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Pumping Nylon?
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fevictor
Posts: 377
Joined: Nov. 22 2005
From: Quepos / Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
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 RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
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Miguel,
How do you know that it did you little good? Was it that you werent practising properly the scales or techniques, or do you think that technique, clarity, speed, timing, and all aspects of practise should be learned thru falsetas?
I ask this because I am on this path right now...I am trying to work on getting the techniques mastered, or at least comfortable, before continuing to work on new palos and more complicated falstetas.
There seems to be a lot of different ideas on how to practise. I have taken the advice of always playing with the metronome and giving my full attention to the task at hand, regardlessof how simple the excersise may be. My guitar teacher recommends to master the techniques, then when you want to play music you just add the notes to what you can already play.
There seems to be alot of people here who say that they wasted a lot of years doing things that they would never do again knowing what they know now. So, whos right???
So the question basically is this: What is the best way to master all of the techniques if you shouldnt devote too much time to practising them?
Vic
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Date Nov. 23 2006 18:24:08
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
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Victor,
I spent about two years doing several hours a day at scales and "Kitharalogus" type of things. Did I get better at those exercises, sure. Did I get the scales fast...to some degree, yes, I could sloppily play some long scales at 16th notes at 170 or so. Did I progress as quickly as I should have? No, I don't think so.
We are playing music here, and it's really hard to get better at music without playing music. I am not saying this in some kind of New Agey way, I am not talking about "expressing yourself" I am talking about the actual physiological act of playing guitar. I think that we learn best when we are actively using our ears and minds to actuate an idea. I also think that music works best for this.
I have benefited greatly from listening to the guitarists on this board who are much further along than me (there are many of them). Not one of them suggested even in the slightest that zonking out on exercises hours a day is the key to learning. What I have picked up is that you play music, you do it with awareness and precision and curiosity and fun and rhythm.
Rather than play those scales and exercises, I shoudl have been taking music at a lower level, taking a metronome or compas, and isolating measures or compases and just making them sing. Not rushing too much, just taking time with it and making it sound and feel right. I think if I had done that, I would be much further along now than I am.
In my opinion, you might want to spend 10% of your total practice time on exercises.
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Date Nov. 23 2006 19:23:03
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Ricardo
Posts: 14861
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
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I say forget the Pumping Nylon book, but certainly get your hands on the VIDEO if you can. It is real helpful, even to flamencos. Of course the guy has the wrong tone for flamenco, but his advice on everything from nail shape to tremolo, picado, arpegios, etc, is fine for the flamenco player. I always refer students and friends to that vid. Oh, the one thing is his advice about rasgueado you can sort of ignore IMO. And one thing he said about "clawing" at the strings, is in fact a legit type of flamenco technique, sort of. But that is what I mean about his tone not being right for flamenco.
As other's said, don't get stuck on exercises, but rather learn how to apply even classical guitar ideas, to YOUR music or the music you are working on. In other words, apply the arpegio advice to your solea. 
Ricardo
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Date Nov. 24 2006 22:58:32
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
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It's funny because when I was starting out I had a fixed idea of how things worked, and I didn't really listen to the people who were ahead of me. I had to figure it out myself through trial and error. The error included wasting about two years on exercises, which also led to an injured middle finger which cost me a full year of practice. I will reiterate that I think you should spend about 10% of your time on excerises, no more.
The reason exercises are such a sweet trap is that it allows you to mindlessly move your fingers for hours without engaging your brain or ears, yet fooling yourself into thinking you are doing a good job and helping yourself out. This leads you to bad habits and can teach you to ignore your sensory feedback by dulling it through repetition. If you are practicing without actively engaging your ears and mind, then you are most likely wasting your time and grooving in bad habits. It is especially dangerous to someone like me, who has a poor span of attention. I found it easy to zone out for hours while practicing scales and arpeggios.
If you want to play the sextuplets in solea, then why not take those sextuplets and isolate them and work on them? Just use what is in the music and break it down. It almost goes without saying that you probably shouldn't be able to do the sextuplet figures unless you are already proficient at the sixteenth note or triplet figures. You have to know arithmetic before algebra, right? And don't you need algebra for calc?
To me, the consensus is pretty clear about how to proceed. On this thread alone, there has been some good advice for free that would normally cost $ to get. Save yourself the pain and aggravation and wasted years that I went through by choosing the wrong path, and listen to what Jon and Ricardo say. Play music and use the exercises as specific solutions to problems which you have isolated and identified as needing them.
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Date Nov. 25 2006 4:54:10
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DoctorX2k2
Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Miguel de Maria
If you want to play the sextuplets in solea, then why not take those sextuplets and isolate them and work on them? Just use what is in the music and break it down. It almost goes without saying that you probably shouldn't be able to do the sextuplet figures unless you are already proficient at the sixteenth note or triplet figures. You have to know arithmetic before algebra, right? And don't you need algebra for calc?
Been there, done that... I can play triplets no problem... it's just the ascending part of the arpeggio sextuplets (the mi in pimami) that I can't do in time and I think the problem revolves around me planting technique or hand position... I tried to isolate and practice for a few weeks without improvement, I'm probably not even practicing the right way. Once I get a good idea of the correct way to do things, I'll follow your advice and wont spend much time on exercises.
Romerito, of course I'd like to become a decent player, although I don't have 3 hours to spend everyday du to the fact that I'm studying medicine. I'm taking an optional class outside my program just for fun this semester, it's called Motor learning and movement analysis, it's in the Kinesiology department. Time spent learning something is juste one variable among many others that influences performances and learning.
The tricky part is finding the right way to practice guitar playing, which is an open movement into a stable environment. From what I've learned so far in the class (not over yet), Miguel would be right not to spend too much time on exercises. Exercises do increase specific performances while you're doing it, but when doing a retention test (to see if one has learned properly), the effect of a simple exercise aren't nearly as good as a complex exercises incorporating what we could call "interferences" such as rythm, chords and other technique than the one you trying to improve at. Does that mean you shouldn't do exercises? No, but pushing them above everything else doesn't seem correct. There's a disctinction to make between the learning curve and the performance curve. The studies I had the chance to read weren't intended for guitar players so I can't tell if the concepts would also apply to it, but as far as practicing time is concerned, the more the better. It is better to do 2 X 1 hours than 1 X 2 hours... yet again, time is only one thing among many others influencing learning so I can't tell how this time should be used. If I had a ton of time and access to a lab, I'd try to build a study up and find out, but I don't  .
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Date Nov. 25 2006 14:12:00
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Miguel de Maria
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
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Doc, I would definitely try full and sequential planting to tackle that problem.
If you aren't already familiar with these terms, the full plant simply means to place the fingers on the strings in a bunch (for example pami) then play them normally p, a, m, i. The sequential plant means place p, play p, place a, play a...etc.
This is in contrast to just playing, without taking the time to place them.
If I were in your situation I would try to make two exercises: plant pima, plant ami, then once they felt very comfortable try to put them together. Take your time and put the fingers in a nice playing position, then play. Maybe use a metronome, plant, play, plant, play. Generally pima is difficult, and ami is easy because of the way the hand works. You may want to check out this online book by a physicist about piano playing: http://members.aol.com/chang8828/contents.htm
I found it useful in thinking about impulses. At speed, the pima is one impulse, and the ami is another.
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Date Nov. 25 2006 15:01:24
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Exitao
Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
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From the perspective of a person who has been in workshops on the receiving end of people who use kinesiollogy courses to train atheletics, I've seen that they do use exercieses.
When learning new techniques, or working on problem techniques it was common to practice exercies that were components of the skills to be learned/worked on today. Then we proceeded to the the full technique, returned to exercies, I suppose to exhaust muscles or fibres or whatever, then back to the technique an perform it until exhaustion keeping 100% aware of every little movement nad how to control it through exhaustion, which made the movement much more natural and automatic later when not exhausted.
Now this was fencing, not football. We had to control a 1cm tip approximately 1m/yd away from the handle, keeping movements extremely tight, often moving the tip itself less than 10cm or 5" (it's not like the movies).
In this context, when I say technique, it probably more approximates a falseta, because were' talking about compound attacks etc, involved within are numerous smaller skills.
In this context the exercises are chosen to compliment a specific pattern of movements and ingrain the pattern of movements (and its comonent parts) into muscle memory.
From this perspective I see that everyone is right:
You need your basics.
Speedy players without basics are sloppy.
Poor basics are a terrible foundation for new techniques.
You have to continue past the basics, because without context they're useless.
Whenever learning new falsetas, returning to the component basics is a good warm-up, helps to analyse the patterns and keeps the learned technique clean.
...and reinforces the learning by using association, both intellectually and with muscle memory.
Miguel:
Can I have your Kitharologus book? 
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Date Nov. 25 2006 16:12:41
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Ricardo
Posts: 14861
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
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quote:
Been there, done that... I can play triplets no problem... it's just the ascending part of the arpeggio sextuplets (the mi in pimami) that I can't do in time and I think the problem revolves around me planting technique or hand position... I tried to isolate and practice for a few weeks without improvement, I'm probably not even practicing the right way. Once I get a good idea of the correct way to do things, I'll follow your advice and wont spend much time on exercises.
I have an exercise over at FT under the lessons called "arpegios", that focuses specifically on this problem. To be fair to others that took that lesson, let me just describe the problem, rather than give you the exact etude I made up. So you have no problem with triplets, imaP, amiP, etc, where you can end with the thumb on the beat, right? So there is a delay when you get from pima--M I, right?
So if you look at the strings there is a problem between the a and m finger mainly (1st to 2nd string). What I did was to make up a piece where the melody moves around on the B string (the m finger) so you focus on the timing of that one note, and STOP on it. Don't play i finger next, leave a rhythmic space there before the thumb plays again. pimaM_, pimaM_, etc each time the M plays you emphasize it and move the melody around. Go slow at first until you get the rhythm. It is still 6 notes rhythmically, but you leave the last note off to emphasis that m finger. Once you can do it fast, you can throw in the i finger and find it is very smooth and easy to do.
Hope this helps.
PS, that is all FREE stroke, tirando, except for "P" which you do rest stroke.
Ricardo
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Date Nov. 25 2006 20:30:51
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DoctorX2k2
Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
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RE: Pumping Nylon? (in reply to Ricardo)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
I have an exercise over at FT under the lessons called "arpegios", that focuses specifically on this problem. To be fair to others that took that lesson, let me just describe the problem, rather than give you the exact etude I made up. So you have no problem with triplets, imaP, amiP, etc, where you can end with the thumb on the beat, right? So there is a delay when you get from pima--M I, right?
So if you look at the strings there is a problem between the a and m finger mainly (1st to 2nd string). What I did was to make up a piece where the melody moves around on the B string (the m finger) so you focus on the timing of that one note, and STOP on it. Don't play i finger next, leave a rhythmic space there before the thumb plays again. pimaM_, pimaM_, etc each time the M plays you emphasize it and move the melody around. Go slow at first until you get the rhythm. It is still 6 notes rhythmically, but you leave the last note off to emphasis that m finger. Once you can do it fast, you can throw in the i finger and find it is very smooth and easy to do.
Hope this helps.
PS, that is all FREE stroke, tirando, except for "P" which you do rest stroke.
Ricardo
Thanks Ricardo, I'll try this out.
As for your FT lesson, I wanted to buy it but the minimum deposit is 40$ and I don't feel skilled enough for most of the lessons out there according to the previews, plus I already have a tone of stuff to go through so I'm not too willing to leave 35$ there for no apparent reason. Anyways, thanks for your help, it's greatly appreciated.
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Date Nov. 25 2006 22:48:36
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