| I've been thinking about this analogy for the past few days so I thought I'd share it with you.
PU is like Jazz.
Starting out on his musical journey, a jazz musician initially learns the standards that will make up a significant portion of his repertoire, like "Take the A train," "'Round Midnight" or "I've Got Rhythm." What he really learns is what's called the "head", which is basically the melody of the song with the chords. This is like learning openers. You know a canned opener can work because thousands of guys have used it and will definitely work if delivered correctly. Just like playing a melody everybody knows, you're guaranteed to grab people's attention. But only for so long.
After learning the main melody or head, the jazz player then is confronted by a bunch of chord symbols with NO melody. This is his time to either shine or be booed off stage - his time to improvise and show his "chops." He knows that his improvisation should have a certain "structure" to it. It needs to move towards a certain direction (eg from C to Am to F to G7 and back to C again) but the particular notes he chooses to play in order to get there, can be infinitely varied. Some will sound wrong and dissonant, others will work but not flow together, and the great jazz artists will pick just the right notes in the right order to make the chords and melody flow together like they were meant to be.
This is the heart of "mid-game" - from opening through comfort to seduction. You have a certain structure in mind, whether it be A1-A2-A3, or (C - R) + Q + SE, but the specific words you say are not all planned out. You react to the situation and calibrate based on the circumstances, but always with an idea of where to lead the interaction. A guy learning PU will make harsh dissonances by saying or doing things that are wrong in the context of the interaction, e.g. by going in for a k-close before he's really got any rapport or comfort. A medium level guy will have certain things he knows works, but he'll have problems with state breaks - transitioning between the stages in a smooth way, and thus he'll lose some HBs when they notice a flicker of a lack of congruency, or a facial expression or bit of body language that belies his lack of confidence in that one moment. A mPUA will do everything so smoothly that there are no perceptible state breaks, no moments where he allows the girl to "weigh up" and have to make a decision. She gets swept up in the moment, just like we are drawn in and swept up by a beautiful melody that seems to "naturally" lead to the next phrase.
All good musicians spend time working on scales. Scales provide the basis of how melody and harmony work. A scale is just all those notes that are "ok" or "allowed" within a chord or mode. Beginners are generally encouraged to learn to play them well, and stick within them, because you can't really go wrong if you do that. But a good player will find sticking to within the scale will be boring and uninspiring. A good player knows when to bend the rules slightly and go outside of the scale, which creates a sense of tension in the listener, which he then releases by transitioning back into the scale and making us feel like we've "arrived home." A good player will not simply go up and down the scale like a robot, that would be a boring improvisation. He'll take bits and pieces of scales and will use them in different parts of his improvisation, when appropriate, to help his melody have a structure and flow.
Learning the scales is like learning canned material when you are starting out. It'll help you be secure and safe and help you build confidence, because you know this stuff definitely works, but if you rely on it and nothing else you will become a robot. It's only when you have gone out and practiced canned material for a while can you learn what the underlying rules are, and thus break away from the material and try your own stuff.
When you're in the "zone" and you're playing music, you're not thinking "ok so I'm in D here and then we're going to G and so I'll play an A here" you just DO IT. You've run the scales thousands of times, you know which way the chords are going, and your subconscious takes control and you just play, without analysing or sometimes even knowing exactly what you're doing.
In the same way, after learning the openers, the models, the routines, and all the other stuff, when you go out and game you're not thinking "omg that was a shit test ok time to grab her hoop, neg her, keep my strong frame." You CAN'T. It's too much to think about on a conscious level. You just do it, because your subconscious is doing the work for you, because the stuff in ingrained into how you act and feel.
A great musician is manipulating people's emotions on a deep level. Every chord, and every progression, has it's own emotional weight and significance. Some chords just sound "sad" (e.g. a minor chord) whilst other sound "happy" (a major chord). By playing these in a certain sequence, we are moving people through a roller-coaster of different emotions, and they LOVE being manipulated like this. When you do it well and with the right intentions, people WANT you to take them on this ride - from tension to stability, from calm to frenzied, from despair to joy. When we write a song for a certain audience, we are using facts about their weaknesses, goals, desires, to play in a particular way to resonate with them on a deep level. They know this and WANT to listen to the music that feeds into their teenage angst, or gets them exited to dance, or makes them cry over their lost love.
A good PUA is microcalibrating to inspire very specific emotions in a girl at every point throughout the interaction. She shouldn't be consciously aware of this, and she doesn't care anyway because she LIKES it - she WANTS it. The roller-coaster ride of emotions is fun and exciting for her. And a good PUA, like a good musician, is doing it for HER - to make his audience feel good, not for his own sense of self-gratification.
Of course, go out and learn material - it's important to have the fundamentals down. But you need to get out in field and really practice and ingrain it into your subconscious before you can truly play her a melody she won't be able to resist.
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CHAT
