What do you think of when playing the guitar?
It has kind of struck me recently that a lot of time when I am practising or performing, my mind wanders (actually quite a lot). Sometimes, I am not actually sure what I am focusing on, partly due to muscle memory, where I (you) can get away with a lot, but it has dawned on me recently that because of this, sometime with new material you need to really concentrate on breaking the concentration gap and also the muscle memory. What do I mean by this? Well, if you try and play a new lick, but realise that you add in your own nuances to the lick, or even to some extent your own notes unintentionally, this might be down to a lack of concentration. If you find that when playing a scale for example, your aren't concentrating on each of the notes and then make the odd clanger, then perhaps you need to focus again on concentration.My issue is that I am not 100% sure at all what I am thinking about when playing, is it picking, fingering, note, I am focusing on the room in front of me and relying too much on muscle memory. When I stopped and tried to concentrate, I realised I had to do things much much slower (and important lesson there for sure!) and really concentrate on the notes. For example, playing a scale and naming each of the notes as I played them. I also found that closing my eyes whilst playing also really helped when trying to concentrate, and something I will certainly do more of in future.To help with my quest for concentration, I found these two sites very useful
What are your thoughts?PeaceNeil