Ramon Amira -> RE: Left Hand Pinky Technique (Aug. 18 2010 15:12:28)
|
quote:
hey prom, the problem is that although i may be physically capable of jumping from speed 1 - 10, with nothing in between, kicking up the metronome up a notch always makes me feel nervous. so mentally, i'm not prepared, and therefore, i'm likely to screw up. i like to get a feel of the run at various speeds. and to get the feel at 150, i have to work my way up to it. i find that i may perfectly cement something at a certain speed but if i jump up too much, too fast, i lose the feel very easily. however, i will try your next method for my next falseta just for the sake of experimentation. but i need something more structured. how long should i practice at tempo 1 before jumping to concert speed? First let me state – because you mentioned trying this with a "falseta," that whatever I say below relates more to speed, so the falseta would have to be one that calls for some reasonable speed, such as Bulerias, or possibly parts of Zapateado, etc. Still, the basic principle applies to all practice. You've said an interesting thing here, which also relates to speed, or more precisely the difficulty of achieving it. Long experience has convinced me – and I'm hardly the only player to say this – that the single biggest impediment to speed is tension. We're afraid we're going to make a mistake, and the faster we play, the more that fear increases because we know that the faster we play the more likely it is that we will make a mistake. Consequently, the faster we play, the more we tend to tense up. I have no doubt that – apart from long, long hours of practice - the main reason the great virtuosos are able to achieve the speed they attain is because just about all of them started in early childhood. Mario Escudero told me he started playing when he was six. Paco started very young, I forgot what age. Sabicas was maybe five. Pepe Romero told me he started when he was TWO. And so on. A young child learning guitar learns it more or less the way he learns language, so that it seems and feels very natural to him, and there's no reason to get tense. A child doesn't get tense learning language – he just learns it. But adults do get tense when learning and when practicing. This relates directly to slow practice. Consider this – have you ever practiced anything without making some mistakes, even a few? Have you ever practiced anything without making even one single teenchy weenchy mistake. Not likely, or at least not very often. Now consider VERY slow practice. There is a point at which you can play slowly enough so that you cannot possibly make even one single mistake. Everyone can find that point for himself. Having found that point, you then practice at that tempo. Now – knowing for an absolute certainty that you are not going to make any mistakes, you will find yourself completely free of tension – what is there to be tense about, at that tempo you are not going to make a mistake and you know it. So you are completely relaxed in mind and body. Furthermore, as I mentioned previously, at that kind of speed you can focus on so many things that are difficult to focus on all at once at a faster tempo, to be sure you are executing everything correctly the way you want to. Consequently, notwithstanding that there is no such thing as perfection – you are playing in a way that can best be described as playing to perfection. Think about that for a moment – you are playing perfectly. And not only are you playing perfectly, but you are doing so in an entirely relaxed way, completely free of tension. You are not making any mistakes, and you know that you are not going to make any mistakes. So if you take a fast picado run, or a falseta that incorporates a fast picado run, you are not intimidated, nor are you daunted by the prospect of trying to get through it without making mistakes. Now comes the obvious question, and one that you yourself asked – "How long do I practice any given run or falseta at this very slow tempo?" Many players using the traditional method of gradually increasing speed use a metronome to good advantage, because they can measure their gradual increments of speed in a controlled and methodical way. With very slow practice it's exactly the opposite – you never use a metronome or try to measure the speed in any way. The reason for that is clear – you want to play only at that same very slow tempo point you arrived at as your starting tempo, and just stay there. So there is no need for a metronome. But now – here is what my experience has been. Everyone has different practice habits, different skills, and differing amounts of time available for practice, so I can't make any blanket statements, but – deliberately NOT using a metronome - if you practice the run for as long a period of time and as many repetitions as you would normally practice any run, an unusual thing happens – you think you are playing at that same slow tempo that you chose as your starting and only tempo for a long time, but without knowing or realizing it, at some point you suddenly realize that you are actually playing at a faster tempo, but you didn't know that because it FEELS AND SEEMS like the same tempo. What has happened is that the muscle habits and fingers and strings sequence has become so ingrained and so natural to your fingers, that they just do what they have been trained to do, but they do it faster with no increase in effort. Because you have not consciously attempted to increase your speed you think that you have not increased your speed, but you have. The first time I realized this, I had set a metronome just to know what my starting and "permanent" tempo would be. Then I put the metronome away. A couple of days later, after I had practiced this particular run quite a bit at what I was sure was still that same slow tempo, just out of curiosity I checked the metronome and found that I was actually playing considerably faster than the original setting. But I would have bet anything that I was still playing at that same tempo, because nothing felt different, and I had made no attempt to practice it faster, and I was still totally relaxed and without tension because – as far as I knew – I was still playing at that slow "safe" tempo. And if you continue to just play at what feels like the original tempo, at a certain point you will find that you can just go straight to at least fairly close to performance tempo. It's not necessarily going straight from one to ten, but what really happens is that when you think you are still at one, after a while you are really at three or four, and at that point you can usually go straight to at least nine, then finalize your performance tempo. Here is what you said in your post – " kicking up the metronome up a notch always makes me feel nervous. so mentally, i'm not prepared, and therefore, i'm likely to screw up." And Mark feels the same thing – "i know what you mean! i find if i'm working on something and i try to miss notches out and jump the speed up too high i "panic" and tense up." Could anything more precisely describe what I have said about tension and the reasons for it?" Very slow practice eliminates tension by eliminating the cause of tension. Ramon
|
|
|
|