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For me, the value of the super-slow metronome practice comes after I’ve drilled something into muscle memory. The metronome detects unconscious tactical rubato and makes me focus on dynamics and articulation, but the big thing is that the super-slow setting puts my executive mind back in charge. Going slow means you can’t bounce through on muscle memory. You need to know what you’re playing and think about each note as you play it. This makes the learning robust. If I don’t do this, I’m vulnerable to nerves wiping the muscle memory and my conscious mind not having enough of a grip on what I’m playing to take over.
The big motivation to do this very boring exercise is that it reduces the likelihood of a catastrophic on-stage memory-fail.
"explore the details" was the idea I was trying to convey in my previous post. To add to my comment on rasgueados I used to try and play them fast but now I try to play them fast slowly, if that makes any sense. Doing so has really improved my ability to execute them.
But if the issue is a tricky rhythm then it is not good to turn 8th notes into quarter or half notes. You are trying to encode the "feel" of those passages so a medium foot tap is what you need. So a ballpark tempo to the final, meaning a little slower is ok but NOT half speed, so there will be lower threshold tempos you don't want to go below.
Yes im running into this a bit with a couple of pieces/falsetas that I couldve quite easily mentioned on Metalheads feeling the gaps thread.
opening falseta in rio de la seda, has some big gaps. so trying to feel those beats is tricky. so i slow right down and try...and its harder! so the medium zone i think is where i need to be.
Recently like couple of years ago I started to feel this strange fatigue for the muscle between the thumb and index finger on the left hand (I think it is called first dorsal). When playing pretty much anything at whatever tempo I have to remove my thumb from the neck occasionally (and use biceps to continue pressing the strings), flex the thumb, and only then "reattach it" to then neck. It actually got way worse after I learned and practiced Javier Conde's exercises (which require a lot of stretches, force and etc). But even when I dont do them - still same effect. I did not see a doc for this but I might be having early arthritis stage (my mom has this quite badly with deformities and pain). What I found which helps a lot is just to use arthritis relief cream (I use voltaren, I think it is available in Europe too). Even with infrequent applications the fatigue subsided a lot.
Maybe you should try it as well on the joints/muscles that give you most trouble?
Posts: 16507
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
RE: practicing slow / aches (in reply to kitarist)
quote:
ORIGINAL: kitarist
quote:
The only thing I don't like about your Tomatito video is you don't show us how to get the actual falseta in our mind
I thought it shows you exactly that - that is why is says "in 8 minutes" while lasting about 8 minutes - what you see IS the process of fully installing it into your brain in about 8 minutes.
Yes that is correct. I did not know the falseta yet. It was chosen from Tomatito encuentro of which the exercise would not work as I needed the video or score to work from to just get the idea. I literally looked at the tabs and watched him play it a couple times then sat down and made that video. People can do what I did with the score handy, as in don't play THROUGH the whole thing, just loop it in chunks. And I guess that is what the guy was telling me that we can use the pause and jump back on YouTube or whatever if you learn it visually or from audio. If I had only audio I might do the same procedure you see here doing a chunk at a time, but I would also need to explore different fingerings if I was not sure.
And another method I have used is SINGING the falseta in the car and repeating (this was easier with CD player back buttons than using my phone now which is annoying and I no longer can do this safely when driving).
Maybe Miguel does not like that I was able to make the video from only a partial glance at the score, but it was enough to get the phrasing and fingering in my head after only a few minutes then I went to work from memory of what the score had there. I think it was only a few hours between the posting of the challenge, my location of my Encuentro and book, watching the video a few times, then finally looking at the tabs. After ALL that I could not play the thing AT ALL. I had to go through the process not knowing how many reps or whatever I was gonna do so the 8 minutes was a result of my REAL TIME learning process of a new falseta. Then it took time to load video to YouTube, and post back on foro.
Maybe Miguel does not like that I was able to make the video from only a partial glance at the score, but it was enough to get the phrasing and fingering in my head after only a few minutes then I went to work from memory of what the score had there.
I like that you can do, but I can't :) I have to use much smaller chunks generally. That's probably because you've forgotten way more flamenco than I've learned. Once in a while, I can learn a whole phrase with a glance, but usually I have to break things down quite a bit.
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