Carving neural paths

Yesterday we did our student symphony boat tour, to Gustavus and Hoonah. It was a long day, 6 am to 10 pm. The concerts went quite well, but my topic of the day is related to conversations on the boat between concerts, which is almost the best part about these trips.

Talking with Dave, Paul, Paula, Ken, Anastasia, Judy - all adults starting new on instruments or returning after very long layoffs - and with Bob Hutton, the band director from Hoonah, about my experiences - us adult music learners are keenly interested in the process of learning that goes on in these older brains. Can we lay down the neural paths that we could have if we'd done this when we were young? Does it take longer? Or is it still possible? (I am convinced it is, by my own experience.)

Recent brain research seems to indicate that we keep on creating these new neural paths as we get older. Something I heard or read recently was discussing how you do something once, then you come back and do it again the next day. The memory of doing it twice now makes that path just a little stronger. Then you do it again the next day. It gets a tiny bit easier and the path gets a tiny bit stronger. The key, though, is doing it again and again, over time - as in, no easy breaks, you have to put in the time. And it takes calendar time. You have to do it over and over, day after day.

This is how I want to approach working on the concert band music. Some of it is quite challenging. I have been working tonight on Paul Hindemith's March from Symphonic Metamorphosis. It is fast, there are rhythms that are challenging for me, there are accidentals all over the place. I laid down a neural track tonight on the first and most of the second page. I focused on getting the notes right with all of the accidentals, and getting the rhythm right, but slowly, very slowly. It feels good. I can almost feel the itchy little groove in my brain.

I also set myself the objective to play all the way up to 9 pm. Sometimes I allow myself to get bored with working hard on a piece and let myself off the hook, but I know I am doing that. So I only put in about 30 minutes tonight, but I stuck with it right through.

BTW, I played a TON yesterday, on our tour to Gustavus and Hoonah, and also played two Easter programs this morning, so haven't exactly been slacking. ;)