My Wrist Watch Made Me a Different Player

“Sometimes it takes a phantom limb to convince us that it’s okay to screw up.”
-Me

I occasionally (or is it frequently?) become convinced that all my guitar improvising sounds the same: same note sequences, same rhythms, same arpeggios, same mistakes.

How to break out of the rut? One answer for me was as unexpected as it was simple: wear a wrist watch!

Some background… I haven’t worn a wrist watch in years: I always used my phone to check the time. But last week, needing a handy and easy-to-use stop watch, I bought an inexpensive Casio digital wrist watch.

I started wearing the watch all day. One night I left it on while practicing guitar, and the craziest thing happened: every time I would glance down at my fretboard hand, my eyes would catch a glimpse of the watch, and my brain would say: “That hand isn’t mine. I don’t wear a watch.”

Crazy but true! The “It’s not my hand” feeling was fleeting, lasting only last a second or two–yet it was strangely liberating: seeing my hand as someone else’s gave me a sense of freedom–almost a push, really–to play sequences I normally wouldn’t play; to take chances I normally wouldn’t take. It’s as if my brain was telling me, “You aren’t the one playing, so it shouldn’t sound like you!”

As you may have guessed, most of the musical passages emanating from my “phantom hand” were one or more of the following: chaotic, bizarre, dreadful. But that is almost beside the point: I was outside my comfort zone and pushing my boundaries, and that’s a good thing.

(Was there also, one might ask, a mental element of “Mistakes aren’t your fault–you aren’t even playing!” involved? Answer: probably.)

After three nights of watch-wearing, my brain had adjusted and the phenomenon had disappeared. But the lesson remains: if you need a creative nudge, if your playing is getting bogged down, try it! Give your hand a new look–a watch, bracelet, rings, nail polish, woolen mittens–and see if you feel that short but real sense of freedom and permission–to be someone else, to try something new, to expand your fretboard horizons.