I’ve been struggling for a few days now on how a passage of music should sound, yet today, I’ve “played” it through in my head, while I’ve been at work! I think I understand it better now, but my feelings came from not pondering over my instrument, but taking time away from it, so here maybe my sub-consious has “taken over” so to speak.

Mind you, I’ve still to get my fingers around it

My comment about often finding that you’ve gotten better during periods of non-practice wasn’t meant in the sense of being fresh or rested, but rather referred to the fact that the subconscious is always at work–even during periods of inactivity. I’ve played a few instruments at various times and have found this phenomenon to occur after I hadn’t played for a while.

It’s also true as you say, of course, that you do need to remember your repertoire, as well as your fingerings, to play well. Yet, motor memory–along with the stirrings of the subconscious mind–play a role here, as well, provided you’ve reached a certain level of technical proficiency before your hiatus. It’s really quite a fascinating phenomenon!

Jeanne, you are more than welcome, I’m just telling the truth Yes, it can be the case playing better when you are fresh, always provided you still remember what you have to play! Believe me, fingerings go out of your mind if you don’t keep on practicing them. I will for now scale my reportoire down, and not play anything too demanding…Trouble is, that narrows the feild down to just about TWO pieces!

Have a nice day

Thanks so much for your kind words about Writer’s Notes! I apppreciate your support, and I’m very pleased that you’ve won a copy of Lillie’s book!

Enjoy!
Jeanne

P.S. Good luck with your guitar gig! You may just be surprised to find out that you’ve actually improved during your break from playing! It often happens!

I hope you enjoy Dream or Destiny! You’re right that Jeanne’s Writer’s Notes is an excellent blog.

Based on my experience helping self-publishing clients publish their books, I’ll offer a suggestion for e-publishing the novel. In addition to trade paperback, I usually create a zip file with four common electronic formats (HTML, RTF, TXT, and PDF) for the clients to sell on their Web sites and the Kindle edition to sell on Amazon.

Offering the four common formats in a single zip file cuts down on customer service issues because people often order the wrong format when given choices. Selling the book on Amazon as a Kindle edition opens your book to a whole new market. I suspect I’ve typical of Kindle owners, and any time I discover a book I want to read, I look for it in the Kindle store.