Thread: learning a song a guitar in a dream

I think practicing it in your dream would definitely help you learn it in real life, although you shouldn't just practice it in the dream.

If you know it and practice it in a dream then it will help, however plucking a wrong string will still make the right sound if you think that it will. I tried that once. I'm not very good at the guitar, but I managed to play Layla flawlessly in dreams before

Originally Posted by ninja9578

If you know it and practice it in a dream then it will help, however plucking a wrong string will still make the right sound if you think that it will. I tried that once. I'm not very good at the guitar, but I managed to play Layla flawlessly in dreams before

yeah, thats what i figured would happen. but yeah layla is awesome. but i can already play in real life.

I can play the unplugged version My fingers aren't quick enough to do the electric chords though.

Post if you get some results, I'd be intrested to know what happens.

I doubt you could learn it in your dream unless you would already be able to figure it out with an amazing ear easily in real life using intervals and whatnot and knowing the starting pitch but basically no lol.

The best thing about dreams is that you can just randomly play and itll turn into shred or sound just how you want. It can actually be a cool way to play amazing solos if you can pretend to play in the dream but have it sound how you want. Good way to experiment with solos you might be trying to write.

I'm curious to see how it'll go as well.

In the meantime, here's a similar-ish dream excerpt from Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge:

I am studying to become a professional musician (French horn), and I wished to remove my fear of performing in front of people. On several occasions I placed myself in a state of self hypnosis/daydreaming by relaxing my entire body and mind before going to sleep. Then I focused on my desire to have a dream in which I was performing for a large audience by myself but was not nervous or suffering from any anxiety. On the third night of this experiment, I had a lucid dream in which I was performing a solo recital without accompaniment at Orchestra Hall in Chicago (a place where I have performed once before, but in a full orchestra). I felt no anxiety regarding the audience, and every note that I played made me feel even more confident. I played perfectly a piece that I had heard only once before (and never attempted to play), and the ovation I received added to my confidence. When I woke up, I made a quick note of the dream and the piece that I played. While practicing the next day, I sight-read the piece and played it nearly perfectly. Two weeks (and a few lucid dream performances) later, I performed Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony with the orchestra. For the first time, nerves did not hamper my playing, and the performance went extremely well. (J.S., Mt. Prospect, Illinois)

That's interesting, I'm sure though that if they are trying to become a professional then music is the main part of their life which means they probably have a pretty good ear and that having tried it in a dream would make it flow much easier because of phrasing and practicing moving fingers with the phrasing (even though it may be the wrong fingers). Maybe it was the overall feeling of playing the piece that was crucially helped. Also a French Horn only plays one note at a time and much less complex patterns than a guitar would play.

You can't entirely learn how to play something from scratch in dreams. But if you are already familiar with what you want to learn to play, and you practice whatever instrument in waking life and while dreaming, then it will help you. But don't expect to just play any instrument willy nilly in a dream and then pick it up for the first time in real life and be able to sound decent.

the thing is i've seen people play this song bunches of times so i know what it looks like being played and know that i am capable of playin it but i haven't got around to trying to learn it yet. but that would be amazing if i could actually play when i wake up after playing it in a dream

you'd learn it faster than you would if you hadn't played it in a dream

I think it could defenitly work under these conditions. You have to know what any given note is by just its sound. You have to know your guitar neck really well in that you have to know what note is on any given fret and what frets are any given note. You have to have an ear for chords so you can know what chords they are playing down to the inversion, orientation (Maj/Min,
Power chord, Dominate, Diminished, Half diminished, Maj7/Min7, Maj9/Min9, Maj6/Min6 ext.) and have an ear for octaves and be able to pick out specific notes from a chord. Also you have to be able to mentally desipher the individual notes of fast solos. In short you really got to know your Shit