[noodley]

Would it be helpful to play a song mentally?

[allthumbs]

There has been some research that shows practicing a piece in your head can have a positive effect. You need to really focus and make the experience as real as possible though. You need to know the tune and finger positions well enough so that you can visualize them clearly.

[justinthyme]

No doubt about it - as AT has said.

[noodley]

Thanks. That's all I need to know.

[Doug]

There's a story about the Russian gymnastic team back in the 70's when they were kicking but on the world stage. The Russians did an experiment on training using visualization. They broke the study group up into 4 groups - group one trained as they did previously, group 2 did 75% training and 25% visualization, group 3 did 50/50 and group 4 did 75% visualization and 25% training. By far the largest improvement came from group 4.
Interesting, eh?

[Lcjones]

I play tunes all day long mentally. Especially during the commute to work and home. I go over the melodies, chords and try to work out little riffs. It helps when I get time to sit and play. I also try to visualize the fretwork .... but then I wear bi-focals... so I'm screwed when I get home because all the strings are offset from my mental(ly) visual practice ...

**

[geitenvla]

Oh yes, it most definitely will help to visualize. Just try it for yourself. Most of the times when I want to learn something new, I go over it in my head before I go to sleep. I'll keep doing this until the basics of a song are hard wired in my mind.

[agent0064life]

At work recently I've been practicing sweet child o mine air guitar style... The thing is I can pretty much get the fretting down but a lot of times when I'm playing the song I hit the b string when I try to hop over from the G to the e during the main riff causing that oh so annoying open b string sound during my playing, making it sound like crap.

[Stratrat]

Originally Posted by Doug

There's a story about the Russian gymnastic team back in the 70's when they were kicking but on the world stage. The Russians did an experiment on training using visualization. They broke the study group up into 4 groups - group one trained as they did previously, group 2 did 75% training and 25% visualization, group 3 did 50/50 and group 4 did 75% visualization and 25% training. By far the largest improvement came from group 4.
Interesting, eh?

I recall a similar experiment involving a basketball team (possibly Coach John Wooden's team?), with very similar results. It seems that visualization is a very powerful tool indeed.