Blondie#2 -> RE: Thoughts on Technique and Some Issues (Jan. 11 2013 8:16:49)
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i hope blondie or orsonw or anyone who can help just spend 5 mins to diagnose the problem Well firstly I am not a doctor or more importantly, therapist with expert knowledge treating motor disorders, so what you get from me is opinion, not diagnosis. Secondly, I was struck by the amount of control you DO have - full blown FD (like I had) is a lot worse than this, trust me. Having said that, I see your problems. Your video says "...seems the fingers are not aiming well on the strings" Ok, I can see this lack of precision and security. This is typical in onset/early FD and most players try and overcome it by practising harder and longer - they assume their lack of accuracy is due to lack of practice. BIG mistake in these circumstances, all you end up doing is etching the incorrect patterns more firmly into 'muscle memory' (a daft term - muscles do not have any memory, but useful I guess in explaining this). Put it another way, practice makes permanent so you have to get to the root of this. Firstly you are playing way too fast to do anything about it, but I guess this is just a demo. Would be interesting to see you play arps at slow speeds with camera angle inside hand to really see the chain of events. Working below threshold - PAMI all working with absolute precision at whatever tempo this requires, is a necessity for starters as I have already said. "..the pinky is wandering randomly and causing a serious problem" No it isn't. As I maintain, trying to sort out the pinky is missing the whole point, it is the end of a chain reaction. You need to go to the beginning, not the end. You clearly have motor control issues with other fingers as shown in IM picado, you have problems when pinky isn't doing anything abnormal, so how can you blame the pinky? Lets look at this another way - lots of players have sticking out pinky with no apparent detrimental affect on technique. Surely if a sticking out pinky automatically causes problems with other fingers then more players would have your issues? Sticking out pinky may look the same in all cases, but in your case I am sure it is an indication of tension and control problems elsewhere. You are fighting to re-establish control where it used to exist. Ricardo's observation about position change is interesting, not because of where he's coming from (good flamenco position/tone etc) but merely the fact that you have altered your hand position *so much*. Wanna guess what one of the documented triggers of FD is? I am sure you've discovered that one already! I only say this because you are struggling to identify a 'cause' and you are focussing on pinky suddenly deciding to do its own thing as a 'cause' (BTW, change of position was significant factor in my FD too). So what do you? Well you have to become more self aware for starters - that takes a lot of work. You have to work out slowly and methodically to determine what is happening and why. Read my early posts to you about retraining simple combos like I-M at slow speeds, allowing each finger to flex and return before playing the next etc. I think your control of I and M could be 'blurred' and at the heart of this, but that is just a guess. Have you ever done relaxation exercises where you focus on a body part, tense it up, the release 50% of tension, feel what its like, release 50% of what's left, feel and register what that feels like, another 50% and so on? That's the kind of mental effort and concentration you need to beat this. It really is not just about 'finding the right exercises'. Proprioceptive exercises like the one I mentioned above (pinky lightly touching top of guitar) will help, but its more about being creative and devising your own approach. Tried practising with a firmly fitting latex glove? (the type surgeons use). Try it an tell me how it feels. There is only so much we can do to help you with this on a bulletin board, ideally these things are looked at in person - its a coaching approach - '..try this, how does that feel, where does it get you,' etc, PS You might want to download this book, 'Intertwined': http://www.focaldystonia.net/bookdvd.html Farias has helped a lot of people (check out named plaudits on his website) and working in Spain he sees a lot of flamenco guitarists with FD. I think its a good read and really helped my understanding. Othe things tha helped me: -retraining in front of a mirror (more sensory input the better) -play very, very lightly at first and gradually increase power/volume - threshold is not just about tempo
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