Hi Mudcats--

I've been doing a lot of metronome work to get my left and right hands up to bluegrass tempo on guitar. Scales, arpeggios, strumming patterns, picking patterns, fiddle tunes, etc. It's pretty pathetic--I've been at this for more than a year, and I'm only accurate up to around 120 (1/4 notes). My biggest goal is to get to 132 (1/4 notes) for Rawhide. I don't know how people get so fast--I'm beginning to believe I'll always be a tortoise of a picker.

Anyway, I do about 15 to 20 minutes a day of drills, and I'm striving to gain speed and accuracy while keeping my hands soft and relaxed. No pain--I do lots of stretches before and after, and my hands aren't sore at all. However, I now find I'm playing these exercises in my dreams, and doing it WAY faster than I can in real life, and in that limbic state between asleep and awake, I can feel my fingers/hands twitching like mad.

Anybody else have this experience? Is this my cerebellum FINALLY getting the message out to my fingers? Should I jump out of bed and grab my guitar to take advantage of this phenomenon?

Or am I just plain nuts?

I await your wisdom...

V