Right, seeing some confusion and people taking ‘telepathically’ too literally and missing some key points. So I’ll try and explain again, why I called it this: I explain several times in the video why I call it ‘telepathy’, and it’s not because it’s in the literal sense. It is the right word to use in the context of what I’m talking about in the video: The reason I use the word telepathically is a play on what people who don’t work this way THINK it is, not what it actually is. I tried to get that irony across in the first few seconds of the video as well. it isn’t because I’M calling the process telepathy, it’s a play on how people who don’t work in this way can be confused over the process and therefore see it as being something like that instead). As I said, it’s because when a lot of people who don’t work in this way can’t see the process happening physically, many of them can’t understand how it’s even being learnt, as it’s an internal process. This leads them to laugh and think it must be happening telepathically (which, as I explain in the video, it isn’t, obviously). And the other reason I mention in the video, is that it’s also just a process that people who don’t work in this way often see as being an unreasonable way to learn, and as being as outlandish as telepathy. Again, I also mention in the video that I think many musicians work in this way, but it certainly isn’t all of them (and definitely isn’t everyone on earth in all walks of life) If it was, I wouldn’t have faced so much misunderstanding over it, and I wouldn’t have felt the need to make this video. But again, I say all this in the video ;)
My mind works like that the most when I'm trying to solve a really difficult problem. I'll distract myself with movies, etc., and a solution will just appear in my mind at some point.
This is a subject that I've never seen described on TH-cam. As a musician, my mind works as you described. The manner in which you segregate the different processes was keenly clever. The contrasts in the aspects were explained with a personal experience example. I too have the same learning style. When I follow the typing you featured, I am more prone to B, than A. I hope this content continues, mixed with recitals, of course. Thanks for this. Enjoy your weekend. Cheers!
Very good points here, and very well put. I remember when I realized that my brain was fixing technical problems and doing the legwork for me in the background (like when you can't manage to make a technical passage work on the fretboard, stop working on it, and when you go back to the instrument "magically" your fingers know exactly what to do). Once I realized that I also realized I could take that thing out of the intuition world and start doing it consciously. Since then I'm always going through songs, figuring out fingering patterns and so on in my head when I don't have an instrument around (commuting is always a good moment), and I recall when I was able to learn a short set while sitting on a plane with no instrument in my hands, and then playing it straight away when I landed. Our brain is an amazing machine.
I recognize this, if I want to learn a new scale, I read the diagram and imagine playing it, then go to sleep and the next morning I can play it perfectly on the instrument. It's also the reason I have regular days off from practice, my brain needs to process what I learned and the next day I can miraculously do difficult things a lot better. I do practice on the instrument almost every day, but not for hours, I feel when it's time to call it a day.
Love this concept! Reminds me of the idea of "hammock-driven development" in the world of computer programming. It's about how your unconscious seems to solve problems while you step away from the computer, or in our case the bass guitar.
I watched the intro and thought "Wow Cici is living in the Village of the Damned" :) I used to struggle with working out songs but having lessons with Becky really developed my ear so I can generally find the key pretty quickly and have a rough gist of the structure before I need to use things like seperating the tracks, importing into Melodyne etc :) Really loving this video!
Hey. Brilliant video! Found this subject really comforting. Not to get into too many details, but over the years I've struggled quite considerably with how my head processes things - I always just assumed I was just a bit broken, or wired wrong. It's literally only in the last few years, I've started to embrace how I process things internally. It's helped me become a better musician, and also learn when I need to walk away and let my brain do the leg work when my hands are struggling to work things out. Thanks for showing us an insight into how you think. You explain things really well 🙂
Hey Cici, Allow me to thank you for the lesson I could take from your video. It is fascinating to see how you work on music. This tells me how very capable you are on bass and that you have a deep and wide understanding of your instrument and music. You know so much, that you do no longer need the physical action to improve. I know that I have not the musical ability to do so, but I know that the brain needs time to rewire and therefore learn. This is called neuroplasticity. The brain creates new synaptic connections and this is while it is not engaged so much, like while sleeping, or during meditation or active relaxation like a walk in nature. I need to practice the drums physically regularly to improve. I'm far away from your level of aptitude and therefore train my muscles to play what I got in my head. But still I improve on things by motor imagery training. Just thinking about a rhythm or drumpart or song helps me to improve get better at playing the drums. I especially love doing some intricate drum thing just before going to bed. Then my brain has the time to process the lesson while relaxing and rewiring. And yes sometimes in the morning there is a breakthrough and I can do a polyrhythmic figure with ease that wasn't possible the day before. I hope you can take a lesson from my comment. You did a great job on verbalising your learning process. I know what you mean by telepathic learning and which neuroscientific principles are behind it. This is amazing. I hope to come to the level of understanding to be able to do this myself. Thank you for bringing this to my attention so that I can work on my learning process. You know what I'm thinking about this😊
oh this is so good. as a graphic designer this process also works for how to approach a design or request from a client. sometimes at the end of a conversation i've already seen the design and how to approach it. Everything you said should be written on stone tablets. so 'telepathy' or 'seeing the box shapes' in some inner eye..same thing really. even better if one can "hear' the box shape. Im amazed as i continue playing that I can alsmost pick out out the first note of a root key and I dont have perfect pitch. almost as if the hands know where to go..... so again, 'telepathic' as you point out. this is such an awesome topic.
I recognize myself in this to a significant degree. Having now played guitar for nigh on 40 years, my brain has become accustomed to do a lot of computing work on the off-time, as it were. We play mostly original material in our trio, and I spend surprisingly little time with guitar in hand working out how to solve things. Having perfect pitch does help too, that must be said. I also allways leave room for improvisation, lots of it, in fact. I don't think I've ever "written" a solo, for example. Bits may be played several times if I am particularly pleased with certain bits, but as soon as I'm bored, it's off on improvisation again, and so it goes...
This is absolutely my process with drums. I quite often fully learn a song without touching a drum kit, piecing together sections that I am familiar with or that I have learned in the past. I also really relate to the idea that walking away from practice will often allow me to process and get better at the part I was struggling with. With keys though, I have to learn everything much more methodically. I can hear the different arpeggios and cadences, but because every key signature feels so different to play on keys I have to drill them into muscle memory far more. Really interesting Cici!
Ahh that’s really interesting to know, I can imagine how they would feel really different actually! My brain will do that with certain other subjects, mainly ones I don’t actually enjoy learning, like mathematics 😂 I’ll have to keep going over it because my brain constantly discards it, which is the last thing I want to have to keep doing hahaha
Holy cow Queenie, that is exactly how I've learned guitar and bass over the years! Of course, I had to learn the fretboard and technique until about age 16. Then at some point I realized my ear was so developed I could pick out the pitch and key almost like a super power, then I could hear the melody in my head and once I sit down with a guitar, and actually physically practice the song and maybe 75% of the time, I could play it in 1 to 3 times. Like you said, there are songs that require a grind to learn, 10 times or more sometimes. As I've played regularly for the last 20 or so years it only gets easier but at the same time,😮it's a life long thing, and you never learn it all. Someone said in order to be a master of your preferred skill, you must dedicate 10,000 hours. But I digress, you're gonna still be pretty badass way before you reach 10,000!! You already sound and look great on stage, and you're gigging regularly so you're at least well on your way. Keep it up mam!
My lower brain has just let me known that any song that has not been practised at least 10,000 times with a rate of one rehearsal a week will be erased from the long-term memory for archive maintenance purposes. Happy your brain is not working the same way! Thanks to share in a very didactic way. ^^
Hahaha brilliant! Nothing wrong with that :) For what it’s worth, I can relate to that in a way, if I’m trying to learn a subject that doesn’t interest me (like algebra or similar things 😂)
This was really fascinating to watch and listen to! I feel like I'm kind of in a median point, between the way that your brain works, and the polar opposite. However, this is extremely intriguing for me to test out myself with almost an exact way that you do things. This is because, with merely 30 minutes of intense practice on a single subject, I'll pick up the instrument the next day to practice the same thing, and have made plenty of bounds of improvements. Thank you so much for sharing this with us, and for using so much detail in the process!
I have literally done this for years, (53 now) but, never heard it explained so well. I have however done this with building/crafting/making thing's. By the time it comes to actually starting, I've already built it several times in my head, discovering most of the pitfalls along the way. I don't however think I learn instruments this way, I don't know why, but I am going try. Keep up the good work Cici 😃
Fascinating... As someone who didn't really start playing guitar until I was over 40 (I'm 60 now), I wish I had honored my younger brain capacity for this. I grew up in a time and place where too much drugs/alcohol were popular. To foster this type of learning capacity you describe, I wish I had stayed away from those poisons/distractions. Although I would guess that many of us who "can't turn it off" use those substances to try and do so. I wish I had been more confident and had a friend like you when I was 20. You go girl! I'll keep trying, but it happens more slowly now. Enjoy youth!
Thank you. This video really hit home for me. I am on the autism spectrum so I would not be considered "normal" by many people and I understand what you are saying. So many people on yt seem to imply that you need to learn the chord shapes and physically practice, practice, practice: hammering out the chords and moving them up and down the fretboard. For many people that probably works. Many human endeavors require that kind of discipline. I don't doubt that many good musicians learn that way for what they want to do. I may be wrong, but I suppose that rhythem guitar largely fits that mold. But, if someone is mostly intuitive and empathic, that won't work. I am interested in playing melody/vocal lines. I want to come as close as possible to imitating the human voice. I can't sing worth a damn. I'm also interested in four strings tuned in fifths. Six strings are physically uncomfortable. The piccolo bass particularly interests me as well as the normal bass. I haven't really started playing yet because the music is swimming around in my heart and in my head and I'm not sure if I can find a teacher who can help me translate the music to my little hands and short fingers. Thank you, again.
Funny last night ...I'm not sure if I ever slept....I started learning a new song a few days ago.....and somewhere in state of awareness & sleep my mind kept practicing a groove and chord sequence, over and over and over ...until I woke up. welcome to the world of the over active mind of an ENTJ / INTJ personality type that has a brain that absolutely never -ever stops thinking and processing information.
You are describing aspects of "intuitive" learning. Most people use a logical process, of which there are different types. Emotional logic, social logic, inductive logic, etc. People who use logic, in any of it's forms, don't generally get people who are intuits (as opposed to just plain twits...) as the process is internal and runs"in the background". I sometimes just "know" what the answer is. It infuriated my maths teacher at school (many, many years ago) as he would often set a problem that should take the class 20 minutes so that he could mark some homework. About half the time I would get the answer right just from reading the question, yet I couldn't "show my working" as it was completely intuitive. Great eye catching video title though!
I can see the struggle! XD also; In regards to the thing, around laying off the instrument for a time, and then magically be better when you get back to it; I have that with drawing, myself! - Cool to hear someone else put it into words! o3o - Cheers! - S
@@CiciVonStrangelove I have it with piano too, actaully (Thinking about it) - Not sure I've had it on Guitar, though (That one, I haven't really thought about, in this regard) - Ah well! Cheers! ^_^/
Cici, I think you've made your points quite clearly. Congrats in this first video essay 👏. I use, at times, similar, powerful, respect-the-brain approaches because I can identify with the frustration of digging in too hard on something, without breaks, to the point of diminishing returns. That said, I like to resort to the physical mode as much as I can because playing the drum kit (as I do, at least) is pretty damn good physical exercise 💪 Gotta keep the hard-bod 😉 And engaging on the physical, along with all the other levels, is quite therapeutic for the soul and mind. Purifying.
After watching this I've booked my retreat to Tibet to learn this mystic process - anything that cuts down on physical practice always welcome. Cracking fireplace and wood stove you've got there Queenie.
I can completely relate to this. I really need the processing time otherwise my brain won't learn it. Thankyou so much for doing this video, I felt like I was the only one!
Amazing! I’m so glad you found it reassuring :) I felt like I was the only one for a long time too, years of people telling me off for learning this way 😂
I find that background processing in my brain works better if i don't have to interact with other people. I'll take a shower, or go away from the family to cook or something and I telepathically solve computer programming problems or come up with new bass parts for a song I'm working on. As far as learning songs goes, last year i was looking for some paid work and I'd put the set list on Spotify and go for a run, give it a day to sink in and I'd have most of a new set learned. I'd have to go through to prove to myself that it worked and learn the tricky bits but it was substantially all there.
Very interesting. You got me thinking about my own process and I figure that I practice/learn material mentally about 60 to 80 percent of the time and the rest is flushing stuff out physically. There are times when I need to spend more time physically working out to improve my technique or stamina but as far as learning and working out ideas, I’m in the same boat as you. Great video. Thank you.
Ha, great intro! 😂 Oh and as an aside, I love your 'wood gods'/green men either side of the hearth. Also, I've only just started the vid but I think I got the jist of why you are using that word, and seeing your explanation before the rest of the vid confirms that I was in the ballpark. Right, time to listen properly while i have time! Thanks. Should be interesting! EDIT: Very very interesting Cici, and yes, some of this definitely resonated with me too. Great content. Thank you!
Thank you! Glad you saw the irony in it 😂 Ahh they’re really nice aren’t they, really need to get the one on the left hung up at the same height as the other one haha!! I can send you a link to them both if you like :). Thanks so much for watching, I’m really glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for this, Cici. This validates and clarifies much of how I learn. I’ve been playing music for 30 years, but bass for only a few. Often I understand music in my head first, before all of the notes. At times I need to practice a specific part or song repeatedly. However, if I try to focus too long on the same thing I’ll start to get worse each iteration, until I do something else first. These types of lessons are hard to find online. Thanks for sharing more insights as a musician other than just playing.
Interesting, I sort of do this when I’m working on improvised music, I try to get an idea in my head before I think about picking an instrument up. I didn’t quite think about it the way you do but have now realised that you make a lot of sense!
Thanks a lot Cici for this unconventional but super interesting succession about learning 🤩. Currently I want to change my learning process for guitar and bass playing because I think I'm taking too long. Now I know what I must try next....your tips. 🙏
Excellent video and very interesting.. Everyone should be open to different ways of learning. Years ago there was something I was learning and I used to pick up more from watching than doing. I was criticised at the time but it worked for me.
Well all I have to say is learning like this isn't totally unique this is how I have always learned everything. Infact if I don't step away it actually takes me much longer. I was an auto technician for 34 years and my main job was drivability diagnostics. When I had to stop working for a year due an injury I thought I would loose my edge but when I returned to work I was actually 10 times better. It the same for my guitar playing and recording every time a thank a break things come faster when I return. Thanks for the video.
I get it! As well as guitar, IMy Spanish improved when I moved from Spain to Egypt because subconsciously, my brain was translating to Spanish because I couldn’t speak Egyptian to make me understood…. Bizarre bit of background processing.
Great vid - fascinating stuff. I’ve never really thought about how I learn guitar before but a lot of what you’ve said is quite familiar. In particular when I’m writing a new riff, I know in my head what I want, which is similar to process B, but if I can’t do it physically I have to revert to Process A. If I still can’t do it, I do exactly what you’ve described and walk away from it. Then 9 times out of 10 when I come back to it a week later I can do it. It’s like my brain needed time to process the physical mechanics against the conceptual idea. I’d love to see you demo this? Like try to learn a song you don’t know that is moderately challenging. Maybe film yourself doing process A, and then come back to it a few days later and film it again to show the difference? I think that would really make the penny drop for people unfamiliar with this.
Interesting video! Thanks! BTW, on this subject, I strongly recommend Hal Galper's The Illusion of an Instrument video (it's here on TH-cam). It will blow your mind, I guarantee.
I'm mildly amused that the subject line led to YT recommending some quite bizarre links. The T-word isn't the term I would have chosen but I get what you're talking about. I've had many times when i get stuck with a problem (not always related to music) and doing something unrelated while my subconscious works out what is required is often helpful. Professionally, I've learned to recognise when a suitable "distraction" is required (it often applies to writing some types of report). I've only had a couple of times when this applied to bass-playing, but it's cool to know that it works for you.
FWIW, I've recently been trying to learn a Periphery bass line and it has been beating me up. This evening, having not touched it for more than a week (mostly because I've been fighting a virus, then a chest infection), I suddenly realised how to solve a couple of key issues with the tab I've been using as a starting point. Still need to build some muscle memory, but at least it makes sense now.
Haha brilliant. And interesting to know your process! The reason I use the word telepathically is a play on what people who don’t work this way THINK it is, not what it actually is. I explain this in the pinned comment in more detail though. I was trying to get that irony across in the first few seconds of the video as well!
I think this is normal in many other cultures. Just northern European thinking tends to focus strictly on the physical practical actions and push an ethos of hard work and physical effort for so many things forgetting the power of the mind and consciousness.
Have you ever tried to do "16 personalities" test? I'm actually curious what results would you get :) I'm asking because I usually learn moves by visualizing them and then it's easier for me to actually perform them. I think it's associated with my personality which is INFJ. One of my friends is the same. Sorry for long comment :)
@@CiciVonStrangelove I knew it! What's interesting I chose bass, same as my friend but we didn't know we have interest in the same instrument. That's actually scary how good these test are. Knowing that I'm INFJ helped me with my social skills but there's still a lot of work. Love your content :) Awesome room by the way.
"Telepathy, or thought transfer, is a supposed parapsychological phenomenon, which means the ability to communicate with others through thought." The learning method you describe, i.e. you listen to the song and play it as if in your mind, is not telepathic learning in my opinion, for that it would mean that another person teaches you speechlessly, by thinking about the thing, so that your thoughts would become his thoughts, and thus you would understand everything that is in the song on an emotional level as well as the physical in addition to the level, and you could thus transfer it directly to your playing.' Rather, you could say that you learn with your imagination, imaginatively. How does my interpretation sound? p.s. I had to switch to google translator when I ran out of vocabulary... After all, letting things be, i.e. simmering, is a completely normal way for everyone to learn things, let's talk about sleeping through the night. So you've learned the thing, so you give your brain time to digest it and when you feel like it, you pick up the instrument and see, you know how to sing a song like water from beginning to end. I used the same method, for example, when I decided to stop binge drinking. I made a decision, justified it and let it be, at that time it was the end of December in 2017. On June 1st in 2019, I woke up at 8 in the morning, sat up and said out loud: -Now it's over! I continued in my mind that what is over, oh yes, drinking, and indeed, the craving, the desire to drink booze, to get drunk, to escape from reality by turning off the thoughts, was gone. A couple of months went by and I didn't feel like drinking. I decided to test, so I bought half a liter of clear liquor and a few beers. I took the beers and started "drinking" the booze. I was allowed to drink Desi until it started to get to my head, that is, I started to get drunk, when I had a really strong reaction: No, I really don't want to be drunk. I took the rest to the neighbor and said it doesn't taste good, drink it away. Now, 4½ years later, I've been slightly drunk for maybe 50 hours the entire time, so I didn't stop completely, but I can drink two or three beers, and as soon as I start to get high, I stop. At the moment, it takes a conscious decision to get even a little drunk, I still can't drink more than maybe 8-10 beers during the evening. And it doesn't taste good either. Still, it is the best muscle relaxant. The process is the same for everyone, whatever you call it.
I understand what you’re saying, but I explain why I refer to it as telepathy in the video a few times. Also, everyone learns in a different way - as I explain in the video, I’ve had people all throughout my life being confused at how I learn and process things, and even telling me off for it. If the process was the same for everyone, this wouldn’t happen and everyone would understand. But instead I had to make this video to explain it :)
Not sure "telepathically" is the right word. I hear a song that I think I want to learn. I will listen and start learning BUT, I will get to a point where I can "learn" no more and mess up, get frustrated, etc etc... Leave it a couple of days and go again. I think that 99% of the way that every musician learns. Coming back to it, just before getting frustrated, it will sound better and better. Is that telepathy? I don´t think so, its just the way the human brain works
I explain several times in the video why I call it ‘telepathy’, and it’s not because it’s in the literal sense. It is the right word to use in the context of what I’m talking about in the video (it isn’t because I’M calling the process telepathy, it’s a play on how people who don’t work in this way can be confused over the process and therefore see it as being something like that instead). As I said, it’s because when a lot of people who don’t work in this way can’t see the process happening physically, many of them can’t understand how it’s even being learnt, as it’s an internal process. This leads them to laugh and think it must be happening telepathically (which, as I explain in the video, it isn’t, obviously). And the other reason I mention in the video, is that it’s also just a process that people who don’t work in this way often see as being an unreasonable way to learn, and as being as outlandish as telepathy. Again, I also mention in the video that I think many musicians work in this way, but it certainly isn’t 99%. If it was, I wouldn’t have faced so much misunderstanding over it, and I wouldn’t have felt the need to make this video. But again, I really am quoting things I’ve already been over in the video
@@CiciVonStrangelove I wasnt critisizing, just commenting. My process is, listen to a song, spend an hour learning sections and then, when I am simply not getting it, leave it, come back tomorrow. I always find that the next day things start falling into place. Why? Is my brain processing the song without me thinking about it? Maybe, who knows.
@@GB-333 they do indeed, and the fact that it’s not actually telepathy, is the point of this video. As I said, the word is being used ironically, because it ISN’T telepathy, but can appear that way and people can think it is (in a non serious way). People say “oh you learn telepathically” (the point is, no, I don’t)
i left a comment about it to the hot british bass girl. it's really a joke cause she's british and like 12 years younger than us so there's no fuckin' way she knows what i'm talking about
used to process without playing and working the cassette player fast forward then rewind for two days then doing it live with the band now it's playing straight forward at volume . Then with the band weeks later
I just wish bass players didn't stand next to their bass cabinet . For me as a drummer I need to tell both guitarist's volume levels and the lower the volume the better. I can tell you are a listener not just a player
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Right, seeing some confusion and people taking ‘telepathically’ too literally and missing some key points. So I’ll try and explain again, why I called it this:
I explain several times in the video why I call it ‘telepathy’, and it’s not because it’s in the literal sense. It is the right word to use in the context of what I’m talking about in the video:
The reason I use the word telepathically is a play on what people who don’t work this way THINK it is, not what it actually is.
I tried to get that irony across in the first few seconds of the video as well.
it isn’t because I’M calling the process telepathy, it’s a play on how people who don’t work in this way can be confused over the process and therefore see it as being something like that instead).
As I said, it’s because when a lot of people who don’t work in this way can’t see the process happening physically, many of them can’t understand how it’s even being learnt, as it’s an internal process. This leads them to laugh and think it must be happening telepathically (which, as I explain in the video, it isn’t, obviously).
And the other reason I mention in the video, is that it’s also just a process that people who don’t work in this way often see as being an unreasonable way to learn, and as being as outlandish as telepathy.
Again, I also mention in the video that I think many musicians work in this way, but it certainly isn’t all of them (and definitely isn’t everyone on earth in all walks of life)
If it was, I wouldn’t have faced so much misunderstanding over it, and I wouldn’t have felt the need to make this video.
But again, I say all this in the video ;)
So not just click bait, then? ;)
❤really good outlook on a interesting topic. Keep us enlightened C.
Have you ever read manley p hall
"intuition based" that's a perfect way to describe the process
My mind works like that the most when I'm trying to solve a really difficult problem. I'll distract myself with movies, etc., and a solution will just appear in my mind at some point.
I know exactly what you mean! :)
One hundred percent! So many people frustrated with practice need to listen to this.
I’m so glad it made sense! Thanks so much :)
This is a subject that I've never seen described on TH-cam. As a musician, my mind works as you described. The manner in which you segregate the different processes was keenly clever. The contrasts in the aspects were explained with a personal experience example. I too have the same learning style. When I follow the typing you featured, I am more prone to B, than A. I hope this content continues, mixed with recitals, of course. Thanks for this. Enjoy your weekend. Cheers!
Very good points here, and very well put. I remember when I realized that my brain was fixing technical problems and doing the legwork for me in the background (like when you can't manage to make a technical passage work on the fretboard, stop working on it, and when you go back to the instrument "magically" your fingers know exactly what to do).
Once I realized that I also realized I could take that thing out of the intuition world and start doing it consciously. Since then I'm always going through songs, figuring out fingering patterns and so on in my head when I don't have an instrument around (commuting is always a good moment), and I recall when I was able to learn a short set while sitting on a plane with no instrument in my hands, and then playing it straight away when I landed.
Our brain is an amazing machine.
I recognize this, if I want to learn a new scale, I read the diagram and imagine playing it, then go to sleep and the next morning I can play it perfectly on the instrument. It's also the reason I have regular days off from practice, my brain needs to process what I learned and the next day I can miraculously do difficult things a lot better. I do practice on the instrument almost every day, but not for hours, I feel when it's time to call it a day.
Love this concept! Reminds me of the idea of "hammock-driven development" in the world of computer programming. It's about how your unconscious seems to solve problems while you step away from the computer, or in our case the bass guitar.
That’s brilliant! Definitely going to look into that now :)
I watched the intro and thought "Wow Cici is living in the Village of the Damned" :) I used to struggle with working out songs but having lessons with Becky really developed my ear so I can generally find the key pretty quickly and have a rough gist of the structure before I need to use things like seperating the tracks, importing into Melodyne etc :) Really loving this video!
Hey. Brilliant video! Found this subject really comforting. Not to get into too many details, but over the years I've struggled quite considerably with how my head processes things - I always just assumed I was just a bit broken, or wired wrong. It's literally only in the last few years, I've started to embrace how I process things internally. It's helped me become a better musician, and also learn when I need to walk away and let my brain do the leg work when my hands are struggling to work things out. Thanks for showing us an insight into how you think. You explain things really well 🙂
Hey Cici,
Allow me to thank you for the lesson I could take from your video.
It is fascinating to see how you work on music. This tells me how very capable you are on bass and that you have a deep and wide understanding of your instrument and music.
You know so much, that you do no longer need the physical action to improve.
I know that I have not the musical ability to do so, but I know that the brain needs time to rewire and therefore learn.
This is called neuroplasticity. The brain creates new synaptic connections and this is while it is not engaged so much, like while sleeping, or during meditation or active relaxation like a walk in nature.
I need to practice the drums physically regularly to improve.
I'm far away from your level of aptitude and therefore train my muscles to play what I got in my head. But still I improve on things by motor imagery training. Just thinking about a rhythm or drumpart or song helps me to improve get better at playing the drums. I especially love doing some intricate drum thing just before going to bed. Then my brain has the time to process the lesson while relaxing and rewiring.
And yes sometimes in the morning there is a breakthrough and I can do a polyrhythmic figure with ease that wasn't possible the day before.
I hope you can take a lesson from my comment.
You did a great job on verbalising your learning process.
I know what you mean by telepathic learning and which neuroscientific principles are behind it.
This is amazing.
I hope to come to the level of understanding to be able to do this myself.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention so that I can work on my learning process.
You know what I'm thinking about this😊
oh this is so good. as a graphic designer this process also works for how to approach a design or request from a client. sometimes at the end of a conversation i've already seen the design and how to approach it. Everything you said should be written on stone tablets. so 'telepathy' or 'seeing the box shapes' in some inner eye..same thing really. even better if one can "hear' the box shape. Im amazed as i continue playing that I can alsmost pick out out the first note of a root key and I dont have perfect pitch. almost as if the hands know where to go..... so again, 'telepathic' as you point out. this is such an awesome topic.
That’s a very good explanation. If one thinks further the question goes to the connection of consiousness and reality. Great stuff! 👍🏻
Thank you so much Michael, I’m really happy to hear that :) And funny you mention that, because I’ve had the same thoughts!
I recognize myself in this to a significant degree. Having now played guitar for nigh on 40 years, my brain has become accustomed to do a lot of computing work on the off-time, as it were. We play mostly original material in our trio, and I spend surprisingly little time with guitar in hand working out how to solve things. Having perfect pitch does help too, that must be said. I also allways leave room for improvisation, lots of it, in fact. I don't think I've ever "written" a solo, for example. Bits may be played several times if I am particularly pleased with certain bits, but as soon as I'm bored, it's off on improvisation again, and so it goes...
Awesome!! That’s really interesting to hear :)
Very interesting. Loved the notion of hearing shapes! I also use the process of solving computer problems by leaving them alone for a while.
Awesome! I can see how that would work :)
This is absolutely my process with drums. I quite often fully learn a song without touching a drum kit, piecing together sections that I am familiar with or that I have learned in the past. I also really relate to the idea that walking away from practice will often allow me to process and get better at the part I was struggling with.
With keys though, I have to learn everything much more methodically. I can hear the different arpeggios and cadences, but because every key signature feels so different to play on keys I have to drill them into muscle memory far more.
Really interesting Cici!
Ahh that’s really interesting to know, I can imagine how they would feel really different actually!
My brain will do that with certain other subjects, mainly ones I don’t actually enjoy learning, like mathematics 😂 I’ll have to keep going over it because my brain constantly discards it, which is the last thing I want to have to keep doing hahaha
Holy cow Queenie, that is exactly how I've learned guitar and bass over the years! Of course, I had to learn the fretboard and technique until about age 16. Then at some point I realized my ear was so developed I could pick out the pitch and key almost like a super power, then I could hear the melody in my head and once I sit down with a guitar, and actually physically practice the song and maybe 75% of the time, I could play it in 1 to 3 times. Like you said, there are songs that require a grind to learn, 10 times or more sometimes. As I've played regularly for the last 20 or so years it only gets easier but at the same time,😮it's a life long thing, and you never learn it all. Someone said in order to be a master of your preferred skill, you must dedicate 10,000 hours. But I digress, you're gonna still be pretty badass way before you reach 10,000!! You already sound and look great on stage, and you're gigging regularly so you're at least well on your way. Keep it up mam!
My lower brain has just let me known that any song that has not been practised at least 10,000 times with a rate of one rehearsal a week will be erased from the long-term memory for archive maintenance purposes.
Happy your brain is not working the same way!
Thanks to share in a very didactic way. ^^
Hahaha brilliant! Nothing wrong with that :)
For what it’s worth, I can relate to that in a way, if I’m trying to learn a subject that doesn’t interest me (like algebra or similar things 😂)
@@CiciVonStrangelove Music theory and algebra both bring up horrific PTSD from my childhood.😵💫 Happy you have mastered at least one of them! 😉
This was really fascinating to watch and listen to!
I feel like I'm kind of in a median point, between the way that your brain works, and the polar opposite. However, this is extremely intriguing for me to test out myself with almost an exact way that you do things. This is because, with merely 30 minutes of intense practice on a single subject, I'll pick up the instrument the next day to practice the same thing, and have made plenty of bounds of improvements.
Thank you so much for sharing this with us, and for using so much detail in the process!
I have literally done this for years, (53 now) but, never heard it explained so well. I have however done this with building/crafting/making thing's. By the time it comes to actually starting, I've already built it several times in my head, discovering most of the pitfalls along the way. I don't however think I learn instruments this way, I don't know why, but I am going try. Keep up the good work Cici 😃
Fascinating... As someone who didn't really start playing guitar until I was over 40 (I'm 60 now), I wish I had honored my younger brain capacity for this. I grew up in a time and place where too much drugs/alcohol were popular. To foster this type of learning capacity you describe, I wish I had stayed away from those poisons/distractions. Although I would guess that many of us who "can't turn it off" use those substances to try and do so. I wish I had been more confident and had a friend like you when I was 20. You go girl! I'll keep trying, but it happens more slowly now. Enjoy youth!
Thank you. This video really hit home for me. I am on the autism spectrum so I would not be considered "normal" by many people and I understand what you are saying. So many people on yt seem to imply that you need to learn the chord shapes and physically practice, practice, practice: hammering out the chords and moving them up and down the fretboard. For many people that probably works. Many human endeavors require that kind of discipline. I don't doubt that many good musicians learn that way for what they want to do. I may be wrong, but I suppose that rhythem guitar largely fits that mold. But, if someone is mostly intuitive and empathic, that won't work. I am interested in playing melody/vocal lines. I want to come as close as possible to imitating the human voice. I can't sing worth a damn. I'm also interested in four strings tuned in fifths. Six strings are physically uncomfortable. The piccolo bass particularly interests me as well as the normal bass. I haven't really started playing yet because the music is swimming around in my heart and in my head and I'm not sure if I can find a teacher who can help me translate the music to my little hands and short fingers. Thank you, again.
Funny last night ...I'm not sure if I ever slept....I started learning a new song a few days ago.....and somewhere in state of awareness & sleep my mind kept practicing a groove and chord sequence, over and over and over ...until I woke up. welcome to the world of the over active mind of an ENTJ / INTJ personality type that has a brain that absolutely never -ever stops thinking and processing information.
My brain does exactly the same thing 🤣 Although I’m an INFJ
You are describing aspects of "intuitive" learning. Most people use a logical process, of which there are different types. Emotional logic, social logic, inductive logic, etc. People who use logic, in any of it's forms, don't generally get people who are intuits (as opposed to just plain twits...) as the process is internal and runs"in the background". I sometimes just "know" what the answer is. It infuriated my maths teacher at school (many, many years ago) as he would often set a problem that should take the class 20 minutes so that he could mark some homework. About half the time I would get the answer right just from reading the question, yet I couldn't "show my working" as it was completely intuitive. Great eye catching video title though!
Your so correct!.. been starting to play tool songs on bass..and Justin s thinking is amazing. I have to walk away for days
Amazing!! He really is awesome :)
I learn exactly the same way you do. Unfortunately, my brain will NOT turn it off sometimes!!! I drive myself CRAZY.
Ahh no! I know that feeling, it’s exhausting isn’t it haha!! You have all my sympathy
I can see the struggle! XD also; In regards to the thing, around laying off the instrument for a time, and then magically be better when you get back to it; I have that with drawing, myself! - Cool to hear someone else put it into words! o3o - Cheers! - S
Ahh that’s so interesting! I knew it would apply to other things! :)
@@CiciVonStrangelove I have it with piano too, actaully (Thinking about it) - Not sure I've had it on Guitar, though (That one, I haven't really thought about, in this regard) - Ah well! Cheers! ^_^/
BRAVA...!!!
Excellently shared😉👍👍
The groove is key, the rest is falls into place seemingly, by itself 😉👍👍
😎✌👍❤🖖
This is blowing my mind as I also do this! Perfectly explained
Amazing! Thank you so much, I’m really happy to hear that :)
Cici, I think you've made your points quite clearly. Congrats in this first video essay 👏.
I use, at times, similar, powerful, respect-the-brain approaches because I can identify with the frustration of digging in too hard on something, without breaks, to the point of diminishing returns. That said, I like to resort to the physical mode as much as I can because playing the drum kit (as I do, at least) is pretty damn good physical exercise 💪 Gotta keep the hard-bod 😉 And engaging on the physical, along with all the other levels, is quite therapeutic for the soul and mind. Purifying.
After watching this I've booked my retreat to Tibet to learn this mystic process - anything that cuts down on physical practice always welcome. Cracking fireplace and wood stove you've got there Queenie.
I can completely relate to this. I really need the processing time otherwise my brain won't learn it. Thankyou so much for doing this video, I felt like I was the only one!
Amazing! I’m so glad you found it reassuring :) I felt like I was the only one for a long time too, years of people telling me off for learning this way 😂
I find that background processing in my brain works better if i don't have to interact with other people. I'll take a shower, or go away from the family to cook or something and I telepathically solve computer programming problems or come up with new bass parts for a song I'm working on.
As far as learning songs goes, last year i was looking for some paid work and I'd put the set list on Spotify and go for a run, give it a day to sink in and I'd have most of a new set learned. I'd have to go through to prove to myself that it worked and learn the tricky bits but it was substantially all there.
Very interesting. You got me thinking about my own process and I figure that I practice/learn material mentally about 60 to 80 percent of the time and the rest is flushing stuff out physically. There are times when I need to spend more time physically working out to improve my technique or stamina but as far as learning and working out ideas, I’m in the same boat as you. Great video. Thank you.
Really great video!! Made me really some things that are very helpful in memorizing music and patterns. Thanks so much ❤
Truthfully thought this video was very relaxing. Thank you Cici
I’m really happy to hear that! Thank you :)
Great video, Cici! thank you very much for sharing your personal process with us🙏😊
Thank you so much Galo! Great to hear from you :)
Ha, great intro! 😂 Oh and as an aside, I love your 'wood gods'/green men either side of the hearth. Also, I've only just started the vid but I think I got the jist of why you are using that word, and seeing your explanation before the rest of the vid confirms that I was in the ballpark. Right, time to listen properly while i have time! Thanks. Should be interesting! EDIT: Very very interesting Cici, and yes, some of this definitely resonated with me too. Great content. Thank you!
Thank you! Glad you saw the irony in it 😂 Ahh they’re really nice aren’t they, really need to get the one on the left hung up at the same height as the other one haha!! I can send you a link to them both if you like :). Thanks so much for watching, I’m really glad you enjoyed it!
Thanks for this, Cici. This validates and clarifies much of how I learn. I’ve been playing music for 30 years, but bass for only a few. Often I understand music in my head first, before all of the notes. At times I need to practice a specific part or song repeatedly. However, if I try to focus too long on the same thing I’ll start to get worse each iteration, until I do something else first.
These types of lessons are hard to find online. Thanks for sharing more insights as a musician other than just playing.
Envious of anyone that can learn this way, or by ear … I’m a slave to the tabs!
Nothing wrong with that either! :)
Interesting, I sort of do this when I’m working on improvised music, I try to get an idea in my head before I think about picking an instrument up. I didn’t quite think about it the way you do but have now realised that you make a lot of sense!
That’s really interesting to hear Darrell! Glad it made sense :) thanks for watching!
Thanks a lot Cici for this unconventional but super interesting succession about learning 🤩. Currently I want to change my learning process for guitar and bass playing because I think I'm taking too long. Now I know what I must try next....your tips. 🙏
Excellent video and very interesting.. Everyone should be open to different ways of learning. Years ago there was something I was learning and I used to pick up more from watching than doing. I was criticised at the time but it worked for me.
My brain works similarly. Gotta give things time to ferment, to process in the subconscious.
Verry cool ❤👍
It's awesome to learn more from you and the way you think ^-^ Greetings, Cici.
Thank you so much for taking the time! Glad you enjoyed it :)
Yes, thanks for sharing Cici…Blessed be! 🙌
Great video, would love seeing more content like this.
I’m really happy you enjoyed it! I’d love to make more content like this, I have lots of ideas :)
I'm just gonna go ahead and stick my controller in port number 2 for the remainder of this video
Well all I have to say is learning like this isn't totally unique this is how I have always learned everything. Infact if I don't step away it actually takes me much longer. I was an auto technician for 34 years and my main job was drivability diagnostics. When I had to stop working for a year due an injury I thought I would loose my edge but when I returned to work I was actually 10 times better. It the same for my guitar playing and recording every time a thank a break things come faster when I return. Thanks for the video.
I get it! As well as guitar, IMy Spanish improved when I moved from Spain to Egypt because subconsciously, my brain was translating to Spanish because I couldn’t speak Egyptian to make me understood…. Bizarre bit of background processing.
It seems my brain works very close to what you explained. I'm not a musician. I think this way to learn works for all one things you learn. 😊
Awesome! That’s great to know :)
Great as always!!
Thank you so much! :)
The subconscious mind is an amazing thing.
Great vid - fascinating stuff. I’ve never really thought about how I learn guitar before but a lot of what you’ve said is quite familiar. In particular when I’m writing a new riff, I know in my head what I want, which is similar to process B, but if I can’t do it physically I have to revert to Process A. If I still can’t do it, I do exactly what you’ve described and walk away from it. Then 9 times out of 10 when I come back to it a week later I can do it. It’s like my brain needed time to process the physical mechanics against the conceptual idea.
I’d love to see you demo this? Like try to learn a song you don’t know that is moderately challenging. Maybe film yourself doing process A, and then come back to it a few days later and film it again to show the difference? I think that would really make the penny drop for people unfamiliar with this.
Interesting video! Thanks!
BTW, on this subject, I strongly recommend Hal Galper's The Illusion of an Instrument video (it's here on TH-cam). It will blow your mind, I guarantee.
Beautiful ❤
Brilliant ✌🏼
I'm mildly amused that the subject line led to YT recommending some quite bizarre links.
The T-word isn't the term I would have chosen but I get what you're talking about. I've had many times when i get stuck with a problem (not always related to music) and doing something unrelated while my subconscious works out what is required is often helpful. Professionally, I've learned to recognise when a suitable "distraction" is required (it often applies to writing some types of report). I've only had a couple of times when this applied to bass-playing, but it's cool to know that it works for you.
FWIW, I've recently been trying to learn a Periphery bass line and it has been beating me up. This evening, having not touched it for more than a week (mostly because I've been fighting a virus, then a chest infection), I suddenly realised how to solve a couple of key issues with the tab I've been using as a starting point. Still need to build some muscle memory, but at least it makes sense now.
Haha brilliant. And interesting to know your process! The reason I use the word telepathically is a play on what people who don’t work this way THINK it is, not what it actually is. I explain this in the pinned comment in more detail though.
I was trying to get that irony across in the first few seconds of the video as well!
Thabk you for the video sister.
Thank you so much for watching :)
I even went as far as buying drums and all kinds of pedals...just to hear what's going on
I think this is normal in many other cultures. Just northern European thinking tends to focus strictly on the physical practical actions and push an ethos of hard work and physical effort for so many things forgetting the power of the mind and consciousness.
Have you ever tried to do "16 personalities" test? I'm actually curious what results would you get :) I'm asking because I usually learn moves by visualizing them and then it's easier for me to actually perform them. I think it's associated with my personality which is INFJ. One of my friends is the same. Sorry for long comment :)
I have indeed! I’m also an INFJ, so hello fellow INFJ :) I can relate to what you say about visualising things!
@@CiciVonStrangelove I knew it! What's interesting I chose bass, same as my friend but we didn't know we have interest in the same instrument. That's actually scary how good these test are. Knowing that I'm INFJ helped me with my social skills but there's still a lot of work. Love your content :) Awesome room by the way.
@@Highwind1989 That’s awesome, I’m really glad it’s helped you! :) and thank you so much!
Take care of this "skill". It is too powerfull.
😘😘😘😘😘😘😘
Bit left field ci ci but interesting
Learning with neuronal memory would be more accurate and have the same bait effect. Regardless, great information any musician should take seriously.
"Telepathy, or thought transfer, is a supposed parapsychological phenomenon, which means the ability to communicate with others through thought."
The learning method you describe, i.e. you listen to the song and play it as if in your mind, is not telepathic learning in my opinion, for that it would mean that another person teaches you speechlessly, by thinking about the thing, so that your thoughts would become his thoughts, and thus you would understand everything that is in the song on an emotional level as well as the physical in addition to the level, and you could thus transfer it directly to your playing.'
Rather, you could say that you learn with your imagination, imaginatively.
How does my interpretation sound?
p.s. I had to switch to google translator when I ran out of vocabulary...
After all, letting things be, i.e. simmering, is a completely normal way for everyone to learn things, let's talk about sleeping through the night. So you've learned the thing, so you give your brain time to digest it and when you feel like it, you pick up the instrument and see, you know how to sing a song like water from beginning to end.
I used the same method, for example, when I decided to stop binge drinking. I made a decision, justified it and let it be, at that time it was the end of December in 2017. On June 1st in 2019, I woke up at 8 in the morning, sat up and said out loud: -Now it's over! I continued in my mind that what is over, oh yes, drinking, and indeed, the craving, the desire to drink booze, to get drunk, to escape from reality by turning off the thoughts, was gone. A couple of months went by and I didn't feel like drinking. I decided to test, so I bought half a liter of clear liquor and a few beers. I took the beers and started "drinking" the booze. I was allowed to drink Desi until it started to get to my head, that is, I started to get drunk, when I had a really strong reaction: No, I really don't want to be drunk. I took the rest to the neighbor and said it doesn't taste good, drink it away.
Now, 4½ years later, I've been slightly drunk for maybe 50 hours the entire time, so I didn't stop completely, but I can drink two or three beers, and as soon as I start to get high, I stop. At the moment, it takes a conscious decision to get even a little drunk, I still can't drink more than maybe 8-10 beers during the evening. And it doesn't taste good either. Still, it is the best muscle relaxant.
The process is the same for everyone, whatever you call it.
I understand what you’re saying, but I explain why I refer to it as telepathy in the video a few times. Also, everyone learns in a different way - as I explain in the video, I’ve had people all throughout my life being confused at how I learn and process things, and even telling me off for it. If the process was the same for everyone, this wouldn’t happen and everyone would understand. But instead I had to make this video to explain it :)
Not sure "telepathically" is the right word. I hear a song that I think I want to learn. I will listen and start learning BUT, I will get to a point where I can "learn" no more and mess up, get frustrated, etc etc... Leave it a couple of days and go again. I think that 99% of the way that every musician learns. Coming back to it, just before getting frustrated, it will sound better and better. Is that telepathy? I don´t think so, its just the way the human brain works
I explain several times in the video why I call it ‘telepathy’, and it’s not because it’s in the literal sense. It is the right word to use in the context of what I’m talking about in the video (it isn’t because I’M calling the process telepathy, it’s a play on how people who don’t work in this way can be confused over the process and therefore see it as being something like that instead).
As I said, it’s because when a lot of people who don’t work in this way can’t see the process happening physically, many of them can’t understand how it’s even being learnt, as it’s an internal process. This leads them to laugh and think it must be happening telepathically (which, as I explain in the video, it isn’t, obviously).
And the other reason I mention in the video, is that it’s also just a process that people who don’t work in this way often see as being an unreasonable way to learn, and as being as outlandish as telepathy.
Again, I also mention in the video that I think many musicians work in this way, but it certainly isn’t 99%.
If it was, I wouldn’t have faced so much misunderstanding over it, and I wouldn’t have felt the need to make this video.
But again, I really am quoting things I’ve already been over in the video
@@CiciVonStrangelove I wasnt critisizing, just commenting. My process is, listen to a song, spend an hour learning sections and then, when I am simply not getting it, leave it, come back tomorrow. I always find that the next day things start falling into place. Why? Is my brain processing the song without me thinking about it? Maybe, who knows.
mamacita,,do you have a bf?
Its really not telepathy, what you explain is something else. It's not telepathy
That’s my point. Read the pinned comment (and please listen to the video again if you have to)
Done. I understand you can call a cat a dog, a house a tiger, we are all free in this world, but still all words have a definition.
@@GB-333 they do indeed, and the fact that it’s not actually telepathy, is the point of this video. As I said, the word is being used ironically, because it ISN’T telepathy, but can appear that way and people can think it is (in a non serious way). People say “oh you learn telepathically” (the point is, no, I don’t)
Did you hear the dad from Good Times just died?
i left a comment about it to the hot british bass girl. it's really a joke cause she's british and like 12 years younger than us so there's no fuckin' way she knows what i'm talking about
used to process without playing and working the cassette player fast forward then rewind for two days then doing it live with the band now it's playing straight forward at volume . Then with the band weeks later
I just wish bass players didn't stand next to their bass cabinet . For me as a drummer I need to tell both guitarist's volume levels and the lower the volume the better. I can tell you are a listener not just a player