The last few weeks I’ve been noticing something new which has led me to believe that our fingers have their own memory Or that your subconscious can remember finger movements better than your consciousness can anyway
I’ve been noticing that sometimes I’m struggling to remember how a tune goes on but then my fingers hit the right notes already before I’d thought of it.
Or that I’m trying to reconstruct a tune that I’ve never seen the music from, only heard. And I try to find the note and my fingers hit it before I figure it out myself.
Does anybody else have these kind of experiences where the fingers know what to do sooner than the mind?
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Arnout (finding that he’s neglecting his practicing)
I play everything by muscle memory. If ever anyone asks me how a tune starts, especially a tune I’ve known for years, I always need to play the tune to figure out which notes I’m playing.
Does that make any sense? What I’m trying to say is, my fingers remember tunes much better than my brain does.
I saw a movie once where the guy had an arm transplant and the transplanted arm kept killing people (actually I didn’t see the movie, I saw the box that it came in and was thus moved to not see the movie).
Erik
p.s. Seriously, I have the same experience. I don’t have a study to point to, but it seems to be partly aural(recognizing the tune or note patterns) and partly kinesthetic (muscle memory and movement patterns). Then again, maybe I just like to use capacious words (I had to go to the thesaurus for that one).
I can give two examples of this.
First, there is a minimum speed i can play some tunes. If I slow down too much, I have to think about what comes next and I lose it.
In a related example. I’m completly flummoxed trying to dial a rotary phone. Once i had to resort to drawing out the digits 1-9 in a grid in order to dial a number.
Cheers,
jb
Oh yes, I know that feeling that comes when playing is automatic, and you seem to be just a conduit for the music that seems to be taking over direction of your hands. Unfortunately, sometimes I’m so astonished by this phenomenon that I immediately stumble over myself and the magic goes away, and not only am I no longer playing on autopilot, but I can’t figure out the next note to save my life.
I know the feeling. I, too, am startled and surprised when my fingers remember what I don’t… Dancers, btw, experience the same thing in remembering choreography. They call it muscle memory.
I think my finger memory is closely tied to my ‘ear memory’. If I try to play tunes without blowing into the whistle, I invariably fall ‘off track’ somehwere, and lose the fingering completely…however, if I’m listening to the tune (me or someone else playing it), I can finger along easy as you please, whether or not I’m actually blowing into the whistle.
I haven’t been playing whistle long enough for this to happen. But, I have reached this point playing bass and guitar. I just let go and the music comes. Playing live is a wierd. I’ll be singing and playing and listening to myself while it happens. Sometimes I’ll start a song and think "God I don’t remember that part coming up, but if I block out my thoughts and let it flow it comes. I think it’s a Zen thing.
What you are calling “muscle memory” is a real thing, in a way. The part of your brain that coordinates your movements (the cerebellum at the back of the skull above the brain stem) is a separate area from where your “conscious thinking” originates. When a cop makes you walk a straight line to see if you are drunk, he/she is testing your cerebellar function. (It gets sloppy with alcohol consumption.) I don’t know what the connections are with hearing and seeing, but there is an amazing amount of coordination between different brain areas. They are actually doing very different things, but working together to pull of some behavior. When you practice something like playing an instrument, you are creating “preferred pathways” for doing this behavior. So, the way you practice is what you “ingrain.”
There is speculation (and evidence) that your “free will” as you perceive it, is an illusion. Signals have been detected that suggest an unconscious part of your brain decides and initiates things for you and you “think” of them afterward, believing the thought initiated the action. Not only is the brain amazing, it’s weird. (Now, why did I say that? Now, I’ll have to kill myself.)
The practical point is that you should be careful how you practice…fast and sloppy: not good. Slow down and get it right, then only go as fast as keeping it right will allow. Otherwise, you’re reinforcing sloppiness. Harder to change later.
Tony
Are you sure there aren’t some sort of evil spirits that are captured in the whistles (attracted by the screeches no doubt!)? These evil spirits then make you think you are playing a reel or jig when in fact you are opening a window into the dark side of the universe which lets more evil spirits into this side of the universe, which infect more whistles, which in turn…(you get the idea)…
or..
it could be that unconsious muscle memory thingy..
Or that your subconscious can remember finger movements better than your consciousness can anyway 
Erik