Airworthy?

Next Sunday, May 6th, I’m playing duets with some of my students on a Cleveland Classical Guitar Society open recital. Three of the pieces—The Flatt Pavan, Drewrie’s Accordes, and Bach’s Two Part Invention No. 4—require scales at a modestly quick speed. This last week I worked on those, trying to get my rest stroke alternation out of the wind tunnel and into the air.

So far, the result has exploded in the hanger. I did a run-through with one of my students yesterday. My rest stroke alternation felt so clunky that I had to rely on free stroke most of the way. Needles to say, I’m disappointed with this. After a year and four months of work, I expect better.

For the moment, I’m assuming this is a temporary setback. Perhaps I need to calm down a bit and let all the work I’ve done settle in. I suspect I’m nervous about putting rest stroke on stage, and that’s sabotaging my fluency. So this week I’ll try again to get my rest stroke alternation off the ground. Although I can certainly do the upcoming performance with free stroke, that would be a cop out. I’d rather try and fail with rest stroke than succeed with free stroke.

By the way, my teenaged student had no problem with his rest stroke alternation. Interestingly, his career goal is to become a cardiac surgeon. Maybe if I ask him nicely, he’ll graft his right hand onto my right arm.

——[My next update will be May 6, 2012]——

The Plodding Hummingbird

The week before saw a bit of pain creeping into my right shoulder. So I set aside my normal right hand session and instead worked on learning El Colibri—very slowly. I figured if I had to slow down to give my shoulder a rest, I might as well learn a new piece. With the metronome never above 50, I worked out the right hand fingerings. In some places I use normal i and m alternation, in others I use p and i, and in others I use a, m, i. The varied fingerings make the piece easier to play, and also allow bits of relative relaxation within the piece. Part of my approach to right hand speed is to be smarter about right hand fingerings. Constant i and m alternation might be more macho, but I’m more interested in results rather than proving a point.

Though glacially slow, I’ve now got El Colibri memorized. But all the other hummingbirds are rolling their eyes at mine.

By the way, if this pain keeps cropping up, I’ll finally stick a crowbar in my wallet and see a doctor. Until now, I’ve never done this because I can always easily make the pain go away: just stop practicing right hand speed. Since I don’t, however, intend to give up on my project, then I need to get this pain problem squared away. (For those of you living in more civilized countries, medical care is something many in the United States forgo because of the expense. We’d rather entrust ourselves to the expensive and selective embrace of insurance companies than allow the specter of socialism destroy us.)

In two weeks, I’ll be performing with some of my students for a Cleveland Guitar Society open recital. Most of what we’ll play is well within my normal speed limit. With two of my students, however, I’ll have to do rest stroke scales at a speed I’m not yet comfortable with. I can, if necessary, play these scales at tempo with free stroke. But I really would like to put to the test what I’ve been working on for the last year and four months. So that’s what I’m shooting for.

If possible, I’ll record a video of the results. Bear in mind, though, that my students might object to being put on Youtube. So anything I want to post is contingent on their permission.

——[My next update will be April 29, 2012]——

Through New Eyes

T’was a busy day, so this will be a short post.

This was a week of numbers. Start at a particular tempo, work the metronome up one notch at a time, write down what tempo I end at, and then try to do a little better the next day. But at no point did I rush the process. I stuck to my guns, demanding a Barrueco-like precision before upping the tempo. So it’ll take whatever time it takes.

Am I getting better? I wish I knew. All I know is that I’m staying the course with this approach for a while.

I can say this, however: it’s coloring everything I see and hear when I watch other guitarists play. Today I attended a concert by students of the Cleveland Institute of Music. This is a high level program. But even at this level, I see signs of the very thing I’m struggling with myself. When I see and hear a player slightly muff something, I can sense in the player a little of the inner turmoil that I’m trying to overcome. And when I see and hear a player smoothly sail through knotty passages, I sense the work and emotional discipline it took to make that happen.

If nothing else, the last year has cultivated in me a deeper respect for those who’ve triumphed over human frailty. These rare individuals reshaped themselves into something altogether singular. They serve music with a fidelity that few can approach. Submitting oneself to the needs of something higher than oneself is a quality that commands respect. It’s worth it to me to come slightly closer to understanding what that means, even if I fall short myself.

——[My next update will be April 22, 2012]——

Chasing Barrueco

I’ve adjusted my practice sessions to reflect my more quiet approach. I begin with five minutes of finger pushups. Then I set the metronome at 60 and begin playing i and m rest stroke quarter notes, having each finger lightly release immediately after sounding the string. I do this on all six strings. Then I do the same thing double time, playing eighth notes on all six strings. Then the same thing with sixteenths on all six strings.

After this, still with the metronome at 60, I very lightly play the Mudarra scale excerpt. First I do it in a normal tone color, near the right side of the soundhole. Next I do it sul ponticello. Then I do it sul tasto. For each of these repetitions, I aim to play cleanly and evenly. Someone listening should hear playing every bit as good as Manuel Barrueco’s. (Albeit slower and quieter.) If a repetition goes badly, then I start over with the three different reps. But I’m not allowed to bail out on a particular rep—if I make a mistake, I must first play through the mistake and finish the rep. Only after playing perfectly each rep at each different tone color can I then increase the tempo. And I increase the tempo only one notch.

Here’s my thinking. Light playing helps ingrain playing of minimal tension, but it’s inherently sloppy. On the other hand, controlled playing helps ingrain accuracy, but it inherently increases nervous tension. Thus, I’m trying to experience and ingrain the upside of each, while carefully rationing their downsides. Further, by requiring myself to start over when a rep goes bad, I’m dealing with the problem of playing under pressure, but in a small dose. After all, it doesn’t take long to play all three reps. So at this point, screwing up a rep doesn’t carry an overwhelming penalty. Obviously as I get better, I’ll turn up the heat and make the penalty for a mistake more severe.

I do this for roughly a half hour, seeing how far up the metronome I can get. Since I require perfection for each trio of reps, and I’m upping the tempo only one notch at a time (60, 61, 62, etc.), I don’t get all that far. (The best I did last week was 88.) So be it. I’m taking to heart the idea that speed can’t be forced. As one guitarist commented to me last year, one can’t make a plant grow faster by tugging on the roots.

Why the three different tone colors? Because the strings feel different for each, and I want to become comfortable playing fast rest stroke alternation at any point on the strings.

In the last fifteen or twenty minutes, I play four pieces:

• Carcassi Op. 60 No. 7
• Giuliani Op. 48, No. 5
• Brouwer Etude 7
• a bit of Recuerdos de la Alhambra

I begin each at a tempo at which I can play perfectly, from beginning to end. Again, my goal is to play as cleanly as Barrueco. If I do well at the previous day’s tempo, then I try it one notch faster. If that’s successful then it becomes my starting tempo for the next day.

After that, it’s on to right hand sweeps and rasguedos, followed by stretching.

All through the playing, I keep it very quiet, to emphasize a very easy feel. But if my hand feels good during a particular rep, then I don’t mind if my playing creeps up to a mezzo forte. I’ll continue practicing this way until at least the end of this month. Then I’ll evaluate how it’s going.

I can report, however, an encouraging development. Yesterday I was working with a teenaged student who has better rest stroke alternation than mine. We were playing though Drewrie’s Accordes, The Flatt Pavin, and The Galliard to the Flatt Pavin. (Yes, from “The Renaissance Guitar” anthology by Frederick Noad. I love that book.) Usually I have trouble keeping up with this student. But yesterday things went well—I didn’t struggle to stay with him. It was also good motivation for the student: what teenager wants to be outrun by a middle aged man?

By the way, in the photo above I’m pretty sure Barrueco is laughing because he heard I was trying to catch him.

——[My next update will be April 15, 2012]——

Whatever

No progress to report. No new insights to report. No new video to post. No nothing. Just a lot of quiet repetitions, grappling with my old nemesis.

Since I’ve nothing new to say, maybe I should try to describe exactly what it is that I’m trying to weed out of my playing. Try this. Stand and allow your arms to hang loosely at your side. With very little effort, swing them gently back and forth, as though they’re hanging from well-oiled hinges at your shoulders. This is your arms in their most relaxed state.

Now stop and tense your arm muscles as tightly as you can. Every muscle in your arms, down to your fingertips, should feel tight almost to the point of pain. Try to move your arms while maintaining this rigid tension. This is your arms in their most tense state.

The two states described above are opposite extremes: one extremely relaxed, the other extremely tense. Anyone can feel the difference. And anyone, of course, can see that extreme tension is a bad state to be in for playing the guitar. But distinguishing between these extremes isn’t enough for a guitarist. To reach a high level of playing, an aspiring guitarist must be able to distinguish between finer shades of tension and relaxation.

The problem is that those who don’t know this don’t know that they don’t know. Those who do know this either don’t know how important it is, or don’t know how to describe it.

Here’s an example. It’s an instructional video by a player who can do right hand speed far better than me. It’s a roughly 13 minute video, but I ask you to pay close attention to the part between 3:20 and 3:55—beginning where he says “It’s very important to feel the freedom of motion on the strings.”

The information between 3:20 and 3:55 is the most important thing this player has to say to someone like me who can’t do right hand speed. In fact, he could dispense with everything else on the video and describe in far more detail what he was talking about in those 35 seconds. I’m not saying that everything else on this video is unimportant. Those other things are important. What I’m saying is that those other things are already being said elsewhere, and they’re being said in a way that’s pretty well understood. The thing I’m centering on isn’t said often enough nor well enough. It needs more than saying—it needs to be shouted from the mountain top.

A crucial aspect of good teaching is this: what is it that should be emphasized? Many things must be said, but what is it that must repeated until it really sinks in? Touching on this, here’s something I sometimes say to students. There are two ways of knowing something. The first is “yeah, yeah, I get it—whatever.” The second way is “Oh yes! I get it!”

The first way is useless.

——[My next update will be April 8, 2012]——