Effects of Mental Practice and Modeling on Guitar and Vocal Performance, a study done by Anne Theiler and Louise Lippman, has shown that mental practice facilitates cognitive coding and creates optimal levels of attentional focus and arousal.

aka:  Making you more of a guitar badass.

What They Did

In this study, the effectiveness of various mental practice regimens in music performance was compared.   Guitarists and vocalists who were college-level music majors learned short musical excerpts under four separate conditions:

1. Continuous physical practice (CPP)
2. Mental Practice Alternating with Physical Practice
3. Mental Practice with a Modeled Recording of the Music Alternating with Physical Practice
4. A Motivational Control Activity alternating with Physical Practice

These performances then were rated on various musical dimensions.

What They Found

Mental practice with a model (3) resulted in superior performance on a number of dimensions for vocalists, and on tonal quality and memory coding for guitarists.

This means that by using both mental and physical practicing in your daily practice regimen, you will see a higher level of improvement in guitar skills.  This also means, that even when your hands become so cramped up from playing 8 hours a day, that yes you can still mentally practice and see significant improvements in your playing.

Now quit reading and go Maximize your guitar potential.

To read the study and find out more detail about what was done, please follow this link:

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=7&sid=c2c198e4-fe37-4594-a49e-13595d5adba9%40sessionmgr14&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=psyh&AN=1996-30039-001

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