Muscle memory

One of the good folks that populate rec.music.classical.guitar (RMCG) suggested that I depend on muscle memory to increase the speed of the Bach piece that I've been working on recently. I pointed out that I've been playing it for 20 years, so my muscles have, I hope, memorized it. But it raises an interesting subject.

It seems that the most awkward hand movements when playing can become quite easy and natural with practice. I think this is what is commonly referred to as "muscle memory". For me, the process seems to take a few hours of playing, but not all at once. Breaks from playing the same thing over and over seem to accelerate the learning process. Something happens during a break of, for instance, 10 minutes, so that coming back to a piece is like returning with new hands and brain.

The new left hand positions for BWV999 that I described in a previous post were imprinted fairly quickly, over-writing what I had been doing for 20 years. It helped when I could see the logic of the positions, how anchor fingers glided down the frets. This seemed to convince some part of me that, yes, this was worth doing. Now, after a few days, my right hand doesn't seem to believe that my left hand is already in position and messes up. Bad hand! More practice for you.

I don't think I've pushed myself nearly to the limit of "muscle memory".