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Posts: 2888
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
awkward left hand stuff
After all these years I still find one of the mosty difficult things for me is playing (holding) G (and sometimes C) chord and having to do stuff on the high e string.
I mean keeping my anular held down on G or C and twiddling with my index,middle and little (pinky) on the high e. why is that??
Im thinking its all due to left hand position but even when i experiment it still seems tough. perhaps just a matter of doing it more and more
I guess that's it. I also struggle with that kind of stuff. I've been doing a couple of ligados exercises for some time now and they have helped me a lot.
The little frase from 1:06 to 1:12 is also good to use as an exercise, but practise it without a cejilla:
That's been my Achilles heal for far too long too Stu - one of many actually perhaps my Achilles was a spider or an octopus.
A lot of this is to do with flexibility and muscle independence. I always play better on days when I've swam or done yoga or just sat on the back of my hand during boring meetings at work or gone through Grisha's dynamic warm up exercises. Playing scales 4 notes per string helps stretch out the hands, as does going through sequences of crazy chord inversions. Other than that, it's hold down those bars and ligado away, but don't try going through the pain barrier in any one session because that can screw you up big time.
i tried to find a solution to help with that same problem for myself.
chromatic and 3 note per string exercises are great for stretching along the neck, but I looked for things to help with stretching across the neck.
There is one in one of the Oscar Herrero vids, the technique ones, probably vol 3.
Chromatic octave scaless helped me a lot, I usually use them as part of a daily warm-up/technique practise. I don't really like a lot of finger exercises, but can get along with scales instead, so I use scales in 3rds, scales in 6ths, chromatic octave scales and scales in 10ths to progressively stretch across the width of the neck. The stretches across the neck are widest in the 10ths.
cheers fred! that looks like the perfect little workout! on the paco vid.
thanks dud and mark too for your input. ill check the things you mention.
dunno about the challenge? I was reading it the other day. its pretty daunting. seems to me like we'd be recording a complete track no? perhaps i skim read and didnt really take it in. illl look again now. Id like to do a challenge. Ive never joined in.
found a pdf on my hard drive of chromatic octaves, but can't upload.... I could email it to you?
try this one, same thing, different layout and format.
also there is some stuff in Pumping Nylon, maybe this chromatic octaves thing, a section on these kinds of stretches and finger independence. I haven't looked at it for a long time, I think there is something called "Oh Dear Drill" or "Old Dear's Drill" or something like that
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here you go, when you get to the end, repeat the lettered 8 bar sections in reverse (as shown at end of p2). it starts off easy on adjacent strings and gradually stretches you out across all 6 strings then back to adjacent strings etc.
EDIT: I have replaced the first page with a corrected version as mistake pointed out by Ricardo - the incorrect page is still shown as the first of three attachments available for download
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RE: awkward left hand stuff (in reply to mark indigo)
Great exercise Mark.
It fits nicely to a double tremolo pattern piamiami piamiami. Feels like it could go fast until stretched out from from e string to e sting, then it's like, OK this is going to take some work.
row E of your fingerboard exercise, second measure, should be 3rd fret not second fret of first string.
well spotted, I just put that little mistake in there like Faucher does, so I can catch out anyone who steals it!
er.... no I didn't, I just made a mistake, oops!
EDIT: I have replaced the first page with a corrected version as mistake pointed out by Ricardo - the incorrect page is still shown as the first of three attachments available for download
It fits nicely to a double tremolo pattern piamiami piamiami
that's neat, hadn't thought of that, I was just focussed on left hand, and just used pimimimi, but the long tremelo is a good idea - do you actually use it much? I have been thinking I might work on it a bit 'cos I almost never use tremolo for dance accompaniment cos the tempo is nearly always too slow, but with the 8 note tremolo it might work out better.
here is that other exercise I mentioned
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