ocarolan
Global Moderator
CURMUDGEONLY OLD GIT (leader - to join, just ask!)
Posts: 33,956
Mini-Profile Background: {"image":"","color":"c0cfe1"}
Mini-Profile Name Color: 182a3f
Mini-Profile Text Color: 733a1c
|
Post by ocarolan on Aug 13, 2015 19:35:12 GMT
There isn't a 5.30 in the morning. Keith
|
|
Andy P
C.O.G.
Posts: 4,982
My main instrument is: Taylor 312ce, Guild D25, Deering 5 string banjo
Mini-Profile Background: {"image":"","color":"8e2be1"}
Mini-Profile Name Color: 060607
Mini-Profile Text Color: 0b0b0c
|
Post by Andy P on Aug 13, 2015 20:20:31 GMT
There isn't a 5.30 in the morning. Keith Yes there is. My prostate ensures I never miss it.....
|
|
|
Post by martinrowe on Aug 13, 2015 22:26:07 GMT
I think this is a great thread.
Last week I bought the Iznaola 16pp book on your recommendation - thanks.
I've started to apply some of the techniques he suggests and they are working. One of the things he has, for me, is the answer for not getting stuck at a plateau - invaluable.
I've tried his 'problem solving' principle with a bit that I always stumble with when playing Martin Simpson's Donal Og. I treated the small section as a problem solving exercise and found myself spending a lot of time picking apart a very small section, reworking the fingering, analysing the tone, and then found myself improving the sound I get from the thumb/nail. Practice became fascinating.
I've had one small try at visualisation and can see how that makes perfect sense - difficult though.
Thanks again for the recommendation.
Martin Rowe
|
|
Phil Taylor
C.O.G.
Posts: 4,407
Mini-Profile Name Color: 680908
Mini-Profile Text Color: 121311
|
Post by Phil Taylor on Aug 14, 2015 8:16:48 GMT
I'm just trying to play anything on guitar without making mistakes In addition, now my work on the house is coming to close, I have bought a mandolin tutor (Mandolin Roadmaps) and I am going to find more time to learn to play my davewhite mandolin 'Ceol Binn III'. Perhaps not the correct thread but I have to say this instrument is so easy to play in terms of fingering due to the scale length and nut width - the sound is so sweet as well, lovely full bodied, rounded tones and no harshness whatsoever Phil
|
|
|
Post by creamburmese on Aug 17, 2015 18:00:14 GMT
I'm just trying to play anything on guitar without making mistakes Phil My thoughts exactly! Despite having largely abandoned the attempt to "learn" things before picking up the guitar, I am going about learning new tunes differently in an attempt to get it "into my head" rather than just in muscle memory. [ I so wish my brain was better than this, but we have to work with what we've got. ] Currently this involves learning it forward a bar at a time as usual, but instead of just adding new bars as they seem to come to my fingers, I'm actively learning each bar - looking away from the music and trying to remember before I've really got it. Then once i can play a line of music I go back to the music, and starting at the end, play starting at the last bar from the music, then the last 2 bars, then 3 etc. I'm hoping this will stop me having those humiliating moments when my guitar teacher points to a part of the music and says "start from there" and i have absolutely no clue where it is without working out the notes again... Glad you are finding the Iznaola useful Martinrowe.... My guitar room was being renovated the last few weeks and I had temporarily lost my copy, but I'm happy to say it has resurfaced now I'm back in my room again. I think it's the kind of book that bears re-reading from time to time (not too onerous, given its size). Oh and I"m currently working on tremolo - oh so hard to keep the notes even .....
|
|
|
Post by andyhowell on Aug 17, 2015 21:41:06 GMT
You need a routine - just get up at 5:30 every morning and grab it on the way to get tea - it works, I can vouch for it On a few occasions in my life I have been able to have 3 hour practice sessions for a week or more. Now, that. Makes a difference!
|
|
|
Post by jonnymosco on Aug 18, 2015 9:14:42 GMT
Oh and I"m currently working on tremolo - oh so hard to keep the notes even You could try just fingernails for the tremolo, no flesh, should help with speed and accuracy. I'm working on, and have been since a similar thread on the old forum, flamenco tremolo, p i a m i, p i a m i - but with a rest stroke for the thumb, a challenge, mostly for my family! Jonny
|
|
|
Post by creamburmese on Aug 18, 2015 17:53:27 GMT
Jonny that sounds completely impossible to do. Please share it when you get it so I know it's for real and you're not making it up!!! I'm not really good enough to attempt tremolo, but darned orchestra conductor has give us Denman's "picture on a train" which has an entire page of tremolo even for the easiest parts (i.e. mine). Hopefully it will be slow enough that it isn't a real tremolo just repeated notes on the same string.... ever hopeful . In the meantime, I have a little lesson on my phone that my guitar teacher did for me - how does it go? ah yes, start with staccato and relax everything at the same time.... sigh.
|
|
missclarktree
C.O.G.
Posts: 2,423
My main instrument is: It varies
Mini-Profile Background: {"image":"","color":"1979e6"}
Mini-Profile Name Color: 100605
Mini-Profile Text Color: 020a12
|
Post by missclarktree on Aug 18, 2015 20:07:31 GMT
I've had a go at the flamenco tremolo, and it seemed to be going okay until I recorded it. Then I couldn't distinguish the four notes at all. It sounded like three.
I'm working on 'double' five-fingered rasgueados using exercises from Dennis Koster's 'Keys to Flamenco'. Trying to play again after an 8-month gap, I decided that one must have a repertoire. But, having learned about 5 tunes and played them all equally badly, I've realised that the memory gets filled up to capacity but nothing else improves. So now it's nothing but eamii eamii for breakfast, dinner and tea.
|
|
|
Post by michaelm on Aug 18, 2015 20:34:26 GMT
Oh and I"m currently working on tremolo - oh so hard to keep the notes even ..... If you're having trouble with the fingers, give it a try with a plectrum...
|
|
|
Post by colan on Aug 19, 2015 6:48:09 GMT
I thought it might be fun thread to start - to see what technical challenges people are working on and what does and doesn't work... for instance I've been working on building speed (arpeggios, moving up and down the fretboard) with limited success for a while. Not had a lot of luck getting it past 90 (I need it to be at least 120, eventually 140). Currently trying "speed bursts", You do the piece at a comfortable slow pace and then speed up for a very short period then back to the slow pace, gradually increasing the length of the speedy bits as you get more comfortable. I've found that when i try to speed up the whole thing at once I get tense, things start to go wrong and it's downhill from there, but I stay more relaxed when it's only for a short period. Looks hopeful anyway. Other suggestions welcome!! Anyone else working on some new technical challenge? For what it's worth I've found that it's easier- and more rewarding- to play one's own original material faster than it is to attempt speed playing of other people's compositions. I still attempt to copy other players, mind, but it's more difficult and less rewarding.
|
|
maninashed
Cheerfully Optimistic
Mad Farmer Liberation Front
Posts: 4,195
|
Post by maninashed on Aug 19, 2015 8:26:38 GMT
There isn't a 5.30 in the morning. Keith Haha! That's my guitar and uke time every day. 2 hours uninterrupted playing watching the sun come up. Can't beat it.
|
|
|
Post by vikingblues on Aug 20, 2015 7:49:49 GMT
Just to buck the trend rather than attempt to build speed and play notes faster I'm on a long term mission to play as few notes as possible and as slowly as possible. There are good reasons. 1 - suits my creaky fingers 2 - suits my tendency to laziness 3 - suits you sir! Oooohhh! But most important, for me, an acoustic guitar sounds at its best when the notes are allowed to bloom and sing and fade. That's my excuse anyway.Mark
|
|
|
Post by andyhowell on Aug 20, 2015 9:27:51 GMT
Just to buck the trend rather than attempt to build speed and play notes faster I'm on a long term mission to play as few notes as possible and as slowly as possible. There are good reasons. 1 - suits my creaky fingers 2 - suits my tendency to laziness 3 - suits you sir! Oooohhh! But most important, for me, an acoustic guitar sounds at its best when the notes are allowed to bloom and sing and fade. That's my excuse anyway.Mark Spot on. I remember Martin Simpson giving me this advice over 20 years ago now. Pass and feel and fluidity are more important that blistering speed around fretboard. I think a lot of you player would be advised to best player they can be, rather worry too much about being an imitation of Bensusan, McManus and so on.
|
|
|
Post by creamburmese on Aug 20, 2015 14:37:58 GMT
There is no hope for me of blistering speed, and even moderate speed seems beyond my reach, so I won't have to worry about that! The good news this week, Train and its Tremolos got canned, but instead we have Verdery's Ellis Island (AKA "Elvis"). Key features of this piece include: many pages of music, strange rhythms, at least half of my part is written in the bass clef , and the other half seems to be focused above fret 12. AND the bottom 2 strings are tuned down to G and C. Reading notation has now become an exercise in extreme frustration - first I remember that a G is really a B. Then I laboriously count up from the nut from my retuned string to FIND the B. Repeat for next note. Repeat for next note. Try to play 3 notes. Get confused, go back to starting point, forget that G is really a B and instead count up to find G. Ditto for subsequent notes. Wonder why it sounds odd. Then remember G is really a B. Back to square one. Aaaaagh! However I think I solved it! I drew little strings under the score and added fret numbers for the notes ---- it's perfect! I wonder if anyone has ever thought of this? - (LOL)
|
|