Working Hard For The Most Part

Since my return from ODPCFF, I have been digging in on my playing. For example this morning (very early I might add, around 6:00am) I spent about 90 minutes playing primarily Walbert's Dance.  I have been attempting to incorporate a few nuances such as vibrato, volume variations, and paying strict attention to notes that are sustained.  What I really cannot stand is when I produce a note that buzzes in the least little bit or when I flub the note progressions in a passage.  David caught that I was not playing the artificial harmonics correctly.  I was adding too many bass notes.  Correcting this was part of my focus today.  David also caught a spot where the tabulature of the transcription had an incorrect note.  This doesn't sound like much of correction to make but I have been playing it wrong for over a year and that incorrect note does not sound out of place.  My brain expects the incorrect tone and now I must retrain it to expect the correct one.  It is my fault as well for not really looking at the notation.   So I have two clear corrections to focus upon and I made some progress today but it will take a lot more effort between now and Gillacamp to entrench the corrections.  I also focused upon a run that I particularly love in the piece but often stumble on.  I repeated the whole thing several times today and Friday night.  It is amazing how one's objectives evolve as you make improvements in your playing.  At least for myself, I constantly push to play better.  The bar keeps shifting up.  I particularly enjoy moments of complete immersion, when the music seems to have the control.  This does not happen regularly and it seems I must be "alone" for the magic to happen.  I recognize the feeling as "mushin" , the martial arts' concept of automatically reacting correctly with an empty/mu spirit/shin, actually a clear mind that is unencumbered with the process of making a decision.  It is a zen thing. In my case this cannot happen without the repeated practice of techniques and progressions.  It is partially a muscle memory thing that is of course fundamentally tied to the nervous system.  I believe that there are chemical synapses in the brain that actually are forming as one really learns something and repetition causes the pathways to strengthen. 
Yesterday John and I attended the Celtic Fest in Seitz Park along the St. Joe River in South Bend.  This was a very relaxing afternoon of lounging, eating Irish food provided by Fiddler's Hearth, and listening to some of our local Celtic influenced musicians present a relaxed concert of jigs, reels, ballads and personal compositions.  I have been feeling stressed lately and this was a good way to decompress.  I even brought my guitar along and  tested myself with figuring out chord progressions while I quietly played along with the musicians.  Having the guitar there also provided me with some practice time in between sets.