Learning playing by being!

Once upon a long time ago, I learnt to play the guitar. Though I played in rock and blues bands as lead guitar for a few years, there was one lead break that I couldn't quite master. In fact I was a long way from it. (It was 2 minutes through the first track of Led Zepplin's first album!) Some time after, for various reasons, I had to give up playing guitar for about five years or more.

When I eventually bought a new electric guitar in the mid 80s, I tried playing the dreaded riff - and succeeded perfectly first time! It was as though I had continued to learn and practise without even touching an instrument. I had not only learnt the physical technique required to play the notes using some kind of background processing, I had also mastered it.