Friday, December 28, 2012

The Central Nervous System: It's importance in playing a musical instrument.



CENTRAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

What is the best way to develop a smooth and exacting technique?  Which muscles should a player concentrate on?  What is the order of sensory concentration that should follow the reading of written music?  How should fingers move and touch the keys of a musical instrument?
How many of these questions can you answer and where do you start?
The first, most important fact to understand and admit is you are the instrument, you are making the music; your musical instrument simply translates what you are hearing and thinking.
What is trained when you practice and acquire knowledge is the Central Nervous System; what plays when you perform is the Central Nervous System, using the tools you have stored through practice.  In performance, you really have no control over what you play, except to play what you’re hearing.  The performance is entirely intuitive and subconscious, controlled by intense brain signals.  Your subconscious intuition operates 20,000 times faster than your conscious thought.  The reason for a fine performance is the 10,000 plus hours that you have  invested in training the Central Nervous System.  What I would like to explain in this essay is how to go about that training task.

AMAZING FACT:
Each peripheral sense center has an assigned spot on the cerebral cortex; the cell sequence of the spot on the cortex is an exact replica of the cell order in the peripheral perceiving units: ‘Talk about a miracle!
This applies to visual, aural, and olfactory sensors, and fingers, hands, feet, toes,----every conceivable peripheral sense.  Two classes of sense perception exist: Proprioceptive: sensing motion; Exteroceptive: tactile (touch) sensing.

This information is very useful when applied to practicing a musical instrument.  Finger action is proprioceptive, with exteroceptive involved in the touch of fingers on keys.  Movement of the fingers should concentrate on the small finger muscles; large arm and shoulder muscles should on serve as stabilizing elements. 
To practice proper finger movement, the hand and fingers should be placed directly above and touching the involved keys.  The first movement will be a finger pressing only the depth of the movement of the key.  When the next finger presses a key, the former finger lifts up as this next finger presses down.  All this should be done slowly and with precise, authoritative movements.

When learning new fingering formations and movements, the new stimuli would be termed neutral.  As you repeat movement, an already established ‘definite unconditional stimulus’ already established is used to complete the reflex.  As you repeat the movement numerous times, the new stimulus and the old established stimulus achieve the reflex together, and eventually, the new stimulus produces the reflex alone.  This process of learning is always the same for motion related stimuli.
Results will be most successful when the movements are performed slowly, with each repetition as precise as possible.
The intensity of your concentration and your basic health and well being also have a direct effect on training your central nervous system.

The previous reflex conditioning is categorized as a ‘First Signaling System’, stimuli such as impressions and sensations from the outside world and muscular movements.
Verbal and sight stimuli belong to the category of ‘Second Signaling System’.
Written musical notation, like verbal stimuli, becomes signals, in this case for sound.  The written note first excites the visual region of the cortex, and is then transferred to the auditory region, which provokes the corresponding motor response.
When playing from memory, the auditory region becomes physiologically connected directly to the motor region (through numerous times of practice), and the written notation (visual region of cortex) is no longer needed.
This will start your awareness of the importance of your central nervous system and how it is what you are training as you practice a musical instrument.

Keep checking this Essay for updates, as I will constantly be adding information as I learn more about the brain.

Please give me comments and feedback.
I hope this study helps you, for it surely excites me.
Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach


Sunday, December 16, 2012

What is a sentence?: Music related or not, we all should know this!



We all should be able to answer this; if you can't, here's the answer:

What Is A Sentence?

A Sentence is an organization of items in the world.

A Sentence is a structure of logical relationships

The basic components of a sentence are:

‘DOER---DOING---DONE TO’


Helping old ladies cross the street prevents accidents.

(What is the verb?)

Thanks for viewing and visiting.
Please give me comments and feedback.
Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach

Friday, December 14, 2012

Grim Haiku!: response to shootings in US schools:

Grim Haiku to shootings in US schools:

Man’s History

Born, grow, shrewdly bloom,
That’s our whim, so history says;
Better luck next time!

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Rossini Cadenza: Errol's transcription for you practice and perusal


This is a transcription and edit I did for the Rossini Variations,  
One more little widget you can pack in your ever ready tool box.



Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach

Please give comments and feedback.