Conscious and unconscious.

I stumbled across an idea that may make sense, but I won't know until I've worked with it for a while.

One reason we practice is to make things unconscious. We think about them when we practice so that we don't have to think about them when we play. And one reason for this is that the conscious mind has limited capacity, but the unconscious mind has almost unlimited capacity. When we play, we want the conscious mind to be as empty as possible. For that to happen, we need to push as much as we can into the unconscious mind.

Some aspects of my playing are unconscious, and some are not. These days I'm practicing pick technique every day. If I want the upstrokes to be right, I have to pay attention to them. Good upstrokes require conscious effort from me at this point. Playing the same thing with my right hand fingers instead of a pick would probably not require conscious effort. I can do that subconsciously, without being aware of the motion.

Now, here's my possibly sensible (and possibly not) idea. Is it useful to think of a Minimal Effective Awareness Level?

Imagine a line that floats between Completely Unconscious Playing on the bottom and Fully Engaged Playing on top. The territory below the line is for things I can do effectively without having to think about them. The amount of attention I need to pay to them (Awareness) in order to play them right (my Awareness is Effective) is small (Minimal Effective Awareness.)The territory above the line is for things I have to think about (be very aware of) in order to play them. I want this space, above the Minimum Effective Awareness Level, to be empty.

So as I practice, I refer to that image - Unconscious below, Conscious above, a line in the middle. I'm noticing what what's above the line (a lot) and what's below the line (not as much as I'd like) and trying to move stuff down.

Useful? I'll let you know.