Mother Nature Didn’t Kill Me—Yet

The cold is gone, and I’m back on my feet. That which did not kill me made me stronger, or at least restored my ability to type. So let’s pick up some loose ends.

First, I want to point out something that I keep forgetting to mention in my posts. For the last two months I’ve been doing the kind of practice that, in years past, forced me to stop because of right shoulder pain. Yet this time around the pain, though slightly noticeable, is nowhere near what it was in the past. In fact, the reason I kept forgetting to mention it is that it’s so slight that I barely notice it. This encourages me. At the outset of this project I said I’d use this pain as a barometer of how well I was doing. More pain means I’m on the wrong track—less pain means I’m on the right track. I believe the approach I described in my October 30 post is mostly responsible for my freedom from pain.

Second, I’ve been mulling over a comment I received on my February 12 post. The more I think of it, the more I agree with the advice that I should rebuild my right hand slowly and patiently. Next week, for my end of the month video, I plan to perform the Mudarra Galliard. It won’t be at what I regard as a good performance tempo. Rather, it’ll be a baseline for my (I hope) future progress.

Short report this time, as I need to put the finishing touches to a letter of recommendation for one of my former students. Since Christmas is approaching, I thought I’d end this post with a video this former student and I made a few years back. She was sixteen at the time. Today she’s working toward her master’s degree in guitar performance. Geez, time flies. Anyway, enjoy. (And please, no comments about my old right hand position, as I’ve improved it since then.)

On Sick Leave

Been down with a cold the last few days. Assuming I recover, I’ll be back up and typing away on November 27.

Gold and Dross

Sometimes it’s illuminating to put my posts out there and then stand aside to watch the responses. Here, for example, is one response to my November 6 post:

I totally agree with your view that vague advice about attaining speed such as just “play slow” won’t help the student. But I think you had bad luck or [little] experience with guitar teachers, because none of the teachers I’ve had would say only those simple vague words. All of them were very specific on what to work on during slow practice that would improve my technique when playing faster. Including breathing and several other things about body and mind attitude, besides obvious guitar technique such as good hand positioning, nail shape, and so on.

I’d like to think the teaching described here is true everywhere. But my November 6 post also brought this reply:

One of the best unknown guitarists I have ever heard used to breathe so loud, but that guy could play like nobody’s business. He had a very relaxed, virtuoso technique.  Does it really matter that he was a loud breather? I never cared. Perhaps some people are loud and can’t do anything about it?  I have had my nose broken multiple times. I can’t deeply breathe without being loud.

As for your blog, you mentioned it being pointed out that your fingers are more extended when alternating on a string. Your hand position was one of the 1st things many of us mentioned to you here. Your RH fingers weren’t curbed and didn’t move in a fist like motion among many other things.

These questions are straight forward.

How slow is slow? As slow as it takes to think about the next note. Thinking one note ahead.

How long should one practice slow? Until you can play the piece at a tempo where you don’t make any mistakes and can think at least one note ahead.

How gradually should one increase the practice tempo? See above and Slow/Fast practice. One measure/phrase, etc played perfectly slow, then immediately practiced at tempo.

So on the one hand, the first reply says the things I mentioned in my November 6 post—among them, labored breathing as a sign of excess tension—are common knowledge. On the other hand, the second reply dismisses labored breathing as a sign of an underlying problem. It also encapsulates my argument that not enough is being said to those of us who lack right hand speed. There’s not a word suggesting that one should look for an underlying cause that might hinder right hand speed. In essence, one plays slow until one can play fast.

And over four decades of playing, that’s not yet worked for me. Nor has it worked for many others.

Okay, I don’t wish to read too much into what may be an off-the-cuff response on an internet forum. I’ve no doubt that the guitarist who wrote the above quote knows physical and psychological impediments can hinder speed. (The guitarist who wrote this is both a teacher and an accomplished player.) But I wonder why he chose to refute my contention that labored breathing is a sign of excess tension. Is there really any argument about this? All things being equal, isn’t it obvious that one who’s breathing heavily is less relaxed than one who’s breathing normally?

Indeed, throughout my project and the discussions it has prompted, I’ve been surprised at some of the arguments against things I thought were common sense. It seems among some there’s a philosophic distaste for proscribing anything if a seemingly good argument, however tenuous, can be made for it. It’s much the same mindset that permeates American politics, in which it’s hard to argue against something if it’s portrayed in a positive light. “Pro-life” for example—who could be against that? Or “pro-choice”—who could be against that? Well, this isn’t so surprising, since everyone wants to cast their argument in the strongest possible way.

More subtle, however, is the notion that in proscribing a thing, one is necessarily less open-minded than one who defends it. Obviously every case must be judged on its own merits. But I reject the idea that because a thing is minimally defensible, it’s thus not to be proscribed. An open mind doesn’t mean one must accept every idea that washes up on the beach.

I’m sorry, but I can’t accept advice that’s never worked for me. Nor can I be satisfied with advice that’s good as far as it goes, but doesn’t go far enough. Something more is needed. That’s what I’m looking for.

——[My next update will be November 21, 2011]——

Catcher in the Rye

First, let’s clear up a minor mystery. Remember how, in my October 30 video, my little finger splayed out when I did the drumming on the soundboard? And recall that it didn’t do this when I began alternating on a string? The reason, I found, was that when drumming, my fingers are more extended than when they’re alternating on a string. If my fingers are a bit more curved, the little finger is more relaxed and more apt to move with its neighboring fingers. Duly noted, and I’ll work that tidbit of information into my right hand work.

This week I exchanged e-mails with a very fine guitarist who’s been following my project. While very encouraging overall, he did respectfully disagree with me on a particular point. I’d written the following:

“In my experience, much of the advice about attaining speed is too vague. Some players will get it, but most don’t. I suspect that many of the players who do get it have the physical knack, or they have the mental knack for figuring things out for themselves and the discipline to apply what they’ve figured out. In short, I believe many who get it do so through their own effort, and not necessarily because of specific and effective advice.”

The guitarist I corresponded with disagreed, replying that all the high level players he’s talked to are consistent in what they say: one must begin with patient and slow practice. During this slow and deliberate practice, one must emphasize relaxation, combined with lots of successful repetitions.

All true. And some players who are told little more than this will do very well. But I still think that, for most players, this isn’t enough. We need something more. It’s not enough to be told to practice slow. It’s not enough to be told to emphasize relaxation. The vast majority of serious guitar students do precisely that and get nowhere in regard to right hand speed. Why? Because, I believe, they aren’t told specifically enough what it is they’re supposed to be working toward.

Let’s take slow practice as an example. As any experienced teacher knows, “slow down” is probably the single most frequent advice we give to students. (I’ve joked to my students that I could save myself a lot of breath if I just had “slow down” tattooed on my forehead.) But what do we really mean by this? How slow is slow? How long should one practice slow? How gradually should one increase the practice tempo?

Instead of telling a student to practice slowly, we should instead focus on something more tangible. Consider, for example, saying this to a student: “Can you play this passage without labored breathing?” If your breathing is labored, then you’re more tense than you should be. So slow down. How slow? Until your breathing is no longer labored.

There’s a subtle but important difference between this and merely telling a student to practice a passage slowly until he masters it. If I tell a student to practice slowly, then slow practice becomes an end in itself. The student simply does it until he improves by sheer chance, or fools himself into thinking he’s improved, or gives up in frustration. But if I tell the student to focus on his labored breathing, he becomes more aware of a tell-tale symptom of excess tension. He slows down until the labored breathing ceases, which neatly answers the question of how slow he must go. How long should he practice slowly? Until he can accurately and consistently play the passage while breathing normally. How gradually should he increase the tempo? Exactly as fast as he can increase the tempo without a return of the labored breathing.

Here are some specific things we should be telling students repeatedly:

• Good technique should be easy. If you can’t do a particular technique easily, accurately, and consistently, then you don’t have good technique. Assuming you’re practicing consistently and intelligently, technical excellence should be something that’s always there, not something that comes and goes.
• Labored breathing is a sign of excess tension. It’s not a sign of interpretive excellence, nor is it a sign that you’re more musically committed than other musicians. It only means you’re working harder than you should to put across your musical ideas.
• In all aspects of playing, be alert to those little shots of nervousness—they feel like tiny jolts of electricity. If you consistently feel this in a particular passage or technique, then you’re too tense.
• If you’re trying to change deeply ingrained bad technique, there are no quantum leaps. You must proceed in tiny steps. If you try to overreach, you’ll slide right back into the deficient playing you’re trying to overcome.

Some might object that I’m saying nothing new here. Perhaps. But look around. Is the kind of specificity I’m advocating really the norm? Are teachers really insisting on these things, so that excess tension is something every well-trained and ambitious student understands in all its ramifications? Consider the following video:

Skip ahead to the 4:50 mark, where these two players trade fast scales during a cadenza. If you listen closely, you’ll hear which player has the easier technique—it’s obvious. It’s also obvious that the player who’s working harder has never understood that excess tension is something to take seriously.

If you think I’m picking on someone whose playing I don’t care for, then consider Julian Bream. I regard Bream as the greatest guitarist of the 20th century. I yield to no one in my admiration for him when he was at his best. Indeed, whenever I have a young player who begins to show potential, I always make sure he or she hears recordings of Bream in his prime. To my mind, one can’t fully know what the guitar can do without hearing Bream.

That being said, I’d never use Bream as a model for good technique. Bream, I think, is an example of how artistic genius can overcome flawed technique—for a while. He’s also an example of how even the greatest artist inevitably can be felled by flawed technique.

•                              •                              •

What is a teacher if not a catcher in the rye? One might find solace in an “I’m okay, you’re okay” attitude, thus sparing one from the danger of weighing one’s own ideas and finding them wanting. But if we’re to be something more, then we must know the value of what we teach. And we must insist on it in the face of ignorance or apathy. If we know with sufficient clarity what should be emphasized, and we pass it on with conviction and imagination, then we might spare others the sad fate of diminished potential.

Who knows—Holden Caulfield might’ve made a good guitar teacher.

——[My next update will be November 14, 2011]——