Hiatus

‘Tis the week before Christmas, and I’m goldbricking. My right hand practice sessions have been sporadic. Frankly, I think I’m suffering a temporary burnout. So I’m shutting down this blog for two weeks. I’ll come back to the task with a renewed spirit in January. Perhaps the new year will bring better things.

But lest you think I’m down, allow me to review the last week or so. A week ago Saturday, I performed with two of my young students in a recital—one of them did his first performance in front of an audience. On Monday, a thirteen year old student of mine played for a masterclass at the Cleveland Institute of Music run by graduate students of Jason Vieaux. She performed Villa-Lobos Etude 8, and I’m told she did very well. (I couldn’t be there, as I was working that evening.) On the same day, I learned that one of my adult students was selected to perform for a Vieaux masterclass in January. (I sent him and e-mail saying that if he played well, he might get a full ride to the Curtis Institute of Music. He wrote back that he always appreciated my sense of humor.) Tuesday I had a group of six beginners perform for an audience of over 1000 people at a Catholic School where I teach. In a delightful coincidence, I found afterward that at the same moment I was onstage with my students, a former student of mine was doing her Master’s recital at the Peabody Conservatory. Saturday I went to Guitars International to help my thirteen year old student select her first handmade guitar. With her new Vazquez-Rubio spruce top in tow, she, her father and I then had dinner at a nearby restaurant and discussed her future, as she’s recently decided that she wants to pursue music as a career. This morning one of my students and I performed for a Christmas program at his Baptist Church. (If you want to get your blood going on a cold Sunday morning, a Baptist service will do nicely.) And tomorrow morning I’ll visit the school of a first grade student of mine, where he and I will play for his music class.

All in all, it’s been a good week and a half. Times like this remind me of why I love my job. I wouldn’t trade it for anything, though I might trade my paycheck for that of a hedge fund manager.

Merry Christmas to all, and I’ll see you in 2012.

——[My next update will be January 2, 2012]——

The Nitty-Gritty

During my student years at the Cleveland Institute of Music, I recall a class in which a student had just played. In this performance, there was a passage that recurred several times. Each time the player flubbed it. The teacher then asked the player about that passage. “Yeah, I have trouble with that part,” said the student. The teacher asked him what was the problem. “I just keep missing it,” replied the student. The teacher asked him again what was the problem. “I don’t know, it’s just always been a problem,” replied the student. This went on for a few more rounds, the teacher asking what the problem was, and the student giving vague replies.

Finally the teacher explained that the student needed to be far more specific. It wasn’t enough to merely acknowledge a problem. To solve it, the student first needed clearly define it. Was it a right hand fingering problem? Was it a left hand fingering problem? Was it a memorization problem? Until he did this, he was likely to keep repeating the problem. Short of clearly defining the problem, it wasn’t going to solve itself.

So this last week, where I tried to tweak the Mudarra Galliard up to 80, I also tried to drill deeper into the mystery of why anything at 80 or above wasn’t working. What I found was that I had to pay attention to more nit-picky things.

The Galliard has four separate passages with sixteenth notes. Each is different from the others. The first passage is thus:

For me, the main problem is a smooth and easy cross from the second string to the fourth string. Pivoting from the elbow alone doesn’t work for me. I find I must float my right forearm so that it barely touches the guitar, moving from both the elbow and shoulder. I also must coordinate the crossings so that my right hand fingers are precisely set for each string. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve swung and missed a note on the fourth string.

The second sixteenth note passage is thus:

This is the only passage on which I don’t use rest stroke. While the right hand fingering is a tad tricky, it usually causes me no problems. That’s not surprising, as I’m more comfortable with free stroke, and there are no big string crossing issues.

The third sixteenth note passage is thus:

Here all the notes of the scale passage are on the first two strings. I can post my right hand thumb on the fifth string, and everything goes fine. This is the passage I can hit must consistently.

Here’s the last sixteenth note passage:

This, of course, is the longest scale passage. And it’s the one that, more than the previous three, keeps me from comfortably playing the Galliard at anything above 80. As I wrote in my December 4 post, I need to be precise about where I place my right hand thumb during this passage. But drilling deeper, I found more. In a fast passage of some length, I must constantly be aware of a build-up of tension in my hand. Practicing this passage slower, I decided to take advantage of the natural breaks. At each eighth note, I relaxed my right hand before going on to the sixteenth notes, consciously letting my hand “go dead” in the instant before playing the following sixteenths.

This is an application of something I’ve learned to preach to my students over the years. I call this idea “micro breaks.” In it, the guitarist constantly tries to find moments within a difficult piece in which he or she can relax either hand. Rather than unthinkingly allowing tension to grow during a long performance, the player instead pins down every little place where either hand can release tension, however fleeting that instant of relaxation might be.

This is hardly a secret among good players. Some years ago I attended a recital by Raphaëlla Smits. During a particularly difficult piece, she came to a passage where she briefly played an E minor arpeggio on open strings. During this moment, she let her left hand fall away from the fingerboard and briefly stretched her fingers, as though relaxing her hand. The gesture was short and unobtrusive, so as not to distract the audience from the music. But to a player, the purpose of this movement was obvious: it allowed Smits an instantaneous break to relax her left hand. I’m willing to bet this was something she’d consciously practiced when learning the piece. I’d also bet that this was merely the most obvious example of something she does many times within a long and difficult piece.

During this project, I’ve occasionally been told that I think too much. “Let go,” I’m told, and just let let my natural instincts take over. But for one involved in remaking oneself, this is bad advice. When it comes to my playing as it is, my instincts are wrong. My instincts must be torn down and rebuilt.

Renovation is harder and more time-consuming than building from scratch. Boy, can I tell you a thing or two about that.

——[My next update will be December 19, 2011]——

December 4 Video Update

As promised, below is a performance of the Mudarra Galliard for my monthly video report. As you’ll see, it’s at a fairly slow tempo. But for now, I don’t feel comfortable with right hand alternation at anything above 80. My goal for the Galliard is 100. I’ve tried that a few times during my morning practice sessions. It’s just not there yet.

On the plus side, I’m pleased that I made this video in one take. I did a ten minute warmup session, and then turned on the camera, fully expecting my first take would be a disaster. Instead, I got what you’ll see. That’s encouraging, because throughout this project I’ve found that what I work on during my morning practice sessions seldom translates into something I can reliably do in normal playing. Mind you, I’m not dancing in the street over this—it’s a slow performance, only three-quarter speed of what I want this piece to be. Nonetheless, it’s nice to see all this work starting to yield some improvement when the pressure is on.

During my morning sessions, I’m starting to notice that string crossing is becoming more of an issue. For example, I now find that if I don’t precisely plan where my right hand thumb is during certain passages, then my alternation isn’t smooth and easy. For example:

At point A, my thumb rests on the fifth string, and this keeps my hand stable and relaxed as the scale stays on the first and second strings. At point B, however, my thumb between bass notes must float freely above the strings—if it doesn’t, my hand tightens up as I come to the one third string note in the scale.

Further, in this passage:

...I must cross from both the shoulder and elbow rather than the elbow alone. If not, my hand tightens as I cross to the third and fourth strings. So in any right hand alternation on more than one string, I’m being very careful to monitor anything that increases right hand tension.

•                              •                              •

Friday night I had the pleasure of hearing Matt Palmer in recital. He’s a young guitarist who’s been making a splash lately with the three finger approach to right hand alternation. He’s also written a method book on this, which I’ve mentioned in my blog. Unfortunately I had a gig that night, so I was only able to catch half of Palmer’s recital. But what I heard confirmed my favorable impression from his videos. He’s a very fine player, and his scale work is impeccable. Indeed, I think the right hand three finger approach to scales will become standard technique within the next generation of players. And I think Palmer’s example will do much to push this along. His scales are so clean and supple that any reservations about the three finger technique will melt away upon hearing him.

Palmer’s bio and interviews always seem to dwell on his early years as an electric guitar shredder. I find this unfortunate. It suggests that one should expect machine-gun scales and bad tone from Palmer. But this isn’t at all how Palmer sounds. Rather, he’s a tasteful player with an excellent ear for tone and color. I spoke to him briefly during the reception, and found him to be a thoughtful and down to earth person. If you have a chance to hear him, do so.

Palmer is a tough act to follow, but here’s my video anyway. Enjoy.

——[My next update will be December 12, 2011]——