Hypnosis to learn to play music....

[Charlie]

Here's the situation :

A client comes to you who has been 'dabbling' in music for decades. They do have proficiency to the extent of knowing lots of chords, notes etc, and being quite able to find those chords etc easily & quickly on their chosen instrument. This knowledge has enabled the client a noticeable fluency with 'improvising' and occasionally 'playing along' with CDs etc. i.e. The client certainly has a sense of rhythm & 'musicality', overall.

However, one major stumbling block, which he has also had for decades. Specifically : Reading music.

Basically, he can only read music r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y, which drives him nuts, by the way.

Could this client be hypnotised (and/or be taught self-hypnosis), such that he could look at a sheet of music, stick it on the music stand, and sight-read as quickly as the music needs to be played? (i.e. like a professional musician could/should be able to do, presumably)

Is this possible?

How many hypno sessions would it take, approx?

I burn with curiosity to hear the answer to this question, from any of you professional hypnotherapists/NLPers out there.

Thank-You.

Charlie.

[Soren K (existing)]

Basically, he can only read music r-e-a-l-l-y s-l-o-w-l-y, which drives him nuts, by the way.
Could it be that the more he reads it and plays the notes, the quicker he will be able to read it...? Does he also see/hear a green man/beeping of the pedestrian crossing and wait 3 seconds before he crosses the road? Probably he knows exactly what that symbol means and what to do in response to it.. (if you think about it that wouldn't have been an easy thing to coordinate at some point in his life, till he learned certain skills, but then quite easy)...

[Terry (existing)]

"Is it possible"?
Yes,
How many sessions?
Depends on the skill and experience of the practitioner as is always the case.

[Poodle]

ANYONE can learn to read music unless totally mentally impaired. It's really difficult as the notes go ABCDEFG over and over. The more one "thinks" - "I can't do this", the more they will NOT DO IT. Now we come to the question of which instrument is the person playing? The hardest part in music is counting the notes and with a very little lesson in math it becomes a piece of cake. I am guessing here from what you wrote the person is wishing to play the guitar?? I would highly suggest a good music teacher and, if it is the guitar, music now comes in tablature which really aggrivates people like me that have taught music for decades. Everything in the beginning is SLOW. The old saying is true: Rome wasn't built in a day. With practice (and as Don says "perfect practice"), this person will be playing well. It's a matter of how much this person wants to play and how much time s/he is willing to invest. Not all of us are Eric Claptons that get a guitar, lock ourselves up in the bedroom for a weekend and come out with bloody fingers knowing that instrument PERFECTLY. I started at age 7 and haven't quit yet although I am down to just one guitar and hopefully for Christmas a Native American flute. And, when we do get going, it is a trance-like experience as we have no conscious knowledge of what we are doing - it just happens. I would suggest NLP for modeling and remove the limiting and negative thought patterns. Pood :)

[pmdigi]

i would suggest more practice sessions reading music.

[Don]

pm, I would have to disagree. This person has been practicing for "decades," and all of that practice has not worked. More practice is simply going to reinforce the problem, not the solution. Put another way, practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.

It seems to me that this person has two problems:
1) Unlearning the bad system they currently use
2) Installing a new system that will be more effective

Unfortunately, there is another problem in changing this behavior. As we know, people learn in one of three major ways: Visually, aurally, and kinesthetically. Reading music is a visual process, and unless someone can bring up their visual abilities, a way must be created to teach something very visual either aurally or kinesthetically. My guess is that this client is either more aurally or kinesthetically oriented, and simply trying to drive home "Every Good Boy Does Fine" (for our British members, "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour") will only end up causing more frustration. And if you want to move beyond simple note playing to chordal pattern recognition and the cycles of fifths, it becomes even more problematic.

My suggestion is that this client should be turned over to a hypnotherapist who is well-schooled in music and music theory as well as hypnotherapy. There are methods for teaching music reading using the imagery of high and low or where a note "feels" it should be and relating it to the notes on the staff.

Terry, I believe, is only partially correct when he says the length of time it will take is dependent upon the skill of the hypnotist. This client has been "dabbling" with music for "decades" and all this time has learned how to read music slowly. This implies a lack of real desire to learn. After all, if they had really wanted to learn they would have sought more assistance 10 or 20 years ago.

I would also suggest that this person take a class in what is known as "sight singing." It will help them learn, teach a valuable musical skill, and may be one of the most challenging classes they have ever experienced. Personally, I would not even consider taking on such a client until that had passed a sight singing class.

[Jack]

There is much in what Don has said that is valuable, Charlie.

Another approach would be to check out how speed reading works. In this case there is no requirement to scan 10,000 wpm but speed of reading has to be matched to speed of playing, with the latter slightly faster. But I have to say that it is something I have never done with music, so I cannot guarantee the results.

Jack

[skip]

Charlie,

I would take a different tack from the rest.

Do you ride a bicycle, or better can you ride one?

Do you remember the difference between learning how intellectually, as in someone told you 'what to do'; and your trying to physically implement what you knew in your head, and then actually 'getting it', and riding; and finally riding effortlessly, without a single conscious thought directed towards the mechanics of riding; your only thought, to where you are going?

Your friend is 'stuck' somewhere along this process.

I suspect they know intellectually, as pood points out, there are only eight notes. Of course fingering the frets, or finding the right keys, or pushing the correct 'buttons', is a bit more complex, but it is still eight notes repeated.

And I suspect that your friend knows that when they 'see' this note, in this octave, they know the proper 'fingering' and or embesure, to achieve it.

My guess is that they dont 'know' it unconsciously, they must make a conscious 'effort'. And that is why they are so slow.

The same is true for using a forigen language. Until you can 'think' in that language, you will be forever 'translating' and that takes conscious thought, and slows you down.

In other words, your friend has probably reached the third level of learning, Conscious competent, unconscious incompetent.

Your friend 'needs' wants to reach a level of 'unconscious competence'.

Like you ride the bicycle, or they drive their car. Where they 'just do it'.

From a process standpoint, you want to establish a synesthisia, a see, feel, response, that then adjusts the kinesthetic according to auditory input.

A 'see the note' feel the correct physical response (fingering and embesure if applicable).

Two BASIC ways to do this.

Conscious practice: Continual repetition of seeing the note on paper, and hitting the correct note on the insturmant. Scales, etc, and that is why the best virtuosos practice sacles every day. They learn to love it!

Unconscious practice: Hypnotizing yourself, either self, or hetero, and 'practicing perfectly' guess what? Yes, scales again. And by that I mean both feeling the physical sensations of hitting the note perfectly, the proper fingering, breath, embesure etc, and hearing the note perfectly when the physical is right.

The same you do consciously, right?

Now it has been a long time since I learned a new musical insturment, but we all learn new insturments to a level of unconscious competence every day.

Practice, yes. But practice with a definte purpose, that of learning to associate the visual (note on paper), with an automatic physical response, that is monitored and adjusted auditorily.

hope that helps,

skip

[Charlie]

Great responses.

Thank you all so much. I really appreciate it.

I get the feeling, from your various comments, that some extra info might have been useful, and so :

1. The instrument is the Piano.
2. When it comes to music the client flips into strong auditory mode, immediately.
3. Furthermore, the client GENERALLY responds very strongly to ANY external auditory input, much more so than visual input. You could sit hm in a room with violently clashing wallpaper, and he wouldn't give a damn. In fact he'd just laugh. But you sit him in a room where 'the sound is kinda slightly off', and he freaks out, has to literally fight an urge to leave the room. (And yet the client also 'thinks in pictures' a lot, internally, e.g. when thinking about the past. ( 'through' time-line))
4. The client reads 'ordinary' books quite quickly, and always has done. Or at least quicker than most, enough that others will comment on it.
5. The client is also a good speller, and always has been. (He once commented "It sometimes pains me to see a misplaced letter." )
6. The client is very self-motivated in nature, when it comes to things he really wants.
7. The client has, periodically over the last few decades, made real effort to learn to read music, and at one time spent 6 months doing little but creating & listening to a series of auditory self-tests on cassette tape (kinda like those old linguaphone language learning tapes). e.g. "Question : What is the note on the third line up on the treble clef?" Pause. "Answer is note B". Etc.
8. The client has commented that it would be substantially easier for him to learn a foreign language than to learn to read music, and is very perplexed as to why this should be. (He has previously become fairly proficient in other languages in just a few months)
9. The client has been to piano music classes, and found them 'too formal', (and even 'too slow'), and soon gets upset at his lack of music reading ability.
10. The client has some knowledge/awareness of NLP etc. He has said things like "When I'm in a music phase, I wake up with new music blaring in my head, I guess my unconscious plays whilst I'm asleep, re-arranging music patterns and stuff, being creative, but what can I do with it, when I can barely read music, let alone write it? Later on in the day, I can sometimes improvise with it, though, it's kinda fun, but I can't write it down, or anything". He has also commented "I'm amused sometimes if people watch me play the piano, and they ask me to slow down my improvising, so as to see what I am doing, 'cos it's just so difficult for me to slow it down, 'cos I know if I slow down I'll make mistakes, I guess it's some kind of unconscious competence thing". He has also commented "It's just so weird. It's like I can easily con people into thinking I'm this fast proficient piano player, and yet if I have to read music, I'm like a snail, and it's so painful."

It's a somewhat sad story, I suppose. The client obviously has a love of music, and anywhere there is a piano, he's strongly drawn towards it. He'll start tinkering/improvising, then after a while someone will come up and say something like "Hey, that sounds nice, you play very expressivly, what is that?" and he'll dismissively reply "It's nothing, just a few notes, it doesn't mean anything". After a while he walks away looking very sad, and will hardly speak to anyone.

Over the decades he's developed a sort of polarity response thing to music, (I think because of this problem).

e.g. At one point (as much as is possible) he completely refused to listen to ANY music, (and would scornfully/dismissively walk past any and every music shop). This phase lasted for about two years!!!

Then there will come a time that he'll respond the opposite, suddenly thinking "I have to do something with music, I have to do something with music, I have to do something with music .....", and so he tries again, almost compulsive with self-motivation, but then falling again at the hurdle of reading music.

And so the beat goes on......... (or not)

(p.s. I once asked the client what does he do if there's a piece of music he wants to learn, or is strongly motivated to learn, that's been written by someone else, what does he do? He replied "Well, if it's even slightly complicated, then I'm stuck. I mean if there's one chord on the the treble clef, and another chord on the bass clef, even if the chords are quite simple, then I just can't play them, at least not quickly. I just get stuck. And then I get annoyed, as usual. But what I have sometimes done, is scribbled on paper, kind of extracting the notes, into a more left-to-right ABCDEFG pattern, then I can move them into my fingers to play, 'cos I can see ABCDEFG on the piano keyboard, of course, that's easy, anyone can see ABCDEFG on a piano keyboard. I mean if all music was wriiten ABCDEFG, even the the sharps & flats and that, I'd at least stand a better chance, I suppose. But still it's always slow, from paper to keyboard, especially from those notes hanging on lines. It just really annoys me. The keyboard goes from left to right, but the clefs go from top to bottom. It's just seems like a really stupid system. Or, more likely, I'm just really dumb with music, and that's all there is to it." )

(p.p.s. I have heard the client play quite complex pieces of classical music, in careful expressive detail & at some length, e.g. Beethoven. When I asked him how he does it, he says "Years ago I used my slow 'extraction method' to make it ABCDEFG, and then I kept playing the piece over & over, until I memorised it. It was a slow tedious process, but I wanted it, so I did it. Then I can improvise with bits of the piece, 'cos I know it so well. Then I can throw in bits of other styles, and improvise around that as well, and I guess it must sound very convincing to some people if they hear it, like I'm really proficient and musical and creative. And yet I still can't really read the damn music!!!)

[Jack]

That's a lot more information. And so, I'll change tack.

If it were me, I would find out what it is in his subconscious that is putting the kaibosh on what should be a simple matter for him. It could be that the benefits of not reading music are greater than the benefits of being able to do so.

I had a writer come to me because he was 'blocked' - couldn't write, blank paper and nothing. This was a chap who had written two novels, both moderately successful, several screenplays and episodes of two or three soaps. He was desperate to write, he said. It was making him crack up, he said. He saw me as a plumber with a dyno rod.

A little more investigation told me that of course he wanted to write, but other members of his family did not since it was not bringing home the bacon. They wanted him to get a proper job, like his brother, his father, his grandfather and no doubt the bloke next door with the Jag.

He loved his family. He loved his writing. But his family was winning.

So what did I do? Nothing except give him a little advice. He took it, and within the week he was writing again.

The advice? I told him to consider getting a job and writing in the evenings - if it was good enough for Dickens in the early years... but his subconscious found a better way than that.

He started a distance learning course to become qualified as an accountant. This satisfied his family - a real career - and meant that as he tapped away on his computer they assumed that he was embroiled in the finer points of double entry, which would of course lead to a Jag and ultimate happiness.

It is truly amazing how the subconscious can get very creative when given the permission. He is now a qualified accountant, but has never practiced since his writing career has blossomed. No Jag, I'm afraid, but the S Class Merc makes up for it and everybody is happy.

I have no idea whether this is of any help.:)

Jack

[tdiamond]

could it be that your friend is so fast at improv that HE FEELS that everything else is slow...

is he basing his feeling of inadequacy with the reading part because no one will ever read music as fast as they can feel it and play it without reading it..

After all, great musicians dont actually use the music to play but simply to follow along. if you are stuck trying to read there will always be a delay compared to the actual process of expression.. more steps to happen.

maybe he needs to feel badly about something in order not to feel the pressure of success and this isnt about music at all...

[Poodle]

Client is basically an "A" so therefore teacher has to teach him V using A.

Just because piano, flute and strings are horizontal does not mean in the least the least the remainder are.

your #9 is totally incongruent.

I also feel that somewhere previously client was told client CAN'T do this. "You just are not musical so forget about it." Learning scales is both A & V. Learning to count values in music is also A & V. Sorry client, people have to start at the beginning and then proceed even if it is boring. Gosh, the more boring it is, the faster client can get through with it so as to not be bored. How quickly can you get bored enough to end all of this doing it all perfectly. It's no different than being in first grade and given a bunch of sticks. Sticks eventually become letters, letters become words, words become sentences, sentences become paragraphs and pretty soon you have a whole book written. 2 + 2 = 4. From learning the basics, then one can eventually go into higher math. What fun!

Have you even bothered to try "meta" questions on this person to find out where this is coming from. Charlie, do you understand music? If client desires to play classical music, there are no short cuts. It becomes second nature, just like walking, tying shoe laces, driving a car.

[Poodle]

I just looked Charlie up in the Members section and s/he is not a NLP Prac. nor a hypnotist. I was going to suggest almost what Skip suggested - The Spelling Strategy - but with notes instead. Now with the Spelling Strategy I took a woman who admitted she could not spell "kat" and in 5 (YES FIVE) MINUTES she was spelling beautifully. I fail to see why this same process could not be achieved with "notes" in their correct placement. Me thinks Charlie is having some fun at our expense.

[Charlie]

Me thinks Charlie is having some fun at our expense.

Poodle, no, certainly not, I wouldn't waste people's time like this.

I thought it was common knowledge that I'm not a professional, but a keen amateur.

Many of my postings would tend to make this somewhat obvious, and thus my signature, when I use it, carries a disclaimer, as sometimes I've previously given advice on this board to others, and, in deference to you pros, and my amateur status, have added the signature as a disclaimer, and it seemed only fair & the right thing to do.

( Please forgive length of sentence above. It's 04:30 a.m. here in UK, and I just on first cup of coffee, and skimming through board. Somewhat bleary. I'll respond to other comments later, when more awake/coherent. Thanks. :-) )

Charlie.

[Poodle]

Then what was the usage of the word "client" since you only dabble? A hypothetical client? It's not nice to play with people's minds if you only dabble. Or could the client be YOU? You should know by now it's not nice to play with your own mind without training either.

[Charlie]

Then what was the usage of the word "client".........

Pood,

Sorry if I confused you.

I've been posting &/or lurking on this forum for years. Maybe even longer than you. I used to post as "Charlie" for quite a long time even before I registered.

I just assumed all you pros would think "oh yeah, charlie the amateur, asking his questions again........" Or something like that.

Anyway, I am actually referring to a real person, but obviously not my client as such, since I'm not a professional therapist.

Perhaps I should have said something like "IF this person were to become YOUR client, what would you, as a professional therapist, actually do?"

Well, anyway......... the responses have been VERY interesting, and I thank you all for them.

It's all a learning.

But I do apologise again if I have inadvertantly confused you, pood, as you are one of my favourite virtual doggie pals, for sure.

* pat pat *

I shall use my 'Vague Disclaimer' signature more often from now on, if that helps.

Charlie.

[Charlie]

I had a writer come to me because he was 'blocked' - couldn't write, blank paper and nothing. This was a chap who had written two novels, both moderately successful, several screenplays and episodes of two or three soaps. He was desperate to write, he said. It was making him crack up, he said. He saw me as a plumber with a dyno rod.

A little more investigation told me that of course he wanted to write, but other members of his family did not since it was not bringing home the bacon. They wanted him to get a proper job, like his brother, his father, his grandfather and no doubt the bloke next door with the Jag.

He loved his family. He loved his writing. But his family was winning.

So what did I do? Nothing except give him a little advice. He took it, and within the week he was writing again.

The advice? I told him to consider getting a job and writing in the evenings - if it was good enough for Dickens in the early years... but his subconscious found a better way than that.

He started a distance learning course to become qualified as an accountant. This satisfied his family - a real career - and meant that as he tapped away on his computer they assumed that he was embroiled in the finer points of double entry, which would of course lead to a Jag and ultimate happiness.

It is truly amazing how the subconscious can get very creative when given the permission. He is now a qualified accountant, but has never practiced since his writing career has blossomed. No Jag, I'm afraid, but the S Class Merc makes up for it and everybody is happy.


Jack, that's a GREAT story! Cheers.

Funnily enough, a professional Hypnotherapist gave me some advice recently ( in 'real' life, not online ), which he just gave very gently, almost as an 'aside', which I didn't think that much of at the time. However, later something inside of me ( an unconscious 'part'? ) subsequently 'ran with it', i.e. extrapolated from this casual advice, and the repercussions have been a lot more profound than I expected.

It was just like it was something I already knew, but I needed to be told, and told it somewhat objectively (i.e. not from a friend).

Interesting.