out of my rote playing. All of a sudden, my rendition of Buffet Line sounded much more fluid and, frankly, just better. As to whether it will enable me to learn faster is still an open question as I only just tried this on Sunday, but I think it ought to work and can't hurt.

FYI, I've implimented this by angling my chair relative to the sheet music slightly so that one day I need to look at it toward my left and another toward my right. Eventually, I'll move a bit farther back too and maybe change the position of my fingers on the harp or the position of the right hand.

Anyway, I've included a link below. Hope you find it as useful as I have. Also, my apoligies to more experienced musicians and athletes if this is already common knowledge to you. I was neither a musician or athlete in school so, if it is common knowledge, it's something I would never have been exposed to.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-johns-hopkins-study-reveals-the-sci...