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Scott: Hey, I'm Scott DeVine, founder of scottsbasslessons.com. Today I'm going to
tell you why your brain isn't even your brain.
Before I tell you why your brain isn't even your brain,
the back track you just heard me playing over, you can actually
download that for free. If
you're watching this on YouTube, the link is below this
video. Just go through to my web site and get it there. If
you're watching this on
scottsbasslessons.com, the link is right below this video.
So why isn't your brain your brain? Well it is. It's just
split into different parts. These parts sometimes don't
communicate with each other as
well as we want them too. That can have a huge effect on
changing your technique which is something everybody goes
through.
I'm sure you've been through this. You've got right hand
technique, or you're doing something with the left hand.
For instance, what I call the
pinkie solute, when you're playing and your little finger
just sticks out all the time.
Maybe your movements aren't as small as you want them to
be with your right hand. Everybody goes through technique changes
or moments in part of their
bass playing life where they need to change their
technique to get themselves to the next level. Maybe they want
to be playing faster, or it
could be anything like that.
The gag is that the part of the brain that deals with
motor function is the motor cortex, which is here. Now that's great,
but who we are and the
decision making process that we go through in everyday
life -- Should we have sausage sandwich? Should I have ketchup
on this? Do I need all this
salt on it? Should I have that other can of Coke? All of
those decisions, the actual brain that we recognize this is
actually in the prefrontal
cortex and the frontal lobe which is not the motor sensory
cortex. They're two separate things.
Now when you come to changing technique, you could be
saying, for instance, to yourself, "I really want my little finger
to come in. I really want my
little finger...Why isn't it coming in? Why does it keep
sticking out like that?" So even though we thinking it, we need
to get that message back to
the motor cortex back here so the motor cortex can change
the program that it's sending to the hand.
Okay, sound a bit weird? So imagine your brain is just a
computer, then the motor cortex here, it assigns different programs
for different movements --
if I do this, if I do this. That's this part of the brain
dealing with that. So with these fine motor movements here,
it's the same thing. It's
sending a specific program just like a computer would.
But what you're asking it to do is send a different
program. This part is asking this part to send a different program.
The frontal cortex is asking
the motor cortex to send a different program, but they
don't communicate very well sometimes. Even though you want
to change your technique, this
motor cortex here, that's where natural technique changes.
How do you change technique? This is why so many people
say if you practice in something technical, or you're trying to
change your technique some way,
slow it down. If you're playing a major scale and you're
trying to change the technique of your left hand, you want
to be playing it something like,
"Bom, bom, bom, bom." Even slower than that. Really
concentrate on every little movement.
What do these do? Why do we do this? It's because it give
this part of the brain, the motor cortex, the chance to work
out exactly what program to
send to achieve the goal that you want. If you don't give
it the chance...If you just play it slow for a few
minutes and then speed up,
speed up, it just doesn't have the chance. You need to
give it the time to assign the correct program.
If you think about it, if you slow something down and then
go slowly, slowly, and faster, faster, faster, faster
over an extended period of time,
that part of the brain is going to learn so much faster
than the if you just keep on trying to go fast, fast, fast
over and over again, because
then it's just not given the chance to find the correct
program.
Now I want to know what's going on with your bass playing
technique. Are you going through difficulties trying to change
technique? Do you find it
easy? Do you find it hard? Let me know. Comment below this
video.
If you haven't subscribed to this YouTube channel yet,
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which is all the time. Most importantly, if you haven't
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Other than that, take it easy and
get in the shed.