Forming good habits

Many things related to playing an instrument have to do with small movements that you aren’t necessarily thinking consciously about. Habits. Muscle memory. Forming good playing habits takes time, and patience because you need to play things slow enough that you can consciously think about each of those movements.

Something like keeping your fingers close to the fretboard on guitar is something that’s hard to think about it consciously if you’re playing a difficult passage. It might need to be slowed down quite a bit, practiced at a slower speed while thinking consciously about keeping your fingers close to the fingerboard.

The same can be said with moving efficiently on piano, especially with something like stride piano. Keeping the fingers close to the instrument and moving efficiently is something that needs to be practiced consciously to form as a habit.

The goal is to form it into a playing habit that you don’t need to think about later.

Play slowly so that you can form good habits.

ISJ