Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Teach your non-conscious

Consciousness is too resource hungry, therefore it's also too slow. Muscle memory, aural memory and even, to an extent, visual memory are accessed much quicker by the non-conscious - teach it to carry out your wishes. To do that you've got to discover how it learns. Sadly, it's the elephant comme servant in the room we all try to ignore.

So, how does it learn?

It learns while we sleep. So, get lot's of sleep after your evening practice and you will notice post-practice-improvement in the morning.

It learns loads while we're asleep because our consciousness isn't interfering. It also learns as we do tasks as long as we perceive them in a way that is convergent with how it operates and, I shudder to say, how it thinks - to answer your question Phlebas.

I don't believe that's accurate. Is that a hypothesis or it based on something? I think it learns while you sleep because neural pathways take time to develop (a night's sleep ensuring plenty of time is taken)- and because your body regenerates best in the hours while you sleep. Apparently there's actually some kind of a physical element to the way these pathways are strengthened. I'm not aware of any reason why conscious thought might prevent such regeneration when awake. Unless I'm mistaken, I believe that the subconscious also makes progress while you are awake (although perhaps not at quite the same rate as during sleep). Work on something in the morning and it would almost certainly have had enough time for the benefits to be on display by the evening.

I don't know a whole lot about the fine details, but I've heard it suggested that it's vital not to finish a session of slow practise with a run-through. You need to leave it time to settle in. Go fast in the same session and you undo the memory of the good practise. Try it out the next time, and it may well go considerably better than you would ever have expected (even if you were not aware of having made any progress during the slow work). If this is accurate, the last rendition is most important to what settles in. Ideally if everythhing is accurate, the programming is flawless. That's why it's better to do a small amount perfectly, than to repeat endlessly with different errors.

I believe that any improvement as you're doing a task is primarily down to added conscious awareness. You have to walk away and leave it, before the subconscious has a chance to set in. Instant improvements and genuinely subconscious ones are very different issues- so it's important to aim for accuracy at all times, but not to worry about speed before that accuracy has already set in (from a different practice session). I think this is single most important thing to know about the subconscious. Good quality practise may not seem to show any discernable progress at the time- but if you can bring yourself leave it at that, the progress can come over the following few hours (or certainly by the next day).

When you talk of how it 'thinks' I believe you're confusing it. Unless I'm much mistaken 'muscle memory' (which is to do with nerves and the brain, rather than the muscles actually 'memorising' for themselves) is a very different kind of subconscious than repressed memories etc. I don't believe it has much to do with Freud style subconscious thought, but merely the ability to reproduces particular combinations of movements at will without great conscious will- once they have been done consciously enough times. Unless I'm vastly mistaken, I think you're perhaps confusing different elements of what the word 'subconscious' can mean. There may be some degree of cross-over, but I believe it's largely quite a separate issue from actual subconcious thought.

*** I am ignoring the above user ***

Technically speaking, making a point of responding to my post to say that you're 'ignoring' me does not count as 'ignoring' me.

If you are indeed interested in neural pathways, I'd take heed of those points about practising. Apparently these principles are vital towards how we can make progress.

Sheesh, some people just don't get the message.

Is it actually possible to ignore users on this forum? I never found the option for it

That's not 'ignoring' either. If you want to do it properly, please don't let me stop you.

Click on their name and choose 'view profile' and 'ignore this user'. Just a shame it doesn't wipe them entirely!

keyboardklutz,

Are you looking for the "unconscious" whatever that may be, or a non-conscious neurological process?

As I understand it, current research is that the process of correct process engages our neurons in specific ways to trigger the generation of further myelin around the neurons that are used during the practice. Adding myelin takes time and I believe that it occurs mostly (or possibly fastest?) during sleep. The effect of this myelin sheath is that this particular neural pathway is faster and more secure due to the increase velocity of signals and capacitance.

Rich

"The effect of this myelin sheath is that this particular neural pathway is faster and more secure due to the increase velocity of signals and capacitance."

Is it possible that the magic is called repetition? [or am I the only one that needs repetition?]

rada

That is how it was explained. How one practices, especially repitition, become triggers that myelin is needed which makes practicing that task more efficient.

Rich

Don't we have to put something into our consciousness first before it can later become sub-conscious, ie, beneath the consciousness level. To me, this means lots of time and experience at the instrument with much repertoire, styles, moods, rhythms, key signatures, all the basic things that give us something to think and do at the piano keyboard. Reading from the music and applying it to the piano keyboard is the game - through our accurate physical processing. In the beginning it is quite complex to get anything right and there are many approximates without there being precision. Only with regimen and discipline do we have something musical to retrieve.

Quietness of the mind, keeping thinking simple, repetition, listening, touching, sensing, experiencing music builds our abilities of technique and artistry. Time and effort in a neutral mind set is the best situation to build our musicianship.

It's the quiet mind that is so valuable that also sleeps so well.

I think "baklava" and "minestone soup" when thinking about what the brain does with our thoughts. Our brains are hungry to store knowledge and to retrieve it for our enjoyment. If we would only take the attitude and learning steps to "feed" it what it needs.

This is how I see it, so please take it as a grain of sand if you happen to disagree. It is just one person's opinion or maybe, it's fantasy. Maybe it's to be ignored.

I had a slight car accident 20 years ago. I was driving along in the rain and it was too wet to break quick enough not to slide into this guy. I only realized yesterday what happened - I saw a stopped car at a roundabout, assumed it was about to go as the way forward was clear, checked it and moved on to something else on the road. All this was done non-consciously; I predicted the situation, as we do as we drive, with no conscious involvement. Consciousness got involved as I looked at where the car had been, and found it was still there!

It's not myelin. Here's part of a correspondence I had with a concert pianist and myelin researcher:

Thanks for the advice, and sorry for being so off-topic!

No, most of our learning goes straight into the non-conscious. What I am saying is try and look through the lens of the non-conscious, see how it sees the world, to be better able to present material for learning in an efficacious way. The learning styles idea is an example but it's not just sensual prejudice that effects learning; I think the non-conscious is often more logical, but it's a logic that can be hard to understand or accept.

If you weren't ignoring my posts, you my might have heard the bit where I explained what a load of hogwash is being stated there as if it were incontrovertible scientific fact. Who do you think you are, to 'correct' such a simple statement with pure nonsense?

We certainly do have to execute a movement or make an association via the immediate conscious for it to become subconsciously learned. Those who are good sight-readers etc. have ALREADY put substantial workings into their subconscious, through repetition. There's a reason why even a genius cannot sit and give a flawless performance of a Chopin Etude, if he has never played the piano before (regardless of how much time he might have spent studying the score or watching others doing it).

As for the idea that the subconscious is more logical, how about Freud and the notions of secretly wanting to sleep with your mother and kill your father etc? Logical? I'm not sure if the fact that you made a false conrrection implies that you think you're in command of scientific principles here, but the rest of that comment reads more like som kind of a zany new-age mantra. Logic is absolute. The subconscious is driven by hormones and countless other erratic factors. Certainly not logic. Some dispute Freud's specifics, but I have never heard anyone claim the gut instincts of for human behaviour are more 'logical' than those that are rationally and consciously thought out. In any case, as I pointed out earlier, the subconscious of the mind and the subconscious ability to execute a series of learned movements would appear to be vastly different issues. Unless I'm hugely mistaken, there's very little direct cross-over. What we talk about in terms of 'subconsciously' ingrained procedures have little to do with anything that might described as 'thought' (especially if you're talking in reference to learning). I believe that you are simply making assumptions based on the different contexts in which the single word 'subconscious' is typically used.