Yesterday I tried to teach myself a new song. Maybe I was in a state of delirium brought on by temperatures over 50 degrees...but my brain knew which notes to play, and my fingers were not hitting the notes properly. To say the least, that was frustrating. I know more practice will help, but are there any exercises one can perform to alleviate this malady?

More practice. Slow down. Thinking too hard. Practice another day. Everyone has lousy practices. Some times things just don't go smoothly.

And in any case, it's not your brain that needs to learn the tune, it's your fingers. They'll get better and better at this, but they learn it, initially, much more slowly than your brain does. This is rote learning. The payoff is that once they learn, they're much, much faster at playing tunes. You can't play at speed if you're thinking of every note.

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And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

C.S. Lewis

That makes perfect sense. I guess today was simply not one of my better days of practice...though I do endeavor to practice every day, and tomorrow's another day. Thanks for your insight!

I'm going to echo what s1m0n said: slow practice. Set your metronome (if you use one) so slow that you can't make a mistake. Speed up only when your fingers can handle the higher tempo.

Drink less whiskey. Just kidding, that's ridiculous. I can't speak for everyone but if I'm focusing on a tune, I like to play it slowed down, then fast, then proper speed. I also like to play the same tune start to finish with all of my whistles (just 6) back to back. Just my take though.

I bought a bottle of whiskey about a month ago, and it's been almost untouched. So that's not the issue. I would say more coffee would help, but I typically drink a minimum of half a pot a day as it is.

I couldn't imagine trying to play many tunes fast, but slow and then normal speed would be doable. Lately I have been trying to play both of my whistles, too...the Walton's was all but ignored for the first week or so I had the Feadóg.

You haven’ t opened that whiskey in a month? I need to learn your self control techniques. But you did have some if it’s almost untouched. Still, I could learn from you.

Said whiskey was intended to make a cheapo version of Irish coffee. Those plans fell by the wayside. While I have good self-control when it comes to hard liquor, the same cannot be said with regards to good beer!