I'm trying to get back into the beginner's mind and remember what it was like to be first learning a musical instrument as an adult. One concept that is kind of hard to get at first, or hard to understand the importance of, is what I am calling "The Wheel is Turning". What I mean by that is if you're actually playing a tune or song you have to play it all the way through without stopping, in time with whatever bpm you have set for yourself. In other words, staying in time with "the wheel".
Picture a merry-go-round and you're on the horse riding around on it. If you get off of the horse, the merry-go-round keeps turning. That merry-go-round is the melody that you are trying to play. Once the merry-go round starts moving you have to keep moving with it. You can't stop just because you made a mistake or forgot how the tune goes. You have to keep going.
Of course when you are first learning the tune it's OK to isolate certain sections and practice those on repeat until you have it down. What I'm talking about is when you actually sit down to play the tune in its entirety, you should have this wheel concept in mind. The best way to do that is play along with a timing device like a metronome or drumbeat. I find drum beats to be more fun because they are more musical, just make sure you know where the "one" is and/or the down beat of each measure to make sure that you are keeping in time with it.
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Practicing this way will improve your sense of time so that when you do play with other musicians you don't lose your place as easily. If you're playing Silver Spear or Swallowtail Jig with a group of other musicians, you don't want the group to have to start/stop/re-start due to your or any other person's glitches along the way. You want the group mind to take over and play the tune in rhythm so that if someone were dancing or clapping along they wouldn't miss a step or lose the beat.
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