SLOW’S MORE DIFFICULT;
FAST’S THE LAST THING
Excitation/Inhibition;
Propioceptal
& Exteroceptal Memory
I apologize for the forbidding words, terms, and elocutions, but
they’re the secret key to performing successfully.
Playing the clarinet, the piano, or any other musical instrument
is a function of the central nervous system; to practice a musical instrument
is to train the central nervous system.
When a troubling technical passage is encountered, we must search the
central nervous system for a way to conquer the difficulty.
Propioceptal (as opposed the to Exteroceptive-touch, or tactile
memory) is our movement memory:
When walking up a stairs, we learn the height of the stairs for
the next climb; when we use the left hand little finger to play ‘C’ before a
right little finger Eb on Clarinet, our central nervous system has learned the touch
sensation of the fingering sequence, but also the muscle movement of the
fingering: the proprioceptal memory.
The great treasure of this discovery is the gigantic benefit in
everyday practice.
Rushing headlong into playing a musical passage at full, final
performing tempo is a sure journey to failure.
The small muscles must be trained first!
This is done by letting all the big muscles of the arm, the
shoulders and the upper arm, completely relax, letting only the completely
relaxed fingers ‘finger’ the passage pianissimo with slow, strong pressing of
fingers, in this way saving that proprioceptal memory on the brain’s hard
drive.
A quick drill is to play a Lick kept in your improvisatory back
pocket: Listen to this memory, and then slowly press and play each note, with
strong, relaxed touch, and think of each finger motion and force as you savor
these notes.
Now play the ‘lick’ again at tempo, and I guarantee the
improvement will be amazing!
The treasure of this discovery is that you will now be
strengthening the ‘Inhibitory’ process of your motor neuron system.
The central nervous system controls our movements by ‘Excitatory
and Inhibitory’ control. The
Inhibitory is the most difficult to obtain and use and unfortunately, the first
to lose.
Playing always fast repetitions results in the overlapping of
propioceptal memory, and hence your performance sounds rhythmically uneven.
So now, we must consider the two ways our central nervous system
controls our movements: by ‘Ecitatory and Inhibatory’ control.
One great way to practice ‘Inhibitory’ control, is to slow down, or
stop at ANY point as you play; then play again and speed up at will; but then
slow, or even stop-start-stop, and then play slow to fast to slow, completely
at random.
The control you will now have over any passage thus offered will
be phenomenal.
Playing slow (Inhibitatorial movements) trains the evenness and
clarity of our performing: When we play fast, the ‘Excitatory’ element quickly
‘kicks in’, and the performance is beautiful.
Keep tuned in to my blog;
Updated information will be rapidly added.
Sincerely,
Errol Weiss Schlabach
Please give me comments and feedback.
