i miss my left brain

[heavyfunkmachin]

when i started playing bass i was very soon atracted to improvisation.. i would get "in trance" or in the groove or in the zone... whatever you call it...

anyway, time perception went away and i would just give myself to the music.

as i keeped learning, i understood much more about scales, modes and whatnot... but now i miss the old feeling... i keep improvisng, but i seems like my mind thinks about what i am doing and "understands" the music too much, and i cant just play like i used to...

i explained it to myself this way, im no expert so i just hope it makes sense, i feel like my right-rational brain used too be very busy just coordinating my fingers, so somehow my left-emotional brain took over control, and there i was... grooving away...

now, im much better and i cant play without thinking about it... but my right brain, now free from the rithmic and coordinations duties, looks for more work, so as i am playing i think about scales i´m in, inversions, where i am going, how im going to get there.... and it´s taken over control of me... so, now, i miss my left brain.

do you relate to this?
how can i get back the old feeling?

p.s. sorry for the bad english.

[mutedeity]

No, can't relate at all. Theory made me more creative, not less. You should be using your knowledge of theory to think beyond what the "correct" thing to do is.

If you are spending too much time thinking about which notes are the right ones to play it's probably because you haven't spent enough time practising what you are doing and are still struggling with "rules".

Practice applying your theory to technique and you will free yourself up creatively. Sounds ironic, I know, but that is the way it works.

[kesslari]

There's a saying or idea that I'll do my best to describe.

When you start fresh you have "beginner's mind". Everything is creative.
Then you start to study, and you begin thinking about what you're doing. Everything is work.
As you improve, you internalize what you've learned. You don't have to think about it, and it can flow expressively.

Most of us go back and forth between the second and third steps, cycling upward as we learn more.

In Zen they say
Before I studied Zen, mountains were just mountains and rivers were just rivers;
When I began to study Zen, everything was different. Mountains were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers.
When I attained Enlightenment, mountains were just mountains and rivers were just rivers.

[Thunderthumbs73]

Originally Posted by heavyfunkmachin

when i started playing bass i was very soon atracted to improvisation.. i would get "in trance" or in the groove or in the zone... whatever you call it...

anyway, time perception went away and i would just give myself to the music.

as i keeped learning, i understood much more about scales, modes and whatnot... but now i miss the old feeling... i keep improvisng, but i seems like my mind thinks about what i am doing and "understands" the music too much, and i cant just play like i used to...

i explained it to myself this way, im no expert so i just hope it makes sense, i feel like my right-rational brain used too be very busy just coordinating my fingers, so somehow my left-emotional brain took over control, and there i was... grooving away...

now, im much better and i cant play without thinking about it... but my right brain, now free from the rithmic and coordinations duties, looks for more work, so as i am playing i think about scales i´m in, inversions, where i am going, how im going to get there.... and it´s taken over control of me... so, now, i miss my left brain.

do you relate to this?
how can i get back the old feeling?

p.s. sorry for the bad english.

I can't quite relate where I feel the same way, but I think I understand what you're saying. I would say take some time and play music with people and in a manner which requires immediate reaction and response and instrinctive playing, and which gives you less time to think about what you want to do and mentally map it out beforehand, etc... I think the very best thing to do is to play some jazz tunes with good players in a jam situation, songs which you don't know or are at best only vaguely familiar and ideally totally unrehearsed. Put yourself where you are stretching yourself as a player/musician and thinking more about the music and the bare essentials to successfully navigate the music, than your technique.

Pick up a Real Book and with your buds, go through as much of this as you can manage. Don't over rehearse the thing. Don't aim for perfection. Just try to get the essence of the thing and make the music happen. When you and the group can navigate through it reasonably well, and you find yourself thinking (or starting to) about "I should do this, and that, and next time I'll do this..." then move on to the next tune, and keep going in that fashion.

Another thing to do is to go an opposite direction, in a sense. How? Play ballads. Play these types of songs as the they require a certain kind of musicality, that requires a player to sublimate their ego and technical capabilities to putting their musical capabilities first. Sure you can potentially think about where to go next, and have plenty of time to think about the best transition from one chord to the next while the song is progressing, but in doing so, you may loose the feel of the thing.

In both cases, each situation, though different, requires or in my mind suggests that the best effort and the most musical outcome does not or should not occur by overthinking it.

Just my two cents.

[Siegy]

Originally Posted by kesslari

In Zen they say
Before I studied Zen, mountains were just mountains and rivers were just rivers;
When I began to study Zen, everything was different. Mountains were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers.
When I attained Enlightenment, mountains were just mountains and rivers were just rivers.

Wow. I think that describes it more perfectly than I could ever imagine.

[aus_bass]

Rock Bassist: "Can you read music ?"
Country Bassist: "Not enough to hurt my playin' !"

[Munjibunga]

I think you've got your brain hemispheres mixed up. Your right brain is your creative brain. Your left brain is the analytical side.

[mutedeity]

Originally Posted by Munjibunga

I think you've got your brain hemispheres mixed up. Your right brain is your creative brain. Your left brain is the analytical side.

I believe that is correct.

[JimmyM]

Originally Posted by kesslari

There's a saying or idea that I'll do my best to describe.

When you start fresh you have "beginner's mind". Everything is creative.
Then you start to study, and you begin thinking about what you're doing. Everything is work.
As you improve, you internalize what you've learned. You don't have to think about it, and it can flow expressively.

Most of us go back and forth between the second and third steps, cycling upward as we learn more.

In Zen they say
Before I studied Zen, mountains were just mountains and rivers were just rivers;
When I began to study Zen, everything was different. Mountains were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers.
When I attained Enlightenment, mountains were just mountains and rivers were just rivers.

I've always thought zen was stupid hippie crap, but that's pretty profound. Maybe I should take a closer look at it.

[Nyarlathotep]

Zen = Awesome.

[Jim Carr]

Originally Posted by Munjibunga

I think you've got your brain hemispheres mixed up. Your right brain is your creative brain. Your left brain is the analytical side.

Munji is correct here. However, the well-known theory of hemispheric differentiation (a given brain hemisphere taking a fixed role) has been shot full of holes (so to speak) in recent years [citation needed].

[varunkapahi]

Originally Posted by kesslari

In Zen they say
Before I studied Zen, mountains were just mountains and rivers were just rivers;
When I began to study Zen, everything was different. Mountains were no longer mountains and rivers were no longer rivers.

wow! a friend of mine said the same thing but he was referring to some drugs he's been on

[DocBop]

Originally Posted by heavyfunkmachin

as i keeped learning, i understood much more about scales, modes and whatnot... but now i miss the old feeling... i keep improvisng, but i seems like my mind thinks about what i am doing and "understands" the music too much, and i cant just play like i used to...

That's because you like many players forget to take the things you learn and learn to make music with them. Too many learn a scale or mode and run it up and down typically in a couple positions and do over and over and over. Once you get something under your fingers then should all be about hearing the scale, hearing the interval, hearing the related chords, listening/transcribing tunes using it. Then sitting and doing your improve with that scale, mode, arpeggios, etc. You want the learn how to use a scale, mode, etc musically.

Same with Theory too many look at it as a rule book. Theory is an organation tool that labels and identifiy things commonly done. But its again your job to take a theory idea and make music with it. You study a theory concept, then check out how it was used, now time for you to make it your own. How can you use the same tool in your way. Like a scientist goes to school for years to study theory and what other have already done so they can go out and use that to create new things.

Too many practice like they want to be technicians running scales and chops exercises. They treat theory books like rules and not source of new ideas. Then they wonder why their playing sounds mechanical and uninspired. As soon as you get something under your fingers quit working on technique and start working use. It only take the typical human to learn a new physcal skill between 10-100 receptions. So instead of hours of doing 16th note drills, spend a few hours working on one of TOP Rocco's bass lines. Learn to musically use 16th.

It all about how you practice, not what you practice. As one of my fave old guitar teachers would say..... See It, Feel It, Make It Your Own!

[HaVIC5]

Originally Posted by JimmyM

I've always thought zen was stupid hippie crap, but that's pretty profound. Maybe I should take a closer look at it.

Get the book "Zen Guitar" by Philip Toshio Sudo. Not just you, everybody here in this thread. It's a great way a looking at the process of music making at your development as a player. Stupid hippie crap it is not.