Here Be Dragons

Though I’ve splashed about in the kiddie pool, I fear the real work lurks in the deeper water. To date, I’ve avoided pushing my right hand too hard. I don’t want a repeat of the soreness that ended my two previous tries at improving my right hand. The result thus far isn’t encouraging. My right hand alternation is no better today than it was at the beginning of January. I’ve learned some things along the way. But learning, however laudable, isn’t my main goal. My real goal is to do something I haven’t been able to do. Short of that is failure.

In one area I’m optimistic. My right hand arpeggios feel better than when I began this project. Whether that translates into a reliable and clean arpeggio technique remains to be seen. As I said in my last report, I hope to have something worth posting at the end of May. At that time, I’d like to offer a video of the Carulli Fandango, performed at a reasonable tempo. So I think I’m on the right track for my right hand arpeggios.

Rest stroke alternation, however, remains elusive. I’m now convinced that I need to work at sustained speed rather than bursts. In fact, I’m becoming a skeptic on the value of speed bursts. Certainly they’re useful to get an idea of what fast alternation feels like. And they certainly encourage me that my fingers really can play at a high speed. But the deeper I get into this project, the more I suspect that speed bursts are a dead end. They tend to ingrain a tense movement that can’t be sustained in an extended scale. Sustained speed requires a movement and feel that I can maintain for more than a fraction of a second.

With this in mind, I’m now working along the lines of this:

The repeated m strokes are play and release, then I try to maintain that feel during the sixteenth note alternation. I begin at a slow tempo, no faster than a quarter note at 80. As soon as my hand feels good, I increase the tempo. Currently, I go no faster than 100—above this, things fall apart during the alternation. I take frequent breaks. Sometimes during a break I’ll do this same rhythm tapping my fingers on the bridge. As I mentioned in last week’s post, when tapping my hand moves perfectly. So it seems sensible to revisit this feel during a break. I then try to maintain this feel when I go back to playing on a string.

This work has raised two questions that I haven’t yet answered:

1) Does play and release really work? I feel a release when moving slowly. But above a certain alternation speed, I feel no release at all. Should I? My suspicion is that no one will feel a release above a certain speed, because there’s just not time for it. Rather, play and release can only set the table for alternation speed. Actually doing high speed alternation requires something more than play and release alone can provide. Of course, since I don’t have speed, I can only guess at whether this is so.

2) Should I practice loud or soft? Soft playing offers an easy feel, but also yields rhythmic tentativeness. Loud playing sharpens up the rhythm, but also raises the tension. My guess is that speed is a delicate balance between tension and ease. I also guess—there’s that word again—that fast rest stroke alternation requires a particular conditioning of the fingers that I haven’t yet got. So I’ve a lot of work ahead of me.

Almost four months into this project, it now occurs to me that I might fail. Oddly, I never really believed this until now. While I certainly thought this would be a difficult project, I never harbored any serious doubt that I’d eventually succeed. But almost a third of the way into my yearlong project, it’s discouraging to have so little progress, at least for rest stroke alternation. I can see why some guitarists abandon rest stroke almost entirely. For now, I can only rely on something I sometimes say to students: “If playing the guitar was easy, then everyone would be a virtuoso.” There’s a reason “virtuoso” is derived from “virtue”—the virtue of being a virtuoso is that one has learned to do what not everyone can do.

Now, however, I’m venturing into the kind of practice that in the past has caused me right shoulder pain. So far, my shoulder feels fine. But ominously, I received the following comment:

I stumbled upon your site quite by accident and I am compelled by your comments. So much so that I am going to print off every post and read the hard copy, making notes as I go.

Compelled because I have been going through the exact same experience as you. I spent years trying to fix my right hand only to find that it was getting not better but worse and worse until I could not play even the most basic of pieces. Things got so bad that I witnessed the “m” finger of my right hand curling in even as I picked up my guitar. I could barely play a single note.

Eventually I was diagnosed with task specific focal dystonia (TSFD) and I thought that the world had ended. I went for seminars in Seville, Spain and since then I have been working to retrain my hand, posture and approach to playing.—Miguel Bengoa

Receiving this comment just as I’m beginning more sustained practice of rest stroke alternation is spooky. It’s a stark reminder that this isn’t something to take lightly. As ancient mariners headed into the unknown, they imagined dragons awaited them. As I head into deeper water, I have the advantage of living in more a more rational age. But I’m disquieted in the knowledge that guitar playing, like a dragon, has scales.


——[My next post, with video update, will be on May 1, 2011.]——

Are We There Yet?

I’ve been at this project now for three and a half months. The results thus far are ambiguous. On the one hand, my arpeggios feel better than when I began in January. By the end of May, I hope to post a video that shows this improvement. On the other hand, my right hand alternation, the core of what I’ve been working on, is stuck in the mud.

I’m not really sure why this is so. In normal playing position, I can easily tap my fingers on the bridge at 180, four notes per click. Everything works perfectly—the movement is free and easy, and the inactive fingers do exactly what they should. (Inactive fingers are fingers that aren’t sounding a string during a particular movement.) Yet when I alternate on a string, this free and easy movement disappears entirely. Yes, I know that tapping my fingers is very different from alternating on a string. But the question neither I nor anyone else has answered to my satisfaction is this: why are tapping and alternation so utterly different?

There are two answers I can think of. One is that in alternation, the fingers must make a complex movement. If after a stroke, a finger simply releases back to the string, the back of the nail will bump into the string on the way back. To clear the string on the return movement, the finger must lift over the string. (One guitarist likens it to how one’s legs move when pedaling a bicycle, which seems an apt description.) Merely tapping the fingers avoids this more complex movement.

The other possible answer is simply the resistance of the string against the finger. Certainly this is entirely absent when tapping the fingers—you can think of hitting the hard surface as analogous to coming to rest against the adjacent string, but there’s nothing analogous to actually plucking a string during a simple tapping movement.

So both these differences could explain the increased tension I feel when I try right hand alternation, a tension I don’t feel when merely tapping on a hard surface. But still I wonder. Is the difference between tapping and alternating so great that I can easily do one, and the other not at all? I can’t shake the conviction that if I can tap my fingers at 180, then I should be able to gradually work up an easy alternation to a similar speed. It doesn’t make sense to me that, in the same hand, tapping is easily possible yet alternation is completely impossible. There’s a correct feel that’s so far eluded me. I’m determined to find it.

With this in mind, I’ve tweaked my 30 minute alternation practice. Now I begin by tapping i and m on the bridge, with my hand in normal playing position. I do this for a moment to ingrain the light and easy feel. Then I move my hand to the first string and try to maintain this light and easy feel during alternation. This raises a problem. If I try to maintain a light and easy feel while alternating on a string, I must play very lightly with an almost wispy sound. Any attempt to raise the volume also raises my hand tension. The question is whether very light playing is the right way to go. On the one hand, maybe I should start with the light and wispy sound, ingrain the easy feel, then increase the volume gradually from there. On the other hand, maybe an increase in hand tension is integral to good alternation, and by avoiding it, I’m delaying progress. (“On the one hand, on the other hand”—if I add any more hands to my deliberations, I’ll have to buy gloves in bulk.)

Faced with this conundrum, I’m splitting the difference. Sometimes I alternate lightly, other times I alternate more vigorously. In time, I hope to discover which approach yields better results.

Now to answer a couple of questions:

“I noticed that in the Fandango you were flexing a and c in past i and m—is this a conscious strategy?”

I would prefer that a and c stay with m. But I may have to take what I can get.

“I was wondering what is you exact goal? Is it possible that your goal is too vague?”

As I’ve said in a previous post, my goal with i and m alternation is to hit a metronome setting of 180, four notes per click. That’s pretty specific. In fact, I’ll be more specific. I want to be able to play an E major scale with i and m rest stroke across six strings, up and down twice, at 180. Further, I want to play the Carulli Fandango at 100. Finally, I want to be able to execute alternation and arpeggios with good tone, accurately, and reliably.

Seems specific enough. Is it realistic? We’ll see.


——[My next post will be on April 25, 2011.]——

Rearranging Deck Chairs on the Titanic

Putting up a video brought forth some blistering critiques of my playing position. Reading them, one might think I was plucking the strings with my elbow. Such criticism, I think, misses the mark. Too often any playing deficiency is reflexively blamed on deficiencies in position, even when the position in question is only a minor departure from a perfect archetype. (The archetype varies depending on who’s defining it, but let’s not go there.) To explain what I mean, consider the following. I just watched a player who holds the guitar head too low, making it hard to reach upper left hand positions easily. His right hand wrist isn’t properly aligned. Further, every time he plays rest stroke alternation, his right hand little finger extends, suggesting unnecessary tension. Clearly this guitarist’s basic technique is a disaster, and it’s unlikely he’ll ever play well. To see a video of this unfortunate guitarist, click here.

Okay, bad example. Yet everything I said about his technique is true—if one views technique as a credo of absolutes from which one ought not deviate. But in the rough and tumble world of real guitar playing, technique doesn’t fall apart when it’s off by a jot or tittle. So while the player in this video doesn’t have perfect technique, it’s close enough. He could, I suppose, take time to iron out his deficiencies. But absent musical deficiencies, why bother?

“But Tom,” someone replies, “you have musical deficiencies, so you need to adjust your position.” I agree with the musical deficiencies. Where I disagree is that the cause of my musical deficiencies lies in my playing position. I could tinker endlessly with it, yet never resolve my problem. The problem isn’t the outward appearance of my technique. Rather, it’s the inward effort.

To better understand, try this. Begin drumming your right hand fingers on a desktop, lightly and easily. Piece of cake, right? Now stop. Without altering in any way the outward appearance of your hand, tense your hand and arm muscles until they feel uncomfortably, almost painfully rigid. In this rigid state, try to drum your fingers on the desktop. Much harder, right? Now ask yourself, would changing the outward appearance of your hand make this difficulty go away? Of course not. The problem is the internal muscular tension. If you don’t relax the internal tension, then tinkering with your hand position is a waste of time—it misses the real cause of your difficulty.

It would be nice if the problem with my playing were as obvious as the above experiment. But it’s far more subtle, else I’d have resolved it long ago. Further, because it’s so subtle, it defies detection by even the best of teachers. Faced with musical deficiencies in a student, teachers tend to fixate on what they can see. And as the above video shows, minor but visible deficiencies can be found in even the best players. So why seek invisible problems when a visible problem is easy to find—and blame?

For those following my project, I ask you to take seriously my assessment of what’s causing my problem. Fixating on what you see will distract you from what I feel when I try any kind of right hand speed. This is something you must take on trust, since you can’t feel it for yourself. Students aren’t always right in their assessment of a problem. But they’re not always wrong either. Too often, I believe, students have much to tell us about why they’re having trouble, but are ignored. They’re students—what do they know? Sadly, they might know more than their teachers are able to grasp.

I do suspect, however, there are those who know exactly what I’m talking about. I’m not unique, so it’s likely my problem isn’t unique. In finding a solution, I hope to solve a problem not uniquely mine, but one that others have and overlook. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, in every solution we recognize our own rejected problems—they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.


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

April 2 Video Update

Bowing to repeated requests that I should post videos with my blog, I finally stuck a crowbar in my wallet and bought a camera. After a day of cursing and head-scratching, I more or less figured out how to use it. So all my future monthly updates will be in video.

First let me explain that I’ve little experience in front of a camera. Watching this video, I was struck by how twitchy and shifty-eyed I look. If there’s ever a remake of “The Caine Mutiny” I’ll be a natural to play Captain Queeg. But that’s not a look I want to cultivate. I’ll work on appearing more warm and fuzzy.

Since the video shows what I’m doing, I’ll use this post merely to expand a bit on what you’ll see and hear. Classical guitarists might immediately notice that my right hand pinkie is often not moving with my other fingers during i and m alternation. Some guitarists regard this as a serious technical faux pas. I tend to be one of them. Certainly in any right hand movement involving a, I want my pinkie to move with it. But I’m not sure this is so important for alternation. Many very accomplished guitarists don’t move the pinkie while doing alternation. (John Williams is a notable example.) For the moment, I’m agnostic on this matter. I don’t particularly like not moving it, but if it doesn’t slow me down, then I’ll let it be.

You’ll also notice that some of what I do sounds hit or miss. For example, when I begin alternating four notes per click at 100, the results are a bit ragged at first. I’ve found that when I begin my right hand practice sessions, it takes a about ten or fifteen minutes before my hand feels loose. That’s reflected in the video, since I only warmed up about five minutes before shooting. One goal I’m working toward is to reduce the warmup time needed before my hand is ready to roll. Five minutes should be enough. Indeed, concert artists occasionally have to make do with less.

By the way, whenever I do a video update, I intend to set up, briefly warm up, and then shoot in one take. I want each update to show my true capability, not a pristine and heavily edited version. So expect a few blemishes. Speaking of which, there’s a mistake in my narration. At the 7:41 mark I say this: “The extensor stretches would be like so.” I should have said “flexor stretches.”

For those interested, the camera I used for this video is a Zoom Q3HD. Despite my chronic ineptitude with all things mechanical, it’s pretty easy to use. I wouldn’t use it to make a Hollywood epic. But for Youtube videos, it gets the job done with a minimum of fuss.


With no further ado, here’s the video. Get yourself some soda and popcorn, and enjoy the show.





——[My next post will be on April 11, 2011.]——