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Left hand strength?
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mark indigo
Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
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RE: Left hand strength? (in reply to XXX)
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quote:
i found out that my index finger is anatomically causing the g string too buzz on a full barre, and the b string when barring until the A string. Its the middle joint of the finger which is somehow too soft. Does anyone know what im talking about? yes i do, i used to have that problem, and i have thought a lot about the issue of strength in the hands. I think that if you can lift a full tea/coffee mug or beer glass to your mouth, or do any other number of routine household tasks, then you easily have enough strength in your hands to press a few strings down onto a fretboard. The issue is not strength, but the application and direction of that strength... ...in fact, you may even be tensing the index too much in the wrong way, causing one or two strings to buzz under the joints or whatever. This is gonna sound a bit weird, but it's the best way i can communicate what i worked out to make barres - relax the index finger and try imagining that it is a big soft slimy slug, and you are gonna flatten it over the strings to make a barre - works for me!
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Date Nov. 1 2009 11:47:29
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mark indigo
Posts: 3625
Joined: Dec. 5 2007
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RE: Left hand strength? (in reply to NormanKliman)
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quote:
the mother of all fretting-hand exercises i like this exercise - most barre exercises are just hold a chord, usually E/F shape and just sweep or arpeggiate over the strings, slide up a fret and repeat - this is just musical enough to be interesting and repetitive enough to be easy to learn and remember! it took me a little while to realise the pattern to repeat. i printed the tab/notation off and scribbled the next 3 bars in tab, and realised that it's actually bars 4-7 that repeat up a fret each time. I then had the idea that i could play another bar at the beginning on E/E7 like bar 4 of the exercise moved down a fret. Then it would be a case of 4 bars open, 4 bars under barre, and then keep sliding that up a fret each time. quote:
Try to play rest strokes a few query's about this: on all the notes? surely not ascending arpegios? just on the descending 5 or 6 scale note sequences in the second half of bars 3 and 4 (and would you include rest stroke on the a finger in this)? or on the descending dominant arpeggios with slurs in bars 1 and 2 as well? also, by the time i get to about 9th or 10th position my hand is starting to feel nicely tired and i just stop. I don't think the exercise sounds as good descending one fret each time as it does ascending, and one thing i like to do after some fixed chord/barre work is some scale type things which seem to stimulate the blood flow with a lot of movement. i haven't worked out how to do something like that to return to 1st position and start the barre exercise again yet, but i'd like to. thanks again for posting this Norman, and sorry, i still don't know where it's from!
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Date Nov. 11 2009 14:04:39
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Filip
Posts: 428
Joined: Apr. 23 2006
From: Paris
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RE: Left hand strength? (in reply to XXX)
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I know that this thread is originally about barre chord and index finger, which is the problem I still have, but I did not want to make a new thread for the discussion about left hand strength and speed cause it seems it belongs here anyway. So, while browsing at Amazon today I accidentally run on a couple of tools for the left hand, it's the first time I see them and would like to know what do you think about things like these. The problem with my left hand is that I think I reached the peak of strength (it gets tired quickly if I play a lot of barres or stretch my fingers a lot) and speed that I can get from my playing routine, and for a while I was thinking if there is a way to improve this, either with or without the guitar. The first thing I saw is Strengthener-Accessories/dp/B07T4TKLW2/ref=sr_1_3?crid=YNYVFNOTKXLE&keywords=classical+guitar+finger+stretch&qid=1676924672&sprefix=classical+guitar+finger+strech%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-3">this one. My first reaction was what the heck is this, however after thinking a bit it seems to me that it might give some benefits based on my experience with the right hand. Namely, since a long time ago I use a sponge to mute my guitar, and I noticed that using sponge has an impact on my right hand strength, speed, and control, cause after playing with the sponge for a while I feel I play easier, faster and with more control in my right hand. Does this make sense to you? What do you think about using the sponge like this, and about the thing I linked? The second thing is this one, and then there is Strengthener-Gripper-Grippers/dp/B01MXHXSNP/ref=sr_1_9?crid=23P308B80HEYC&keywords=hand+exercisers+for+strength&qid=1676926214&sprefix=hand+ex%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-9">this one as well which I think is familiar to everyone. What do you guys think of these, could they be of any help? Last but not the least, I guess it's not only (or at all) about these tools, so what kind of practice or exercises you think might boost the left hand? When it comes to the right hand for example, I do exercises from Oscar Herrero's Paso a Paso 1-2-3 for a couple of days and it trains my right hand incredibly, much more than the sponge actually (though I often do these exercises with a sponge actually).
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Date Feb. 20 2023 20:59:57
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RobF
Posts: 1616
Joined: Aug. 24 2017
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RE: Left hand strength? (in reply to Filip)
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This might be in the ‘long shot’ or ‘out of the box’ category, but have you experimented with using a guitar with a thicker neck? The salient characteristic being the thickness, rather than width. Guitars necks can vary in thickness by a couple of millimetres, which doesn’t sound like much, but can have a huge impact on how ‘beefy’ the neck feels, mainly because the change in volume (profile area) is based on the square of the radius of the profile. A lot of players seem to favour a thinner, faster feeling neck when trying out a guitar, but this type of profile can be more tiring to use over a long playing session. I don’t know the mechanics of it but it seems like it requires more clamping effort for barres. A thicker neck can reduce some of the feeling, it just seems to clamp easier (at least in my case, it does). This suggestion isn’t backed up by any detailed ergonomic analysis, just my own experience, and my playing is nowhere near the level of probably the majority of decent players on here, so a grain of salt might be in order. But I’ve definitely noted the phenomenon across various types of guitars. It’s one of the reasons why old guys prefer vintage neck profiles for their Fenders. It’s easier for them to clamp down on the barre chords. Younger guys in the electric world are often more concerned with playing fast lead lines than chunky rhythms, so they don’t seem to notice it as much and tend to favour smaller profiles because they perceive them to be ‘faster’. Summary: it might be worth trying out some guitars with beefier feeling necks, especially if you have had the tendency to quickly reject a guitar with this type of neck profile in the past. It’s possible you’ve never given one enough play time to notice the benefits. Again, a little out there, perhaps, but possibly worth a try…
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Date Feb. 21 2023 16:25:56
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