How To Use The Explicit Part Of Your Mind To Become A Better Drummer
Explicit content. Photo credit: FLY2005
Sadly, there's no swearing, sex or violence in this article
It's all about understanding your psychology, hacking into different parts of your brain and using it to your advantage to become a better drummer.
Basically, your memory is split into 2 sections and each section stores different types of information.
Explicit memory
In this sense, the word explicit means to make something clear or visible. The explicit part of your brain is used for storing list-type memories. Things that you have to think about and recall from your memory in order to bring out.
- "What did you have for breakfast this morning?"
- "Who was/is in your class at school?"
- "What are the 5 colours of the Olympic rings symbol?"
To answers these questions from memory you would be using the explicit part of your mind. You are searching your mind for the answer and bringing it out into the open so that someone else would understand it. You with me so far?
Implicit memory
Your implicit memory is very different. The word in this context means something which is understood but is inexpressable in words. Your implicit memory is used for storing skill-type memories. Things that you can do but you can't physically explain to someone else how to do. Does that make sense?
- "How do you walk?"
- "How do you ride a bike?"
- "How do you drive a car?"
These are simple skills that take no time at all to actually do but take a lot of time to explain to someone else how to do. If someone asked you how to ride a bike what would you say? Probably something like, you get on, push away then use your balance to keep you upright. But how do you explain how to balance? You can't really. That person will never know how to balance unless they give it a try and find out for themselves.
The great thing about implicit memory is that is stores things for a very long time. Even after years of not being on a bike, you could jump on one and be riding again in a short amount amount of time. But can you remember what you had for breakfast this day 5 years ago? Or even this day last week? If you're like me then probably not!
So hopefully you see the difference between these 2 types of memory. And now the interesting part!
How does this make you a better drummer?
When you learn something new you must use the explicit part of your mind to begin with. You must make a list of what you need to do in the order that you need to do it in. You must constantly think about what you are doing. Right hand and foot together, left hand on its own etc etc... This is stage 3 in The 4 Stages You MUST Pass Through To Become The Drummer You Dream Of.
Over time this information that you keep telling yourself becomes imprinted in your mind until it becomes a physical part of you. Now you can play what you are were trying to learn without having to think about. It just pours out of you without any involvement from your mind. It flows. This is the fun part. This is stage 4.
Psychologists believe that this transfer of information from explicit memory to implicit occurs during your sleep.
How to hack your memory to your own advantage
To learn the largest amount of information in the shortest amount of time you need to do 3 things:
- Learn new things slowly - This makes sure you are storing high quality information. Using your explicit memory is like trying to remember a bunch of random numbers. It's much easier if you tell yourself the numbers slowly rather than quickly.
- Practise every day - This makes sure you are storing a high quantity of information. The more you are putting into your explicit memory store, the more that can be transferred into the implicit memory store.
- Sleep well - Good sleep means a good tranfer of information!
What do you think? Are you following these guidlines? Does this article even make sense? What are the colours of the Olympic rings anyway?
Speak your voice below
Alex
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