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Guest -> [Deleted] (Oct. 31 2005 20:28:26)

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XXX -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Oct. 31 2005 20:42:06)

Hey nealf,

there are some easy but effective etudes from dionysio aguado that concentrate on arpeggio. I highly recommend those, especially no. 29 (A minor).

I dont know how long you play, but sometimes it only needs a bit time...
On a german musician forum i happened to read a post in which the author, who has just started playing guitar, was angry and frustrated about practiceing since weeks and still not being able to play pieces like Asturias or Mediterrieanean Sundance [8D]



Miguel de Maria -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Oct. 31 2005 20:51:11)

Probably the most powerful learning tool is the plant.

1. full plant. say you are playing a descending arpeggio pima, that is, four notes on the four strings, thumb, index, middle, ring in that order. Place all four on the strings. Now play the arpeggio, slowly and firmly. This trains you to keep the fingers near the string, which improves accuracy and helps attain quickness.

2. sequential plant. same thing, but keep the fingers above the strings. Before you play with thumb, put the thumb on the string, then play. Then put the index on string, then play. then you put the middle on string, then play. finally you put the ring on string, then play. This does the same thing but it is a more flexible technique than the other.

If you practice this every day, you should make good progress on this technique.



Doitsujin -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Oct. 31 2005 21:55:05)

Yes good hints I think.
My arpegio became much better in a short time after forcing me holding my hand in the right position. Than its only training.



Guest -> [Deleted] (Nov. 1 2005 0:16:48)

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Rain -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Nov. 1 2005 0:54:29)

Mauro Giuliani's 120 arpegio excercises are a standard in the study of classical guitar. There is also a great book by Ricardo Iznaola called Kitharologus, which has excercises for every technic necessary to play the guitar well.

Start slowly and practice with a metronome, in everything you do regarding learning a new piece or working on technic. I always start at 60bpm with everything and increase the tempo by 5 till i get to the desired tempo. If I were studying Guajira de Lucia which is at over 150bpm I woul start at 60bpm. And once I could play the piece without mistakes 5 time I would increase the metronome to 65bpm etc.

Practice slowly slowly slowly slowly

arpegio excercises:

Cmaj first position C 5string 3 fret E4th string 2nd fret 3rd string open C 2nd string 1st fret 1st strng open

With the following fingers

pima
pami great excercise as well for learning tremelo Classical
pimapami
piam
piami great excercise as well for learning tremelo Flamrnco

got the idea

Good luck nealf and ALWAYS focus on your weak areas.
The secret to great technic is FOCUSED SLOW PRACTICE



Guest -> [Deleted] (Nov. 2 2005 15:15:37)

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antonio -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Nov. 2 2005 16:25:35)

Hi nealf,

check your instant message box



kieronw -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Dec. 22 2005 16:06:24)

One important thing about the arpeggio is to avoid tension in the fingers. This might sound obvious but plenty of people play with tension and don't realise it. To check for tension, play a 6 note arpeggio and watch the index finger. It should play the note and return immediately to the string and be in place to play the next time it is needed. If there is tension you will notice that the index finger circles above the string as the other notes are being played. The more tension there is, the higher the index finger will be above the string when the other notes are played.

The same thing should apply to all the other fingers. You should be relaxed enough that every time you play a note the finger ithat plays it is returned immediately to the string. Only a very relaxed tension free hand can do this. To achieve this you need to play very slowy at first and practice returning the finger to the string as you play the next note. Do it slowly and I promise that after a week or so you will see a big improvement. Once you can do this you be much more aware of how you are controlling the fingers rather than the other way around.

I hope this helps

Kieron



Miguel de Maria -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Dec. 22 2005 17:22:43)

Kieron,
I don't think the hand really works that way--the fingers are interconnected by nature and it probably doesn't work to try to separate them.

For example, it's often pointed out of some players such as John Williams or Vicente Amigo that a fault is that they are pointing out their little finger. Supposedly they are introducing tension into their hands by doing this. But it seems a little silly to critique the best players on the planet. The hand is a lot more complicated than that.

Actually, it's probably necessary, at least for them, to stick out their little finger. When I play, I have it sticking out a little bit. It seems to "clear space" in the fingers for the other fingers to move more clearly.

Another criticism of certain top fingers is a tendency for the LH pinky to fly a bit. But if the pinky gets there when it needs to, there is nothing wrong. And perhaps trying to corral this finger excessively leads to excessive tension, not other way around.

On the other hand, it's probably a more common fault of amateurs to let their fingers fly TOO much, rather than too little, so perhaps it's not bad advice to err on this side. By practicing RH exercises such as planting and stacatto, you will quickly get them in line. As far as the LH, there are two concepts that have helped me conquer what is normally my weakness.

1. slurs. I do them every day. It's like an apple a day.

2. left hand wobble. I came across this concept on a newsgroup--someone said, "I have a student who has no left hand wobble". What the heck is that? IT was defined as the absence of the left hand shifting and moving after a chord is placed. I looked at my hand and realized I did it all the time. I also observed a few poor players and they did the same, and some great players and noticed they didn't. It was as simple as changing my perspective, and not allowing the wobble, and I started gaining more stability and precision. Now I hardly ever wobble!

All good players have good left hands, some good players have good right hands.



kieronw -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Dec. 23 2005 15:03:40)

Hi Miguel,

thanks for the response. I really like the bit about wobble. I must check my left hand. Does anyone else have any great tips like that?

Anyway, this is a good discussion to have and I'd be interested in anyone else's view.

To get back to the discussion, I'm not really convinced that because are fingers are interconnected they shouldn't move separately (if that is what you meant). If you look at the physical make up of the hand the fingers should be able to move separately and independently. In fact I know they can because mine do. It's only sympathetic tension in the fingers that prevents this - really. If you focus enough and train your fingers you can have them moving quite nicely on their own. It's possible to plant one finger whilst moving the other in any direction. I like to focus on all my fingers at once but talk to them independently if you know what I mean. I think most good players probably do it quite naturally to be honest or they learn to play when they're young and aren't so tense. It's more the less gifted like me who need to focus more on this.

I'm interested, did you try the index finger thing and did your finger wave a bit when you did a 6 note arpeggio or did it kind of stop still around the string? Does anyone have any tips for removing tension?

On the subject of the left hand. I've trained my fingers to stay hovered over the frets -one finger to one fret in the classical style. My left hand pinkie now tends to always hover within a half inch of the fretboard but I could only do this by training my hand and removing the tension. Of course there are situations when it won't be hovering nicely but maybe it's a personal thing. I found that I wasn't quick enough if it was flopping around or stuck out. By training it to sit directly over the fret I've managed to speed up my playing. Also, if it sits roughly the same distance from the fret all the time, surely it will ensure that your timing is always exact - I made that bit up :-) but it's worth a thought.

As soon as I try to play too fast though the tension returns and my pinkie pops out (in both hands). I agree with you though, there are great players who do this and who am I to argue. I just think it's a useful exercise (as you pointed out yourself) to try to focus on finger independence in the manner I describe because the only way to achieve this is to remove tension - and no tension is good tension.

Anyway, I'm interested in your thoughts.

Take it easy

Kieron



Miguel de Maria -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Dec. 23 2005 17:21:56)

Kieron,
the mechanics and technique of the hands is certainly very interesting. The way I play, my fingers have independence but they also work together. For example, when I play tremolo, the sensation is more similiar to a natural grab of a cup, rather than separate movements. It's more like one graduated movement. Of course, to get each finger to sound distinctly, there must be a element of control.

Maybe it's more of a mental way of grouping actions, but I usually group or "chunk" them. For more information on "chunking" read Chang's piano book (google those words), a free book on piano technique written by a physicist. Fabulous for people who are into this sort of thing. Chunking is somewhat analogous to how we speak, I guess--we usually think in phrases or sentences, not individual words. If you say "How's it going?" you don't really think How_S_It_Going_?", it's more like how'sitgoing? IF you know what I mean...

I practice some of Carlevaro's RH exercises, and in his text he talks about the need for complete independence of the RH hand. But for me, hand position and finger use just doesn't work that simply. Maybe in time...

When I play a 6 note arpeggio pimami, the index finger returns to play the 2nd time just in time, describing a fairly slow motion arc, neither short nor long. It doesn't matter if I'm playing pretty slow, say sextuplet at 40 bpm, or sextuplet at 120 bpm...the motion seems to be the same.



Ricardo -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Dec. 23 2005 22:55:32)

Check out the free preview of the nunez DVD, and pay attention to the Arpegios section. I know there is a picture blocking the hand shot a little but you can see how much the index moves when he does pimami. I don't see any limiting tension. He prefers to do sequential plants on pima, it is just that he is really fast.

http://www.flamenco-teacher.com/store?cat=gidvd

Ricardo



kieronw -> RE: Arpeggio - Help!! (Dec. 24 2005 14:06:11)

Thanks for the heads up about "chunking". I think it's really useful to learn different methods. I guess we should all try our own way and whichever suits us best we should stick to. I guess the only reason to change is if we do it one way and it doesn't work. The method I'm (re)learning is really helping me get rid of tension that I've been stuck with for years so I'm not going to argue with it. Getting your fingers to do that is also an interesting exercise of mind over matter which makes me realise we can probably get our fingers to do just about anything if we want to. Anyway, each to their own I guess.

I'm interested in that book written by a physicist - that's bound to be a fascinating read.

Thanks for tips and have a great christmas

Kieron



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