We have met the enemy, and they are us....

Yesterday, it was very, very late when I practiced guitar (at work). I almost decided to skip practice, go home, and go to sleep. Then I decided to make a game of the practice by seeing how fast I could do scales. I was going at a pretty good clip; it wouldn't be fast for an experienced guitar player, but it was the fastest that I've ever played.

I made fewer mistakes than I normally do.

My take is that I had to concentrate really hard to move fast, and that's why I didn't mess up as much. Apparently my concentration is a bigger problem than I thought. I had no idea that I was getting in my own way so much.

I kept going at that speed until I did mess up (by playing D instead of D sharp in an E major scale) and heard a Voice from Beyond* saying "sharp!" That completely broke my concentration. I took a break and decided to wait until the Voice went home to finish practicing.

When I started practicing again, I couldn't get the speed or the concentration back. I did find that trying to play louder helped my concentration somewhat.
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