Trusting our own learning...

When teaching a subject like music, a subject that requires a type of performance so prone to self-consciousness, it can be terrifying for a student to demonstrate learning and facility. It is a personal and vulnerable position and there is a tendency to rely on the left-brain sense of merely being practiced in order to execute a performance. This works in short order. For instance, we can commit a piece or even several pieces to memory with practice, however, in circumstances that require anything outside of the memorized program we are sunk. That is one very good reason to avoid strict reliance on rote memory for genuine performance of musical facility. The left brain processing, while useful for building relationships between muscle movements and creating memory with associations and triggers, is horribly clunky when it comes to the fluid and unconscious demonstration of true musical proficiency.

However, the left brain's obsession with control, the preoccupation with conscious thought as the arbiter of execution, is a difficult anomaly to overcome. This usually manifests as extreme discomfort and even fear for the performer, as the act of "letting go" and trusting their own abilities can seem intolerable. Thus, the left brain usually attempts to intervene, causing pauses and loss of motor fluidity, making a mess of the entire attempt.

I try to preface every assigned demonstration from a student with reminding them that they know everything involved in what they are about to do. When there is a pause I say, "Trust what you know," which can sometimes "un-stick" the left-brain's attempt to seize the pursuit. The success of this letting go process can have surprising or even unsettling results. A student can become very upset by the idea that successful results can be a product of something beyond a ratched-down effort based solely on their conscious control. For some this can be a liberating feeling as they realize that the arduous muscling through and thinking their way through is actually not necessary. Thinking is done in practice to commit to memory. Performance should, to a large degree, not be a result of clunky conscious thinking.

David Eagleman, in his series The Brain: The Story of You, demonstrates this same phenomenon in how a batter performs the act of swinging at a baseball. He makes a point of accounting for exactly how much time and energy is required for conscious thought and calculates the impossibility of it playing any dominant role in performing a learned behavior.

"In order to make contact with the ball, the brain has only about four tenths of a second to react. In that time it has to process and orchestrate an intricate sequence of movements to hit the ball. Batters connect with balls all the time, but they’re not doing it consciously: the ball simply travels too quickly for the athlete to be consciously aware of its position, and the hit is over before the batter can register what happened. Not only has consciousness been left on the sidelines, it’s also been left in the dust." (Eagleman, loc 1184, 2015)

In episode one of the series (shortly after 18:07 on video below) Eagleman notes "...biology imposes limits. Processing [a trigger], then sending out signals for the muscles to move will take about 2 tenths of a second. And that time can really not be improved upon."

Timing in music performance is crucial. A lag of .2 seconds is unworkable. So, it is virtually impossible for the conscious left-brain processes to be playing the central role one might be inclined to believe when executing performance. So, what is happening if the left-brain is not exerting it's superior processing power to execute a performance? Are we drawing on an abstract process of accessing the unlimited long-term memory cache in ways that are much more efficient for performance than the old clunky illusion of thinking control? Are we actually "letting go" in employing the superior power of the brain to percieve reality and elicit our responses? In the video below, world renowned pianist Maria Joao Pires experiences what is probably a classical musician's worst nightmare when she realizes that the piece being performed is completely different from the the piece she prepared. She panics and confesses aloud that, while this is a piece she has performed, it is not the piece she prepared. Conductor Riccardo Chailly basically says, "You can do it," noting that she had played the piece the previous season. See the video below:

Pires, trusted what she knew and performed beautifully. Perhaps, according to my musical philosophy, more beautifully than if she had "prepared." It is likely, that unconsciously the very best "prepared" musicians are actually performing similarly, while maintaining only the illusion of "conscious control" needed to keep the left brain busy with the belief that it is running things. It is a tenuous charade, that, once exposed can liberate human potential from the biological constraints that are best suited to servicing the creation of memory.

Pires's story is an example that aligns with my basic axiom on learning, performance and life that when given circumstance and no other option, humans are capable of extraordinary things. Which means, the ability is there and we often only need give ourselves permission to accept that and be free to access it.

Here is a link for more information from David Eagleman on the Mystery of Expertise at this website.

David Eagleman's TED Talk, "Can We Create New Senses in Humans?"

Look for a future blog on left-brain and right-brain functions and the extraordinary possibilities in brain plasticity.

References:

Eagleman, D. (2015). The Brain: The Story of You. Pantheon.