"I need the beans! Pass me the Musical Beans!"

When one goes shopping for perfume or cologne, and the shopper has sampled 'one too many fragrances", to reset the snoot,  s/he sniffs coffee beans before continuing to sample more fragrance options. 

For several years, I have used Patsy Cline's "Walkin' After Midnight" as my "musical beans".
  
As is common for most musicians who have memorized sheet music, or has played a song by ear many, MANY times, we memorize 'chunks' of music, rather than specific and individual notes.

If you stop a musician in the middle of such a 'chunk', and ask him the question "What notes are you playing?", or "What chord is that?", there is a really good chance that he won't be able to give you a correct answer without first involving an overload of thought and concentration, and most likely, he will have to go back and play through that section of the music a few times while watching his hands before he can give you a correct answer.  

With the "chunking" process in mind, if I play, say, a Scott Joplin rag that I have had mostly memorized for several years, and I trip over a section, I'll go back and play it again.  There is a really good chance that during the second - or third - or fourth! pass, I'll trip in the same spot.  I will fumble the exact same spot in the music.
You must understand:

The day before I have this 'tripping session', I most likely played through the 'sticky spot' in the same music without incident.   The FOLLOWING day, I will most likely play the same piece - without additional effort.

The explanation is relatively simple, in the fact that the 'bridge' in this particular spot in my memory needs a bit of repair and maintenance. 

Having never had music lessons, I had to find a solution for this problem:
"PASS THE MUSICAL BEANS"

I will often yell out to Mark while I am practicing piano, "I need the beans! Pass me the Musical Beans!", then I will play a totally unrelated song - usually a couple minutes of "Walkin' After Midnight" in a juiced-up, improvisational boogie version that I devised myself... THEN.... I will go back to the particular section of the current Scott Joplin (or other) song that is giving me problems.  

With a near 100 % success rate, after I have 'sniffed my musical beans!', I will breeze right through the troublesome section of the current song that I am working on.    If I'm still having problems - which is rare, at this point - I will 'take another whiff of the musical beans', which usually solves the problem.Kinda like this.... (This me me playing my most common 'Musical Beans'...with very short facial hair!):

Thank you, Patsy Cline, Alan Block and Donn Hecht (the writers!) for my "musical beans!"

- Michael