Mental Practice Part I: Enhancing Mental Practice and Its Benefits

[@SarumChoirmaster]

As a 66 year old former professional violist, teacher and composer, Anglican cathedral choirmaster and organist, I have discovered everything you talk about! You are so extremely correct regarding everything. I would only add two things - 1. practicing extremely slowly like a Tai Chi Master or a Pantomimist and 2. repetition in this Tai Chi Master while always using a metronome, starting on an extremely slow count with a minimum of 5 times per as you increase the tempo.

[@DrMollyGebrian]

Thank you so much for watching! Yes, many of the topics I talk about in these videos are things musicians and teachers have figured out for themselves through experience over the years. :) Having scientific data to back up what we've intuited through our experiences is very validating, I think! To your point about practicing slowly and working things up with a metronome, you might find some interesting ideas to ponder in this podcast episode: bulletproofmusician.com/jason-sulliman-on-why-fast-practice-can-be-more-efficient-and-effective-than-slow-practice/ You might also find it interesting to watch the videos I made on playing faster, which offer some suggestions that work much better than the traditional way of clicking things up with the metronome (especially the second video in the series): kzbin.info/aero/PL7PO5fyuz1-waFLy-virpvKrrGyhe5lne

[@TheCompleteGuitarist]

This methodology is incredibly powerful. I use it as a teacher and a practicing musician and I have personally seen massive gains when applied. I use it all the time. I should add that I believe language and music to be the same thing and I think we can apply methodologies from language acquisition in music and vice versa. In language learning there is a technique called shadowing which is in essence identical to the idea of aural transcription. I study improvisations by learning to play them by listening and shadowing an audio recording much the same way it is done in language learning. I must add that it is a powerful but not much used technique in language acquisition as many teachers and students still feel compelled to use traditional concepts such as learning grammar.

[@DrMollyGebrian]

Thank you for this comment! I have another life where I write about music and early language acquisition. If you do a search for my name on Google Scholar, you'll find some of the papers I've co-authored on this topic. The overlap between language and music is fascinating and they can absolutely inform each other!

[@TheCompleteGuitarist]

@@DrMollyGebrian Thanks for the response, I will certainly go look for some of your papers. If you look up Clive Wearing, there is a wikipedia page and a BBC documentary (radio) on him somewhere, you will discover a musician who almost completely lost all his memory and could form no new ones but he obviously did not forget how to speak, nor how to perform music which illustrates the crossover between how the brain processes both.

[@DrMollyGebrian]

@@TheCompleteGuitarist Yes, isn't that amazing? :) This is really common - that people have no memory for facts or events in their lives, but they can perform music just fine! It's because declarative memory (memory for facts and experiences) is separate from procedural memory (motor memory), which means they can be damaged separately as well. This is also seen with Alzheimer's.

[@ucepulyte]

Thank you for your work and the brilliant skill to share it! As a fellow musician I found it informative and reassuring at the same time. It's great to learn about the new science research. But also it's great to get to know that some things I have been doing intuitively, not knowing that there is a method and a name for it (AOMI). I appreciate how much I learn from your videos.

[@DrMollyGebrian]

I'm so glad! That's so cool that you've been doing AOMI on your own! I had never thought to do that until I read this research, but it makes perfect sense. :)

[@RaviVS]

Thank you Dr Molly for the wonderful insight. I am learning Indian Bamboo flute. One more advantage of mental practice is that one can practice for very short periods even in workplace or while waiting.... without having to carry the musical instrument. Also practice at night without disturbance to others.

[@mickizurcher]

I totally believe that mental practicing and physical practicing done together is more beneficial but I do not enjoy mental practice it is a chore to me but I’m going to watch and hopefully I will come around for instance how do we mentally practice? If I don’t have the piece memorized how can I mentally practice, that means I’d have to have the music with me. Am I supposed to visualize the notes and pretend I’m moving my fingers? I hope you give us an easy way to ease into this it sounds so painful. 🤯

[@DrMollyGebrian]

That's exactly right! I often mental practice when I'm standing in line or waiting around so I don't get bored. :)

[@whafa]

This is awesome stuff; thank you for doing this work!

[@azharkhan8796]

So that means no air guitar 😔 But this is refreshing suggestion. I want to incorporate mental practice during work breaks. I am of the opinion that I am eager to improve my skill level significantly, or even master the instrument, keeping in mind that most advanced players are probably experts by their late teens. But I've been following your other topics, particularly the ones on interleaved practicing. I have incorporated that into my schedule. I use a timer set to beep every 3 minutes, and I cycle my exercises or licks for the day's routine. I have 3 target specific daily routines that I also cycle. All these I revise monthly. Thank you. I really learn from your videos.

[@DrMollyGebrian]

I'm so glad my videos have been helpful to you!

[@TheCompleteGuitarist]

I have employed these techniques and noticed immediate and significant improvements in short periods of time. It is incredibly powerful in my opinion.

[@debiethredge3020]

But why no air guitar? It's seems to be just the thing to do!

[@DiegoAlonsoMusic]

Excellent video! Thanks for all of this wonderful info.!

[@cyril185]

Tony MacAlpine sent me here :) sooooo interesting!! Thanks for sharing!!

[@DrMollyGebrian]

Glad you enjoyed it! :)

[@christylyndose]

Hi Molly! I’m really enjoying learning from your videos. Brilliant stuff! If you don’t know your piece by memory yet, can you mental practice while looking at the sheet music? What about imagining playing, while listening to a recording of the piece, either by another musician or a recording of your own practice? I guess that’s similar to AOMI, but without the visual aid.

[@DrMollyGebrian]

Hi there! Thank you so much! I'm so glad my videos have been helpful to you! Yes, you can absolutely mental practice while looking at the music. I discuss this a bit more in the final video of this series if you'd like a fuller answer. :) And yes, imagining playing while listening to a recording is like AOMI, you're exactly right. That hasn't been tested yet to my knowledge, but I assume it would be beneficial based on the AOMI research.

[@japjnl]

W.r.t. AOMI and singing, would this be something like listening to a choir vocal learning track (mixed to focus on your vocal part) and imagining that you are singing that part? That would be sort of like a singalong in your mind

[@DrMollyGebrian]

Yes, exactly. :) Listen and imagine you are singing - hear your part in your mind and also how it would feel to sing.

[@JohannyVeigaviolin]

Can I interview you ? I am doing an study in MP

[@DrMollyGebrian]

Hi Johanny! Sure! Send me an email and we'll set something up. :)

[@JohannyVeigaviolin]

@@DrMollyGebrian thank you ! Will do it