Musicians with Dystonia Bulletin Board

Speed is a byproduct of control, it is not something separate. For me, where I am now, certain things (eg some arpeggio patterns) I can do very fast - as fast as required, 100% control. Other patterns are not there yet but have seen huge improvement over the past year. So some repertoire I can play at performance tempo, some I cannot, depending purely what configurations are required of my right hand in a particular piece.

The key is understanding YOUR condition and being creative to unclock the tensions in YOUR hand.

Your condition has clearly made progress simply by resting and not reinforcing your FD by trying to fight it, this is GOOD!

If you are now finding you are making little progress by trying to play pieces you are probably attempting things that are too complex. I worked on exercises and patterns for a year and left repertoire completely, it paid massive dividends. Now I am doing both, exercises and repertoire. When you hit brick walls you have to go round them.

FD quickly becomes a complex network of tensions. Slowing down and letting go - 'allowing' the fingers to move freely is the start, but beyond that there is work to do. E.g. No point trying to play a PAMI arpegio piece if the relationship between M and A is completely disrupted,its too complicated, you need to isolate the different relationships between the fingers and work on them seperately to rebuild it part by part.

You can read some of the details of my approach here: http://www.dystonia-bb.org/forums/mwd/posts/1914.html

Back to Farias. Another quote:
"The recovery process can be induced playing your instrument naturally . During this process you should use your imagination and pay attention to the subtle relationship between emotions and movements."

Use your imagination and pay attention to emotions/movements. What does that mean to you?

We learn motor movements and sequences by trial and error - we do things, the brain gets sent feedback on how its working (and crucially, how it FEELS), the movement is refined against that feedback and and so on. In FD we are retraining basic motor movements, so AMPLIFY that feedback by using your emotions and imgaination as much as you can. Eg I use a mirror to provide more visual feedback, I think and imagine the moment of contact between fingertip and string see it clearly in my mind when I play, I turn my head to one side to hear the guitar output differently. Heck, paint your fingertips different colours, think of some arpeggios as sad and others as happy, ANYTHING to feed your brain more sensory and emotional input whilst it is doing the correct motion ie slow and free, uninhibited by your desire to control it.

The greater the sensory input, the quicker your correct motion is reinforced.