End of January Progress Report

Three weeks of work are now in the can. As time goes on, I’m trying to define things that could be important to my progress. One thing I’m focusing on is to allow the tip joint of m to give a little as it plucks the string. This is advice I’ve encountered a number of times from players who have good right hand speed—most notably Pepe Romero. The point of a flexible tip, I believe, is to cultivate a feel for minimal tension as the finger plucks a string.

(By the way, I’ll be delighted to hear from anyone who’s had direct contact with the Romero school of playing and teaching.)

I’m also focusing on the placement of each fingertip as it contacts the string. There’s a sweet spot where the string contacts flesh and nail almost simultaneously, and that’s the spot I want to hit precisely and consistently. If I contact the string with the flesh only, then too much of the fingertip has to force itself through the string to complete the stroke. Conversely, If I contact the string with nail only, then there’s too much clattering as the nail contacts the string.

There’s sometimes a misunderstanding about the best contact point as the fingertip touches the string. At the last instant of a normal stroke, the nail is the last bit of the fingertip to be in contact with the string. Most guitarists know this. Some, however, conclude from this that contacting a string with both flesh and nail is unnecessary, and we should contact the string with nail only. This is a bad idea. If only the nail contacts a vibrating string, it gives a slight buzz. No matter how quickly or carefully you do it, nail-only contact always has this buzz. So flesh and nail contact is better. The initial contact of a vibrating string with flesh makes the buzz much less noticeable.

A couple of things intrigue me. One is that my index finger, when it comes to rest on the adjacent string, displaces the string a bit less than does my middle finger. (Remember, all my right hand alternation practice is with rest stroke.) Is my middle finger, I wonder, using too much effort compared to my index finger? For the moment I’m assuming it does, and I’m trying to dial back my middle finger as it drives through the string. I want it to displace the adjacent string no farther than does my index finger. Maybe it’s not really crucial. But since I don’t have good right hand speed, I’m assuming I don’t yet know which fine points are or aren’t crucial. So it’s prudent to err on the side of caution.

The other intriguing thing is how different it feels to do i and m alternation on the sixth string compared to the other strings. When I get to the sixth string, suddenly everything is grand. My ring and little fingers move along with m, as they’re supposed to. My hand feels free and easy. Mind you, it’s still not fast. But it looks and feels better than when I’m playing the other strings. Why exactly this should be is a mystery. I suspect my fingers release tension better when they don’t come into contact with an adjacent string. I’ll have to ponder this further.

Speaking of the sixth string, here’s a tip I gleaned from a William Kanengiser video. Playing i and m alternation on the sixth string, one might assume we can’t do rest stroke because there’s no adjacent string to come to rest against. Kanengiser showed a neat trick: rest your thumb just below where your fingers are playing, and the fingers can come to rest against it. Voilà, you’re now doing rest stroke on the sixth string. Pretty spiffy. But trying it myself, I found I could soon dispense with the thumb, yet keep almost the same rest stroke movement of the fingers. I just had to be careful not to let my fingers thwack into the soundboard. With a little practice, this was fairly easy to do. So it’s possible to get very close to a rest stroke with the fingers on the sixth string.

My right shoulder is hanging in there. The minor soreness is no worse than last week.

Although it’s not yet the end of the month, it’s close enough. So here’s my first audio progress report. In it, I briefly describe what I’ve been doing. Then I do a few speed bursts, to show where I am.

—click here for end of January audio report—

The fruit of my labor thus far is a tad underwhelming.

My reaction to this depends on which Tom you ask. There’s Professional Teacher Tom. He’s serene and stoic. He purrs in soothing tones: “We’re laying the foundation for progress. Be patient and trust the process.” This Tom will say we shouldn’t be surprised that there’s no apparent progress yet. After all, we’re rebuilding from scratch. There are decades of bad reflexes ingrained into that hand. We can’t replace these reflexes in three weeks. And he’s right. Professional Teacher Tom is experienced and wise.

Then there’s the real Tom. He’s sitting in a high chair, banging his little fists on the tray, and screaming: “Argh! I’ve been working for three weeks and this is all I get? I want progress and I want it now!”

For the next month, I’ll defer to Professional Teacher Tom. But the real Tom makes a lot of noise when I lock him in the basement. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep him down there before the neighbors notice the screaming.

——[My next post will be on February 7, 2011.]——

I See It Feelingly

My second week settled into a routine. For the first 30 minutes of each one hour session, I did this...

...starting at a tempo of about quarter note=80. I did 5 minutes on each string. If my hand felt good and loose, I increased the tempo a bit, but never enough for my hand to tense up. On each i stroke, m-a kicked far past the string and then immediately returned for the m stroke—m prepared on the string precisely at the dotted eighth rest. I did this kick and return as lightly as possible, to have m alight on the string rather than grab it. My thought here is that my right hand tends to use far more effort than it needs when alternating i and m. Speed requires a light touch, and a light touch is something I don’t have enough of.

A few years ago, I had a minor epiphany about this. Almost every workday, I eat lunch at Subway. (If you look at my photo, a significant part of what you see was once a chicken teriyaki sandwich.) One day, while drawing my coke at the soda machine, I noticed I was pushing the button harder than seemed necessary. Curious, I gradually let up the pressure until the soda stopped flowing. Doing this confirmed that I was indeed pushing the dispenser button much harder than necessary. It occurred to me that I’d probably done this all my life in a myriad of ways. And that doubtless affects how I play the guitar—unfortunately, not for the better.

I believe some people are wired to be physically tense, and others are wired to be more physically relaxed. Of course, this varies from person to person. No individual is all one thing or all another. But on the whole, some people seem better wired to do physical activities in an optimal way. They have an advantage in sports, dance, and playing a musical instrument. This, by the way, was the core insight of F. M. Alexander, at least before the Alexander Technique sank beneath a slagheap of pseudoscientific mysticism. (In a better world, innovators would be protected from their followers.)

I’m one, sadly, who’s wired to do things the hard way. Faced with a physical activity requiring finesse, I instead attack with brute force. I don’t do this intentionally or consciously. It’s just the way I’m wired.

And that’s what I’m trying to change. My 30 minute routine of m-a kick/return will, I hope, gradually ingrain a more relaxed feel in my right hand. So I’m willing to stick with it for the rest of this month. At the end of January, I’ll evaluate where I am, and whether this Rockette exercise is getting me any closer to my goal.

Experienced guitarists will notice that my Rockette exercise is close to something often recommended to players who want to increase their i and m alternation speed: play i and m alternation with a sharp staccato:

The exercise I’m doing, however, keeps the staccato after i and omits it after m. Why? The answer is that I’m very concerned about the quick return of m, and less so about i. Quite simply, my index finger moves far better than my middle finger. My index finger is the good soldier who, when I say “charge,” salutes smartly and rushes up the hill. Conversely, my middle finger lies on the couch with a beer in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. When I say “charge,” my middle finger gives me itself as a salute and belches. So I’ve tailored my exercise to whip m into fighting trim.

By the way, during the 15 minutes of music with right hand arpeggios, my hand didn’t feel any more chipper than when I began this project. In fact, on Tuesday it felt downright geriatric. I’m writing this off as a price one pays for progress. One step forward, two steps back, et cetera. But I’ll continue to monitor this with trepidation. On the bright side, my right shoulder isn’t hurting any more than it did last week.

Now to address some of you who’ve begun to follow my project. Questions and comments have come up, and I’ll try to respond to them:

“As a matter of interest, what do you define as ‘fast’ for i and m scale passages?”—Barnard Castle, United Kingdom

I’m shooting for at least four notes per click at a metronome setting of 160. I’ll be thrilled if I can hit something faster, but 160 will satisfy me. In fact, I’ve got my eye on Etude 7 of Villa-Lobos—always wanted to get that up to an impressive tempo.

“On the 30 minutes of i m, is that all rest stroke, free stroke, or mixed?”—Georgia, USA

Rest stroke only. Being self-taught early on, I came late to rest stroke scales, and so they’ve always been a bit dicey for me. But I love the sound, and I’m determined to get it. (Explanation for non-guitarists: To see a video that demonstrates rest stroke and free stroke, click here. And no, the guitarist in the video isn’t me.)

“Just in case you might not be familiar with it, Leo Brouwer/Paolo Paolini’s ‘Scales for Guitar’ (Ricordi) contains many interesting observations on RH technique.”—Adelaide, Australia

I’ve seen this book. (Those interested can find it here.) It isn’t quite the thing for the stage I’m at. I’m trying to increase the raw speed of my i and m alternation. “Scales for Guitar” doesn’t really address this in any detail. It has one intriguing thing I haven’t seen elsewhere: it seems to say that one should try switching between free stroke and rest stroke, apparently on successive strokes. (I say “seems to” because the English translation isn’t clear.) This strikes me as odd. If anyone can explain it in more detail, I’m curious to hear about it.

“Little suggestion on the right hand. When most guitarists practice their speed, they tense up before they play the burst. Example, mm at 140 play this:

What I’ve noticed is that most guitarists tense up and play the first sixteenth note slightly off beat. My suggestion is to play the first note of the sixteenth notes (on time), then think about the burst.”—Maryland, USA

What you’re suggesting might come in handy for me at a later stage. But I’m not there yet.

My sincere thanks to those who are following this little adventure. It helps to know that others find it of interest. But dauntingly, it adds a bit of pressure. When a year of work is done, I’d like something more than piddling results to show for it. So I’ll soldier on and hope I don’t disappoint.

——[My next post will be on January 31, 2011.]——

Off We Go! Why Is My Hat Floating?

To set the scene, here’s how my first week went. At 8:00 am each weekday morning, after my morning walk and exercise, I settle into my right hand renovation project. I have a mirror propped in front of my chair, to give a good view of my hand as I work. My hour is arranged thus:

• 30 minutes of i and m alternation. (Explanation to non-guitarists. Classical guitarists identify the fingers of the right hand by the first letter of their Spanish names—starting with the thumb: pulgar, índice, medio, anular, chico. Further, although there are other ways to play scales, i and m alternation is commonly used.)

• 15 minutes of music with right hand arpeggios, done slowly and precisely. I’m not concerned with speed or volume at this point. I’m more concerned with absolute accuracy with minimal effort.

• 5 minutes of right hand sweeps and rasgueado. (Explanation to non-guitarists. Right hand sweeps are a conditioning and coordination exercise. In various combinations, you sweep your right hand fingers against the strings while muting the strings with your left hand. The result is an unmusical “scritch, scritch, scritch” that’s annoying to anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot. Rasgueados are a type of finger strumming associated with flamenco guitar. As an exercise, they’re popular with classical guitarists who want right hand finger independence, even if they never play a note of flamenco.)

• 10 minutes of finger stretches. Why stretch at the end of a session rather than the beginning? Some years ago, I read an article in the journal Medical Problems of Performing Artists—it warned that one should never stretch until well warmed up. It went on to explain that stretching cold muscles can create micro-tears in the muscle tissue. These tears then heal as scar tissue, which is less flexible than normal tissue. So stretching cold muscles can be counterproductive.

The 30 minutes of i and m alternation are the laboratory in which I experiment with what I should be doing. I want to ingrain a movement of i and m that’s as effortless as possible. I’ve often noticed a fundamental flaw in my right hand: whenever I try to play fast, my hand tenses up. Tension kills speed and accuracy. While there are many things that can cause this tension, I’ve isolated the flaw that seems most likely in my hand. When I try to do fast alternation of i and m, my other fingers (a and c) tend to lock up. Thus, i and m are fighting against the tightness in my other fingers—they’re like a man trying to sprint with a sack of concrete tied to each ankle.

Over the years, I’ve talked to guitarists who have good right hand speed. Many of them agree that if you want good i and m alternation, pay attention to what the other fingers are doing. At first glance, this seems to make no sense. After all, a and c aren’t even playing during i and m alternation. But a simple experiment can clarify things. Hold up your right hand and begin waving your fingers, flexing and extending them together from the largest knuckle. Easy, right? Now try flexing and extending your index and middle fingers together, while holding your ring and little fingers motionless. Much harder, right? There’s a lot of interconnection between the fingers, and what one does tends to affect the others.

So my main activity for this week was alternating i and m, while suspiciously watching my ring finger, making sure it always moved along with m. In fact, at this early stage, I exaggerated the movement. Before each return of m to the string, I kicked out m and a far past the string, like a tiny Radio City Rockette dancer. This overdone movement helps me feel that m and a are moving together in all kinds of weather. Obviously this exaggeration won’t be in the finished product. But for now, it’ll help me ingrain the correct movement that I want.

Or so I’m guessing.

In fact, I’ve no idea if this is the right thing to do. But it’s something I’ve not tried before. My mantra this time around is to think things through anew. As I wrote in my January 9 post, I’ve tried improving my right hand twice before. Both tries fell short. So rather than bang my head against the same old wall, I’m looking for new walls to bang against. What’s the sense of redoing things that didn’t work before?

Here’s another bit of info. At the end of one week, an old nemesis is back. My right shoulder is a bit sore. While this worries me, I’ve decided to turn it to my advantage. In the past when I tried to improve my right hand, I suspect I relied too much on brute force and not enough on finesse. So now, rather than seeing shoulder pain as a warning to stop, I’ll instead use it as a barometer to suggest whether or not I’m heading in the right direction. More pain means wrong direction, less pain means right direction.

Or so I hope.

Really, everything at this stage is provisional. I may be like a man who sets out to walk from New York to Chicago by heading east. He might have interesting things to report—for example, there’s a lot more swimming than he expected. But his reports are tainted by the fact that, after all, he’s just a damn fool going in the wrong direction.

——[My next post will be on January 24, 2011.]——

A Journey of 1,000 Miles Begins with a Single Stumble

I’m a 54 year old classical guitar teacher. I’ve long been fascinated by guitarists who have what I’ve never had: great right hand technique. Adequate, I’ve had, but never great. Mind you, this is no fault of anyone but me. I’ve had excellent teachers, and have had many chances to hear, meet, and talk to great players. Some of my own students, former and current, have a right hand technique far better than mine. (Dammit.) Good examples are all around me, and the information on how to get good technique is, so to speak, right at hand.

Not getting any younger, I’ve decided that now is the time go for it. So here’s my plan. Every weekday morning I’ll spend one hour on my right hand technique. At the end of each week, I’ll write a report on what I’m doing and how I’m progressing. Then I’ll post this report Monday morning. At the end of each month, I’ll record a sound sample of what I’m working on and post it the first Monday after the month ended. At the end of one year, we’ll see where I stand.

Why do this publicly? Two reasons:

1) There may be others who find this project interesting. I hope in time that those who have good suggestions will chime in. I realize this is also an invitation for every nut who can type with two fingers to bloviate endlessly. As a veteran of many internet tiffs, I’m willing to ignore the nuts and attend to the more thoughtful and informed responses.

2) I’m lazy. Setting out on a project with no fanfare makes it easy to quit. But if I stand on a soapbox and announce that I’m going to do something, it’ll look silly if I come back several weeks later and say “never mind.” I like being lazy, but I don’t like advertising it. So doing this with an audience, however small, will keep my nose to the grindstone.

To begin my right hand renovation, I’ve chosen to start with rest-stroke alternation of my index and middle fingers. For classical guitarists, this is a basic technique for fast scales. Here’s a video sample by guitarist Grisha Goryachev: click here. Never have I been able to do what Goryachev does. The closest I’ve ever gotten is this: click here. The difference between Goryachev’s playing and my own speaks for itself.

Bear in mind that Goryachev’s sample is a bright, percussive flamenco sound—not exactly what I’m going for. But Goryachev is a good example of the fluency I want. If I can achieve his fluency, I can tweak the sound to suit my taste. (As I’m sure Goryachev himself can do.)

One final and ominous note. I’ve tried this experiment twice before in the last ten years. Both times I had to stop because of pain in my right shoulder. So as I embark on this project, my right shoulder is the sword of Damocles hanging overhead, waiting to skewer my latest foray. But for the moment I’m undaunted. With a bit of caution, I hope to keep at bay my middle-aged aches and pains long enough to reach my goal.

——[My next post will be on January 17, 2011.]——