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wiggly pinky when doing arps
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rombsix
Posts: 7798
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon
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RE: wiggly pinky when doing arps (in reply to johnnefastis)
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quote:
I guess its a bit similar to the thread Ramzi started here. First of all, great sounding guitar & arpeggios! Second of all, have you ever in the past been taught or just willingly decided that you wanted your pinky to stick out regardless of what technique you were doing, and now you want to reverse this? Or was the pinky sticking out naturally & now you just want to remedy the situation? My case was the former, meaning that my body did NOT want to do that in & of itself, but due to forced habit, it learned to do so & thus when I un-learned that, I felt a great deal of tension get released from my hand. If your case is the latter, then perhaps that natural tension is fine for your hand & you might as well just stick with it as Ricardo alluded to some maestros' hands looking like that. If you regardless of the above want to reset this & stop your pinky from wiggling or sticking out, then you can do what I did. DISCLOSURE: this is going to be a lengthy process & I imagine it will take you at least 6 months to reset this situation... I tried many things & kudos to you for seeing my thread. However, the crux of the matter is this: get a mirror, make your hand do what you want it to do, and slowly build up the speed. For this to work, you have to go back to square one meaning you have to start at tempos of 40 bpm & asymptotically build up to what you can do now. If things go right, I think your arpeggios will improve overall. Practice like this: play the p-i-m-a-m-i or just p-a-m-i arpeggios & make sure that your pinky moves in (i.e. flexes) all the way with your ring finger. Do not try to isolate the two fingers because as was pointed out above, they "share a tendon" & trying to get them to work more independently for the sake of arpeggios is not what you want to achieve. Imagine as though there is a rubber band around the pinky & ring fingers (I used an actual one initially but realized later that just SLOW & CONTROLLED practice with tons of patience is the better way to go... I also tried holding a coin between the two fingers, blah blah - read my thread ) such that they move together. Try to exaggerate the flexion of the pinky so that it (along with the ring finger) are nearly touching your palm as you do the arpeggios. Go really slowly & with great control, and really savor that movement & watch it in the mirror. Do not try to force your pinky into flexion & keep it there (because that visually looks "nicer" as it prevents the wiggling from occurring but increases the tension). Maybe just do this a tiny tiny bit at first to get a feel for what this will be like but the idea is for both fingers to move together & mirror each other to the point that you will not have the wiggling happening anymore because the two digits will just go side-by-side. It's much easier for me to demonstrate with video but I don't have access to my gear now... If you read the above & it is unclear despite you trying to make sense of it, please let me know & I will gladly make you a small clip. Be patient & enjoy the journey!
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Ramzi http://www.youtube.com/rombsix
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 15 2014 13:33:19
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z6
Posts: 225
Joined: Mar. 1 2011
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RE: wiggly pinky when doing arps (in reply to johnnefastis)
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If you guys are really serious about 'solving' this. There is a solution. But first we might want to look at some milder solutions: You could play with your eyes closed, or you could spend less time in front of the mirror. Or, you could do what I do; play in front of a mirror with my eyes closed. But before I enter the Great Pinkie Debate I must first confess that I had no idea what my pinkie was doing before I found out (because of the observations here posted) the contortions to which it was I was submitting my pinkie. Pics of people who can play calmed my fears. My pinkie sticks out and kind of curls, as if tortured, when I'm playing well and playing fast. (Fast is relative, but not to me.) However, it also crashes into my tremolo from time to time. Flamenco pinkies are good for getting bits of bacon out of one's teeth and, I'm told, can come in handy for those sniffy types who like to get excitable. Over the past thirty years I practised rsaguedo eamii and pei (is that how it's described? the triplet.) I couldn't do picado but my rasguedo while very lmited, is strong. I thought that's what Paco did. I heard about flicking and things here. I always thought that flicked sound wasn't done by flicking so I gave my fingers the Swarzenegger treatment. They (pinkies) are good for other things too but worrying about what they want to do of their own free will is another matter. Rombsix differentiates. He wants to go back to his technique as nature intended. Why not? If it is clear then it is clear. I'm not so sure about my own pinkie's intentions. But back to 'the' pinkie. I reckon my pinky feels neglected cause the other fingers get to do all the kool stuff, so he fcks up my tremolo, then I cut the bstard back to teach him a lesson. Then my rasguedo is sht so I ask him to forgive me. Relax relax relax. We all know it. But we also know there is a structure upon which this relaxation kind of 'pivots'. There is huge tension amid the relaxation. And vice versa. But the pinkie! Oh damned digit. What to do? Cut it off, no? Isn't that the samurai flamenco way? No pinkie no worries. Players without pinkies will be admired by those, in the know. This Gordian knot, assaulting this forum and inducing many to leap to their mirrors, tongues sticking out, trying to play unmannered but obsessed that we might find we are pinkiepointers, slashed in a single stroke. And the rest of us poossies, with our stickie out pinkies pleading that Tomitatito is a little gay too. We might then get to the real problem. With the pinkie buried in the garden beside the budgie would we not settle down to play some fast picado and suddenly become cold when we feel the 'phantom pinkie' back to haunt us from beyond the grave? Just kidding guys. Hope this all works out for you. (It would work, of course. And without all those endless hours of pinkie training ;-)
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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE |
Date May 15 2014 17:40:53
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