Maybe you all do this-- I just realized I've been doing it for years!

I play autoharp chord progressions for individual songs.

Not the whole song, and not the whole duration of each chord until it changes-- just the progression, a stroke for each chord.

I started doing it when playing for evening worship in advance of the song coming up. I'd silently refresh my memory while the service went on around me, by just going through the chord chanfges on the autoharp chord buttons without playing on the strings. I did this especially on new material that had unusual chord patterns. I thought of it as training my fingers in the pattern necessary to get around the keys, especially the farther stretches or getting from an oft-used chord button to a far-flung one I use less often. It was a huge help to being able to do unfamiliar material smoothly. (A lot of these songs I had just heard, transcribed, and learned to sing that morning.) Now I am doing the same thing as I proof-listen to newly transposed arrangements for the band. It's like proofreading, but not so much reading as hearing.

First I play through the original-key version completely and listen to the progression while looking to see that I am actually making the chord written down at the place where I wrote the chord change. I was surprised to find that songs I have played correctly for years contain chord changes that are actually placed in the wrong spot or with the wrong chord name written in! (So I fix these.)

Then, for the freshly-transposed keys, I play just the progressions while I fast-forward through the tune in my head, to listen for whether the played chord progression fits the pattern that I just heard in the original (I, IV, V for instance). In this way I can proof all the chords quickly but accurately-- and because of this interesting thread, I realized in mid-proof that it's practice in the fingering pattern as well.

A friend of mine with bad nerve damage in her hand had been a top legal secretary-- lots of typing. The cut nerve was re-attached, and she used to include in her rehab typing in the air or on a desktop at odd moments. It cut her rehab time in half the expected number of months. She got back more sensation than the doc had said could be possible-- more fingers functioning AND feeling sensation.

So I am sure that what I am doing does indeed feed muscle memory, and that the technique can be transferred to any instrument.

Anyone else doing this?

~Susan