Muscle memory vs brain memory

Bill McCloskey · Posted 18 Jun 2010 6:16 am

I've noticed a phenomena recently as I focus on lap steel and C6th tuning. I realized how much of my musical knowledge is tied up in muscle memory. As i try and transpose what I play on guitar to steel, I find that I often have trouble even remembering the chord progressions to tunes that I play without thinking on the guitar. It is weird, but it seems that my knowledge of certain tunes is completely linked to my muscle memory of those tunes on guitar, and once I switch to an instrument that doesn't take advantage of that muscle memory, the song is gone. I find myself trying to play the tune in my head imaging I'm playing the guitar in order to transcribe some of those songs to steel.

Any one else notice this?

Ray Montee · From: Portland, Oregon (deceased)

When I sit down to my guitars, Bigsby, Emmons or Ric,
I SEE a fret board.

Like one scene of a movie fading (transitioning) into another, I next see a playing pattern forming before my eyes at the same moment I hear the song playing in my ears.

NEVER do I think about what "GRIPS" or "GRABS" as some have mentioned here. If I know the song/tune, I'm confident I can play it. WHO CARES what the chords are? I can play it on a single string if need be.

That's how I view the scene from here.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Bill, a good way to learn changes for standards is to do it the way John Mehegan did it in his Jazz Improvisation series, with figured bass. You learn the figured bass to a number of standards and you can play them in any key. I used to write them on index cards (which I should probably go back to doing) and then just pick a key to transpose it. With this way of learning tunes, you're not tied to playing the same positions when you transpose to other keys. It also makes it easier to recognize similarities between songs.
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Rick Winfield · From: Pickin' beneath the Palmettos

I used to have this problem, until I got "some time in",the cockpit.
Basically,
Reading music, and Knowing the Fretboard,
will make it happen sooner.
You can start out slowly, and find all the notes in a C scale, on the fretboard.
Now you know all those, 2 frets up are in the key of D, and two frets below are in the key of Bb.

Now pick another key, say G, and find all those notes. Two below is key of F,& two above Key of A.
You now can play & read in 6 keys, (1/2 of the battle), and your reading has improved 10 fold !
Rick

Bill McCloskey · Posted 18 Jun 2010 10:18 am

I think there is a slight misunderstanding of what I'm talking about, no doubt to my inability to express it properly. While I don't know the C6th fretboard fully yet, learning the fretboard is not what I'm refering to.

Basically I have songs that I play on guitar for decades. They are so ingrained in my muscle memory that I long ago stopped thinking about the chords I was playing. My figures just go to the places I want them.

When I start trying to transcribe those tunes to steel, I can't remember the chord progressions any more, because I'm not thinking of those songs in terms of chords, but where my fingers go automatically. Trying to move those songs to steel, I really have to work to remember what the chords are. It is like a horse that knows his way home automatically, without thinking.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

I got you loud and clear. Check out the Mehegan books. You will really learn the tunes. Here's an example:

This would be "All The Things You Are"

/ VIm / IIm / V7 / I6 I7 /IV / bVø7 VII7 / III / etc.

You write it out on an index card and choose a key, then go from there.
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Bill McCloskey · Posted 18 Jun 2010 10:47 am

I'll check it out Mike, thanks. Sounds like I need to make a trip to Colony.

Bill McCloskey · Posted 18 Jun 2010 10:50 am

Which of his books do you recommend Mike?

Mike Neer · From: NJ

There are 4 volumes--I used to have all of them, and if I remember correctly, he starts getting into the figured bass in volume 1 (Tonal and Rhythmic Principles -- still available). They are piano books. Volume 4 is mostly transcriptions, so I wouldn't bother with that one. The real reason I'm suggesting Mehegan is because of the way he uses figured bass for the changes. That's really all I ever got from the books, but that was well worth it.

What you can do is check the book out and see how the figured bass works, then you can write out your own figured bass charts from the Real Book or whatever source you have. Maybe buy volume 1, 2 or 3, although I think Vol. 1 is the only one in print.

http://www.amazon.com/Jazz-Improvisation-Tonal-Rhythmic-Principles/dp/0823025594
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Steve Atwood · From: Massachusetts, USA

Muscle memory is amazing. I used to play Bach's Bourree on classical guitar, then stopped playing. Ten years later I tried to learn it on my lap steel, in E minor tuning, which is similar to regular guitar tuning. It was surprising how naturally it came back to me, even though I was using a bar instead of fingers. In classical you don't think in terms of chords as much as the notes you see on the sheet music, and looking at that helped me re-learn it. But I'm finding that the muscle memory of where to go next is helping more than seeing the notes on the page in front of me.

George Piburn · From: The Land of Enchantment New Mexico

Perhaps getting the Lead Sheets to the tunes you are going for would help.

Alan Brookes · From: Brummy living in Southern California

Recent scientific experiments, which were well-documented on PBS recently, suggest that memory is not contained solely in the tissues of the brain, but also in tissues in other parts of the body, particularly the heart and spinal column. This is why if you cut the legs off a spider they will continue to twitch even though no longer connected to the brain. There have been cases of people who have received heart transplants and have taken on some of the dexterity of the donor.

We may consciously think of where to put the bar, and which finger to use for picking, but the actions take place a lot faster than we can think about them. Consider just a rolling finger-picking routine; you couldn't do it if you had to think about each motion separately, at the same time as thinking about where to move the left hand. Then there's the simple movement of the bar: as you move the bar you have to simultaneously move muscles in the hand, the wrist, the elbow, the shoulder, and that's not even taking into account vibrato.

When you play a chord on a guitar, you might think to yourself, "I need an E min. chord here", and you do it automatically: you don't think, "Well, an E min chord requires that I put this finger here and than finger there..."

We have a lot more memory in our bodies than we realise. Without it, you wouldn't be able to think of anything complex, you would spend most of your time concentrating on how not to fall over. Whoa!

Earnest Bovine · From: Los Angeles CA USA

Peter Lindelauf · From: Penticton, BC

Interesting comments above about memory and music. The work I do for a living in forestry--logging layout, eco classification, etc--requires a well-developed sense of spacial awareness--where everything is and where you are in the terrain. (There are musical parallels.) This is, of course, aided by gps units nowadays and by mapping where you are, but the point I've often made for rookies is that after any given day and walking 30 or 40 hectares of terrain, you should be able to model a 3D map of the same with a spoon and your mashed potatoes at dinner time. From both body and mind memory, which as Alan mentions above, are really one and the same. Mind--and memory--permeates the body. It's not like a caption bubble in a cartoon hovering somewhere above your head. Well, maybe for some people...

Mention this because it took about six months of learning to play lap steel to get to the point where I can now play songs in my head by visualizing and hearing the playing of Cold, Cold, Heart, for example. (Or the D. Beaumier arrangement of Sleepwalk with a few extra grace notes.) Sure more entertaining than counting sheep when you can't sleep. Know that I'm aided by having played guitar and piano for about 40 years now. People may wonder how Beethoven could still compose while deaf. He continued to see, hear, and feel the music in his head. And in his heart.

There have been some fascinating books about the mind, music and the brain, lately. Highly recommend the following. What's this got to do with playing lap steel or any instrument, for that matter? Nothing, on the one hand and everything, on the other.

The Songlines - Bruce Chatwin. Describes how Australian aborigines sang their way through the landscape following 'songlines.' The songs recorded terrain, mythological events, clan history, etc.

This Is Your Brain on Music - Daniel J. Levitin
The World in Six Songs - Daniel J. Levitin. If you ever wondered about Sting's brain...

Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain - Oliver Sacks
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...but you are the music / while the music lasts (TS Eliot)

Bill McCloskey · Posted 19 Jun 2010 11:25 am

Here is a simplier way of saying the same thing:

I'm playing St. James Infirmary. Over the years and the thousand times I've played that song, I know it starts in Am. Then E, then....I don't know because my fingers have automatically gone there and I don't think about the chords after that. They are ingrained.

Transposing to another instrument. Okay I play the Am, then the E, then....I don't know, because the "NAME" associated with that chord is stored somewhere different than were it is stored by my finger's memory.

My fingers know the chords long after my mind has forgotten them. It is weird.

Tom Franke · From: Arizona, USA

Bill, I know what you are describing. I've played Tennessee Waltz in G for several years on 6 string acoustic and lately have been playing it on Dobro. Today with my friends I was playing on acoustic again and without thinking, my fingers tried to play some weird barre chord, which i recognized was an attempt at the chord on the Dobro. That was muscle memory, and it was faster than my mind which was fumbling around trying to think of the chord name so I could correct it.

Most of the time, though, muscle memory is right, and if I try to think,"what chord is next?" I'll mess up, where if I just let my hand make the decision it will be right. Playing several instruments and multiple tunings does complicate things, though. Interesting topic.

Jason Hull · Posted 20 Jun 2010 4:14 am **muscle, brain...all is one**

There is no "versus" when it comes to memory. We play with our entire bodies. Our brains are informed by our senses; our brains inform our muscles; our muscles inform our senses, etc. There are numerous interconnections between all parts of our bodies; to see them as separate is a mental construct, an illusion.

Bill Connet · From: Iowa, USA

I have done a lot of study of these topics, and teach a class called Music and Healing. ANother book I have enjoyed is "The Singing Neaderthals" by Stephen Mithin. (My next band will be called The Singing Neaderthals!)Mithin believes that Steven Pinker at Harvard (my alma mater!) is wrong when he says that music is evolutionary cheesecake. Music is essential to the development of our brains, and connects the language, motor skills, and emotional parts of our brains. I do music with Alzheimer's patients every month, and it is remarkable how music comes to the most debilitated people.
oh, and I am trying to learn steel guitar now. Love this forum.

Mike Neer · From: NJ

Jazz musicians have the distinct advantage of working through the discipline of playing tunes in all twelve keys and spending an immense amount of time on working through scales and chord inversions in every conceivable way. One can't afford to be lazy in studying jazz, or else your improvisations will suffer for it. The idea is to really learn a tune inside/out, with all of its harmonic possibilities. I've been learning some of these tunes, such as All The Things You Are, for 20 years. You never stop. I heard Bill Frisell on Marian McPartland's Piano Jazz a few years ago, and he called All The Things You Are and after they played it, he said, "I'm still trying to learn that one." Another good example is Richie Beirach's version of this song. He reharmonizes it so it barely resembles the original but for the melody. Brilliant and beautiful.

I looked back at the Mehegan books and, if you are so inclined, Vol 1: Tonal and Rhythmic Principles offers a very thorough and important method of learning the harmony for standards through figured bass. I HIGHLY recommend it--you will use this for the rest of your life. There are copies of that book on Amazon for less than $10.
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J Fletcher · From: London,Ont,Canada

Hi Mike
I'm sure I ask this on behalf of thousands of steel players. What is "Figured Bass"?
Thanks....Jerry

Bill McCloskey · Posted 21 Jun 2010 9:50 am

Do a google search on "figured bass".

Thanks Mike. Ordered.

seldomfed · From: Colorado

Bill McCloskey · Posted 21 Jun 2010 2:26 pm

So...does this speak to staying with one tuning, one instrument...in order to make progress?

Jason Hull · Posted 21 Jun 2010 5:21 pm

Tony Glassman · From: The Great Northwest

Muscle memory is interesting stuff. First off, it definitley involves the brain, but on a subconscious level.

The brain is the processing center that receives sensation (input) from your fingers, and coordinates the proper muscle response to move your fingers (output). The muscles are controlled by the brain via the spinal cord and individual nerves. That's why muscle memory will not usually be present in people that have had serious brain or cervical spinal cord injures. The injury "breaks the connection" between the brain and muscles. It's exactly like a wiring schematic.

Conversely, when we touch a hot stove-top, we jerk our hands away without consciously having to think the action through through.

Excluding the eyes, the brain receives sensory input directly from the hands to the brain in different ways. Signals from your finger tips can be sent as information about temperature, pain, touch or something called proprioception.

Proprioception is a big word describing how your brain can tell where your arm, hand or any other body part is "in space". For example, when you stand with your eyes closed and someone (usually a cop) asks you to elevate your arms and touch your nose, you're using proprioceptive information from your arms which allow your brain to coordinate that movement (providing you haven't had too many brew-skis or shots of "Jack"). An easier exampleis if someone wants you to close you eyes and put your outstretched open hands in front of you. That is propioceptive info about where all the muscles and joints are relative to the brain.

This is the kind of information that allows you to catch your balance, type, reach for something with the lights off or play guitar with your eyes closed.

Muscle Memory is just repetitious practice of a specific task(s) using proprioceptive signals rather than visual information. You get to a level where a specific task (e.g. a lick) can be done w/o conscious thought, with or without open eyes. Check out Stevie Ray or Hendrix playing guitar behind their backs.

The point is that "muscle memory" is a misnomer. It definitely involves the brain.

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