Category: Highland Dance

When experiencing something, our mind puts the experience, knowledge, etc into short term memory. If we process something three times, the memory becomes stronger. The next time we sleep, those memories are then moved into long term memory.

The more often we process something, the stronger the memory becomes. If we process something similar but slightly different, we now have 2 memories competing against each other. To reduce this internal competition and to strengthen the true memory we want, we need to compare what we learned versus what we wanted to learn. In terms of music, this means comparing what we played versus what we were trying to play.

We will take the bigger picture parts of piping, and break them down into smaller chunks so that we can focus on small items. This focus will allow us to process it enough times to get the knowledge or technique into long term memory.

To enable our best learning, we need to have Ownership, Enjoyment of the activity, and intrinsic Motivation. If we don’t have these 3 things, we aren’t going to put the effort in to master what we are learning.