The Laws of Brainjo, Episode 14

Episode 14: The Secret to Playing Faster

It’s a question that comes up with the banjo perhaps more than any other instrument:

“How can I play faster?”

In this edition of the Laws of Brainjo, we’ll be zeroing in on the banjo player’s need for speed, why it’s such a common concern, and the best way to go about getting it.

The answers may surprise you!

More Than Meets The Eye Ear

So just why is it that, for so many aspiring banjoists, speed is such a pressing concern, especially in the world of 3-finger style (though the topic certainly comes up amongst downpickers, too)?

Why is there such an epidemic of speed envy amongst budding banjoists?

Because to the average listener, banjo playing sounds FAST. For many, the very first impression they have upon first hearing a banjo being played is one of speed. The notes are moving by so quickly that it can be difficult to even comprehend what’s going on.

But, as any seasoned 3-finger picker will tell you, much of this is an illusion.

The perception of speed has more to do with the style in which the banjo is played than it does with any superhuman feat of finger flicking.

For one, there’s the 5th string itself. One of the commonalities amongst virtually all styles of 5-string picking is the continued sounding of the 5th string. Without it, we wouldn’t create the droning sound that’s such a signature feature of our beloved ax. But that 5th string drone is an extra sound you don’t hear on most other stringed instruments. That alone gives the impression that something more is going on.

On top of that, there’s also all the extra stuff we banjo players put in between the melody notes. Most styles of 5-string picking involve playing melody notes interspersed with harmonizing banjo sounds, the “decorations” we play around all the notes. In many cases, there’s more decoration than melody.

This is unlike the guitar, where in many cases an arrangement consists of nothing but the melody notes.

If you were to take any banjo arrangement and strip away everything but the melody, it would sound downright tortoise-like in comparison, even without altering the tempo.

Consider the following example. First, I’m going to play just the melody notes for the song “Grandfather’s Clock” at  casual tempo, around 100 BPM: 

Now, here I am playing through a 3-finger style version at the same tempo: 

As you can hear, all those extra “decorations” give the impression that I’m playing the song faster. I’m playing more notes, yes, but the tempo of the song has not changed.

So, in other words, the 5-string is a BUSY instrument.

And all those extra notes on the banjo futher enhance the illusion that the music on the banjo is being played fast. Which means for you the player, even when sticking to pedestrian tempos, your typical listener will still be left with the impression that you’re tearing it up.

For the beginning banjo player yet to fully grasp the nuances of the style, it can be tempting to conclude that the reason your playing doesn’t sound quite just right yet is because it’s just not fast enough.

But this is almost NEVER the case.

Now that I’ve hopefully thrown a splash of cold water on your lust for speed, let’s now examine the issue at hand: just how does one develop the ability to play faster?

To answer it, we naturally need to first talk about dental hygiene.

Bristling with Speed

I’m sure the vast majority of you reading this are well accustomed to the act of brushing your teeth [insert requisite British joke here]. In all likelihood, it’s something you’ve been doing most of your life [expound further on the joke here if desired].

Yet, you didn’t always know how to do it.

Brushing your teeth is a learned behavior with a specific and stereotyped set of movements that unfold in predictable sequence from start to finish. The whole thing seems trivial to you now I’m sure, but if you’ve watched a young child learning it all for the first time, you’ll note there’s a bit more to it than you may now appreciate.

You grab the tube of paste, unscrew the cap, turn the faucet on (cold side) to wet the bristles, turn it off, align the tube with the brush, squeeze a set amount onto the brush, and so on. There’s actually quite a bit going on!

For a young child who has yet to master it, it’s quite a bit to remember and master.

Now, imagine I were to ask you tonight to brush your teeth twice as fast as usual. Could you do it?

Sure, you might feel a bit stressed, and your dentist would surely protest, but nonetheless I imagine you could still ramp up the speed of the whole affair with little effort.

But what about the young child who still hasn’t learned it all? What would happen if we asked him or her to double their speed? A faster performance?

Unlikely!

In the child’s case, each step in the act still requires conscious deliberation, and trying to speed that up would, if anything, likely have the opposite result. More than likely, it would just increase their error rate (sound familiar?), resulting in an overall LONGER time to complete the task correctly.

The reason you can increase your speed easily and the young child can’t is because you’ve fully learned the entire behavior – learned it to the point where it requires no conscious thought, where you can move through the whole sequence while your conscious mind is entirely engaged otherwise. For the child, on the other hand, each step still demands their full attention.

In learning parlance, the adult has moved from the beginning state of conscious uncompetence (“I can’t do it AND I must concentrate hard when I try”) to unconscious competence (“I can do it all with my conscious attention focused elsewhere”).

In the brain, the neural networks that control these behaviors (formed through the learning process) have become compact and efficient, and are now fully housed in neurons that exist beneath the cortical layer (“subcortical“).

And it’s this shift into the final stage of learning, and the attendant changes in neurobiology that supported it, that allowed you to increase your speed at will. As a result, you can double your speed, even though you never once worked directly on fast teeth brushing.

Being able to brush your teeth faster was a natural byproduct of the learning the skill well. It happened as a result of working on other things, not by working on it directly.

So, then, what would be the best advice for the young child looking to improve their own teeth brushing speed?

Playing Slow to Play Fast

With its teeth brushing or banjo picking, the advice is the same.

The ability to play fast happens as a natural byproduct of the learning process, or learning the mechanics of banjo picking so that you can play automatically, without thinking about it. Once you’ve reached this stage, speed comes naturally (for more on the concept of automaticity, and how to test for it, check out Episode 2).

This concept is also embedded in the mantra you’ll hear repeated in music conservatories: “the secret to playing fast is playing slow.” Work on proper mechanics and timing at the speeds that allow for it, preferably with an external timekeeping device, and ultimately increasing speed is trivial.

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Brainjo Law #16: Speed develops as a natural byproduct of a solid learning process.

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Before I go, I’d like to put one more dagger in heart of the banjoist’s need for speed – a final plea in the service of banjo public relations.

If you happen to find yourself pining for a few extra BPMs, please remember that playing a song faster does not make it better. In fact, playing it faster in many cases will make it worse.

And playing fast for the sake of playing fast always sounds worse.

So banish all egocentric motives for speed. Choose the tempo that allows you to best showcase the song you’re playing. Play to entertain, not to impress.

Let go of your need for speed, and speed will find you.

 

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I was honored to have been the subject of a feature story in this month’s (March 2016) edition of the Banjo Newsletter.

The Banjo Newsletter has been a fixture in my life for well over a decade now, first as an indispensable resource in my earliest days of banjo-ing, and then as the publisher of my recurring “Your Brain on Banjo” column.

Needless to say, this feature article is something I’ll cherish for many years to come.

The story focuses largely on the evolution of Brainjo. So if you’d like to know more about the Brainjo backstory, you’ll find it here.

As you can read in the article, Brainjo is the fulfillment of a vision I’ve had for many, many years. Thanks to all of you who’ve supported this endeavor in one way or another – it means more to me than you could know.

And a great big thanks to Alan Friend for taking the time to put together this piece (added below with permission).

The Laws of Brainjo, Episode 13

The “Labyrinth” Practice Technique

(click here for Episode 14: The Secret to Playing Faster)

I’m going to share with you a practice technique that I use all of the time. It’s a technique I find indispensable, one that can literally shorten your practice time by 500% or more.

And so if you’re not familiar with it, or not using it, then that needs to change pronto!

But first I’ll tell you a story.

 

Family-Friendly Competition

My son recently had a birthday, and one of the gifts he received was the game “Labyrinth.”

Labyrinth is an actual, physical game, one you can touch and feel and exists entirely in the analog realm of real life. A refreshing departure from the land of ones and zeroes that little boys spend much of their time in these days.

You may have seen or played it. It consists of a movable wooden board mounted inside of a box. On the board is a maze, and your job is to navigate a metal ball through the maze, using two rotating knobs that adjust the pitch of the board, without it falling into any of the many holes in its way.

THE LABYRINTH GAME

My son soon became obsessed with it, playing one round after another, getting better with each repetition. And then he put down a challenge: “Dad, see if you can break my record.”

Challenge accepted.

I got to work. Initially, my progress was swift. I’m going to break his record in no time, I thought.

Not so fast.

I’d reached the same little section of maze my son had yet to successfully move through, and couldn’t get past it, despite multiple attempts. Each time, I’d put my ball at the starting point, meticulously guide it through the initial sections, only to have it repeatedly fall each time into the same hole in the maze.

And each time that little section of maze defeated me my frustration grew, as I’d have to repeat the tedious task of starting back at the beginning, then carefully navigate through the parts I’d already mastered just so I could try my hand at that one section I’d yet to conquer.

And then I had what at the time I thought was a revelation.

Why don’t I just place the ball at the start of the section that I can’t get past, and just work on that one spot until I master it? 

That’s just what I did. With my enthusiasm renewed, after about six or seven attempts on just that one section, I learned the required maneuvers of the knobs and could consistently make it through. All that was left was to do was set my marble back to the beginning, proceed to the section I had now mastered, and break my now….ahem…8 year old son’s record!

Now, I was patting myself on the back for discovering this little shortcut for getting better at the game — which in retrospect seemed kind of an obvious thing to do — when it occurred to me that I do this exact same thing when practicing the banjo ALL THE TIME. It’s a technique that I’d been thinking was probably an obvious one, but this little experience with the Labyrinth game made me realize that may not be the case at all.

So now I’ll demonstrate the “Labyrinth Practice Technique” applied to the banjo with a specific example.

 

How To Use The Labyrinth Practice Technique

Step 1: Identify the difficult spot in the tune.

A few weeks ago I released the tune “Sailor’s Hornpipe” as part of the Clawhammer Tune of the Week series. I chose this tune in part to pay tribute to the memory of 3-finger banjoist extraordinaire Bill Keith, who had recently passed away.

Bill Keith is known as a pioneer of the “melodic” style of 3-finger playing, so I wanted to include in my arrangement some nods to his playing style. One such nod occurs at the end of the 1st measure and extending into the 2nd. It’s the kind of picking pattern Bill used often, but not one that I’m all that accustomed to playing.

And I noticed that, as I was working up my arrangement, I was consistently tripping up on that particular spot. It was clearly my weakest link in the entire arrangement, just like the one section in the Labyrinth I couldn’t get past.

So, rather than play through the entire tune over and over again, the bulk of which I could play just fine, I instead focused my energies on ONLY that section, and got to work on applying the Labyrinth Practice Technique to this particular arrangement.

So here’s what that particular section I’d isolated out looked like in tab:

As an aside, one of the signature elements of Keith’s melodic style is the use of melodic licks in which a note that’s higher in pitch is found on a string tuned to a lower pitch (for example, the 2nd note in the 2nd measure above is higher in pitch than the 1st note in the measure, even though it’s played on a string that’s tuned to a lower pitch). If you’ve been playing stringed instruments for any length of time, your brain has learned to expect the opposite, and will resist you trying to do so. In order to play through a section that violates this rule, then, you’ll need to unlearn that resistance.

Step 2: Play the difficult section along with a timekeeping device, SLOWLY.

The next thing I did was open up a metronome, and to find the tempo setting where I could actually play through this section cleanly and with good timing. This turned out to be 60 bpm, roughly half of the final “performance” tempo (you could also use a backing track for this sort of thing, provided you have the ability to adjust the tempo).

Step 3: Gradually increase the tempo of the timekeeping device until you reach performance speed.

Once I could consistently play through the section at that initial tempo, I increased the speed a bit, working on it again at that tempo until I could play through it consistently. I repeated this process until I reached performance tempo.

Once I’d done so, I knew I could now confidently play through the entire arrangement.

Practicing Smarter, Not Harder 

There’s no telling how long it would’ve taken me to beat that tricky section in the Labyrinth game had I painstakingly taken my marble back to start of the maze each and every time it tripped me up.

Like I said, all of the maze prior to that point I could make it through just fine. Had I continued in this manner, I’d have been spending the bulk of my practice time rehearsing something I already knew how to do. Doing it this way, I was only spending a fraction of my practice time working on the thing I actually needed to learn.

Worse yet, the fact that I had to start over each time and navigate through the sections I’d already learned made each failed attempt all the more frustrating. That frustration undoubtedly worsened my concentration and performance, further reducing my practice efficiency.

So I encourage you to use this technique liberally to your advantage, particularly when encountering a challenging section of a new tune or song. Resist the temptation to avoid those parts that you find most challenging. And resist the temptation to rush through them, as you’ll only end up reinforcing bad habits.

Use the “Labyrinth Technique” instead, and I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the speed of your progress.

You’ve likely heard me say this before, but this is yet another illustration of the principle that HOW we practice is as (or more) vital to our success as WHAT we practice.. If you were to take two people of equal skill and have them try to learn the same piece of music or navigate through the labyrinth maze, and only one had access to this practice technique, I know who I’d bet on to learn it first.

Brainjo Law #15: When encountering challenging sections of a new tune, use the “Labyrinth technique” to improve practice efficiency.

 

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The Laws of Brainjo, Episode 12

Is It Safe To Use Tab?

 

I was awoken, as I was well accustomed to, by the dreaded sound of my pager.

The year was 2004. The time…2:30 AM. I was the on call neurologist for two hospitals.

“Hey Dr. T, I’ve got a really interesting case for you,” said the voice on the line.

Nothing is interesting at 2:30 AM, I thought, except my pillow.

I was speaking with the nightshift doctor in the Malcolm Randall VA ER, and he was clearly better adapted to middle-of-the-night conversation than I. “Can I just run this case by you, I’m not sure what to make of it. It’s probably nothing.”

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Well, he says he can’t read. He tried to pick up a book tonight and couldn’t read any of it. But here’s the strange thing, his vision is perfectly fine. And he has no problems talking, no slurred speech or anything. You ever heard of anything like this?”

“It just started tonight?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“I’ll be right there.”

My examination indeed confirmed what the ER physician had reported. The patient, G.R. (as we’ll refer to him), was having trouble reading (more specifically in applying the rules of phonology). But, as the ER doc said, his vision was otherwise fine, as was his speech.

I knew this was bad.

This was the CT scan of his head:

That bright blob on the lower right hand side of the image, surrounded by a dark rim, is blood. G.R. had bled inside his brain, at the juncture between the occipital and parietal lobes in the left hemisphere, a place where symbolic visual information is decoded. Things like written words on a page, for example. 

Despite our technological advances, cases like these still form the backbone of our understanding of human cognition. The specific ways in which brain function degrades when certain parts are taken offline offers us a unique and powerful window into how the brain is organized, and how it processes information.

This includes much of what we know about our gifts for communication, including speech, reading, and writing – information we can use to our advantage as we try to build a banjo playing brain.

Information that can even help us to answer the question of whether tab has a place in the learning process.

More on G.R. in a bit.

 

The Origins of Written Music

I think it’s safe to say that, just as we humans were talking long before we were writing, humans were playing music long before we started recording that music in written form. Which means that, for most of human history, music was purely an aural tradition, passed along from one person to another solely by ear. Humans are quite capable of learning music without any written notation whatsoever.

And when we finally did decide to create a written system of musical notation (roughly 2,000 years ago we believe), its primary purpose was for the preservation and dissemination of music. Up until that point, music only existed in the human mind. Notation was the only way musical information could be stored outside of the human mind, as recorded media (i.e. the Edison phonograph) didn’t develop until a few thousand years later.

Just as writing was developed as a way of storing and disseminating knowledge and information for later retrieval, musical notation was likely created to perform a similar function (rather than as a system for teaching).

Later on, when composers needed a way to coordinate large numbers of musicians in a symphony orchestra, they turned to written music to do the job. And so if you were a musician with your sights set on playing in said orchestra some day, then you’d better learn to read that written music yourself.

But somewhere along the way, perhaps because we were able to record music in writing long before we could record the actual music, learning by reading music became the accepted way music was taught. In the days before records, tapes, CDs, and iTunes, the only way to easily disseminate a tune to thousands of ears was to WRITE IT DOWN.

Times, of course, have changed.

We no longer need to write music down in notation form to store it. Furthermore, as a means of transmitting musical information, it is an inferior tool for doing so when we now almost always have access to the REAL thing. Written notation for a piece of music is a representation of the thing, while a recording of a piece of music is the thing.

 

The Potential Perils of Tab

Those of you who’ve followed along in this series know that we attain new skills through the creation of skill-specific neural networks in the brain, and those networks are built through practice. We have the ability to mold our brains to our own specifications.

While this remarkable feature holds great promise and potential, it also means we must take care in ensuring the networks we create actually do the thing we want.

Let’s consider an example.

John has just bought his first banjo after having dreamed of playing it for many years. He’s motivated and ready to learn, and sets a goal of playing in his first jam in 6 months.

He gets down the basic techniques of banjo playing, and then sets about to start learning some tunes. He finds a book of tablature, and gets to work, putting a couple of hours of practice in every day.

Several months go by and John is making serious progress. He can play about 20 tunes up to speed, though still has trouble playing through a tune without the tab in front of him.

His wife, once dismissive of his newfound interest, remarks that he’s sounding pretty good. Buoyed by her encouragement, he decides it’s time to venture to his first jam.

Disaster strikes.

Within a few minutes, John realizes that he’s in way over his head. Even when tunes he knows comes up, he can’t keep up, and can’t muster to play anything that sounds remotely like music.

He leaves dejected and demoralized. The banjo is retired to the closet, where it remains collecting dust for the next decade.

 

Building It Right

In prior episodes, we’ve reviewed the type of neural networks that support the playing of a master banjoist: networks that efficiently translate musical ideas into a motor plan for moving the limbs (so that those musical ideas are emitted as banjo sounds). We may refer to these as “sound-to-motor” networks.

Banjo playing networks built exclusively through the use of written music, on the other hand, operate quite differently. These networks translate visual information into movement of the limbs (so that the written code is translated into banjo sounds). We may refer to these as “print-to-motor” networks.

So, the “print-to-motor” neural network that John has diligently built over many months relies upon tab for its operation. What’s more, no neural routes to playing independent of tab exist in John’s brain, making it biologically impossible for him to succeed in a jam!

John didn’t fail because he’s a bad musician, he failed because he built neural networks that weren’t in line with his goals.

 

Revisiting G.R.

G.R., the patient with the brain hemorrhage that rendered him dyslexic, couldn’t read because the hemorrhage destroyed the neural networks that convert the printed word into movement of the vocal chords.

As stated earlier, cases like G.R. reveal the functional organization of the human brain, in this instance showing us that there are segregated language networks of various types, each with its specific function, each created through a specific kind of practice. G.R., like most of us, could speak fluently long before he ever attempted to decode his first written word. Before reading instruction ever began, he already had neural networks that could transform mental concepts into movements of the vocal chords.

And it was only when that reading instruction began that he started forming the “print-to-motor” networks that could translate markings on a page into movements of the vocal chords.

This segregation of function explains why he could suffer a stroke that obliterated one linguistic skill (his capacity to read) but left another (his ability to translate thoughts into speech) intact.

So what exactly does this type of knowledge tell us about the role of written music in the learning process? It tells us that if we wish to create “sound-to-motor” networks like the master players, then we should avoid incorporating musical notation into our banjo playing networks.

It tells us that we want to build banjo playing neural networks that operate independently of tab.

 

Are We Tabbed Out?

So if we don’t want tab incorporated into our banjo playing networks, does this mean we need to abandon it altogether? Does tab have any place in the learning process at all? Is there a way to use it responsibly?

No. Yes. Yes.

While our ultimate goal may be to build networks that can translate musical ideas into motor programs of the limbs independent of printed music, I think it’s entirely possible to use tab as an aid in that process.

Most importantly, tab can be an invaluable learning tool, ideally suited for conveying certain kinds of information.

Years ago, after hearing several of his tunes performed by a guitarist at a local farmer’s market, I became enamored with country blues guitarist Mississippi John Hurt. After that performance, I soon built up a library of Hurt’s music, and set about to learn some of his material.

I soon found that things weren’t as simple as they seemed, and I struggled at first to figure out exactly how we was getting those sounds out his guitar. Then one day I stumbled across a tab for one of his tunes (“Stagger Lee”), and there lied the keys to the kingdom.

Just seeing that one tab was all it took to unlock the mystery of his style. In a matter of minutes, my eyes were able to unlock a pattern that my ears could not, even after hours and hours of listening. The result was a giant leap forward in my learning process.

Tab in and of itself is neither good nor bad. It’s only in the way in which it’s used that determines whether it hurts or helps. I use tab a good bit in the Brainjo teaching materials, but the Brainjo Method itself is designed so that the student develops banjo playing neural networks that are independent of it.

So there’s absolutely no reason to abandon tab altogether, provided you are mindful of the way in which you use it, and practice in ways that promote the creation of “sound-to-motor” networks that exist independently of it. Here are some strategies for ensuring that you do so:

• When learning a tune from tab, get your eyes off of it as soon as possible. Read more my recommended approach to learning tunes from tab in the Brainjo Tune Learnin’ System.
• After you’ve learned a tune, visualize yourself playing through it while away from your banjo. Read more about visualization here.
• Listen, listen, listen to lots of music. As your skills grow, imagine yourself playing along while listening. What would you play? How would you play it?
• Pick out tunes by ear. Start simple and build this skill. Start with picking out simple melodies (just the basic melody itself, not a banjo player’s arrangement of it). Then start working on creating your own arrangements from that melody. You can learn more about how to do this here.
• Practice jamming (without any written music). Attend a local jam, or just practice along with recorded tracks.

 

BRAINJO LAW#14: Musical notation (including tab), when used wisely, can be a helpful aid in the learning process, provided that you practice in ways that doesn’t incorporate it into banjo playing networks.

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