RE: apoyando thumb during arpeggios

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Erik van Goch

Posts: 1787
Joined: Jul. 17 2012
From: Netherlands

RE: apoyando thumb during arpeggios (in reply to devilhand)

quote:

ORIGINAL: devilhand
When you play the following section beat 1-9 (see picture), do you move your hand (either a wrist rotation or a movement from the elbow) or do you suggest zero hand movement? When playing beat 10-12, do you change your arpegio hand position?

I still have to find a proper way of executing the whole section. My hand moves a lot. Particularly golpe and thumb rest strokes force me to move my hand position downwards. I think the movement comes from the wrist. After beat 10-12 I even end up with a pulgar hand position.

http://www.foroflamenco.com/upfiles/13337/Ki20298.jpg

When playing that line of soleares I use quite a lot of hand moves myself, operated from lowering, lifting and/or rotating my arm. When doing so my hand oparates as a unit so the lineup of my fingers remains more or less the same and subtally adapts to the situation when needed.

I always like to start my investigations with what I call my walking hand position, the hand one has when walking which is completely relaxed. That's the hand unit and level of relaxation I try to maintain during playing. So my first aim is to bring this setup to the place of the action and to only ajust finger position and use muscle input where needed.

I annotated my way of playing in more detail in a treat called "thump 'Apoyando' -> How to do on 2th string with i upstroke on 1st". It's a 2 page topic well worth a read (don't know how to add a link but if you search for "anchor" it pops up on top of the result page).

It also introduced the exellent "p-i hand unit" pre-exercise i include now as a schreenshot, which is a nice example of how I study and implement natural movement and relaxation in my playing. It's also the way I play most inbetween upstrokes with the index. Page 2 of that topic shows all the ins and outs of my wrist/arm based playing in much more detail. I use a combination of them to play your soleares line

For example, in your soleares line the 10, 11, 12 part involves more then 3 strings being covered by the thump in which case I favor to just let my hand fall using the weight of my hand and arm (indeed just like by pulgar). After I played the last thump on beat 12 I lift my arm to bring it back to the bass strings. If the arm lifts, so does my hand unit and as shown in the pre-exercise plugging the open e string with the index basically is a site product of lifting my arm (whenever I play pulgar my index ends up straigt under the string it has to plug giving me a pleasend choice of plugging it either directly using the finger itself, indirectly by lifting my hand or a combination of both).

After bringing my arm back (hitting the e string in the proces) I continue with with beat 1 of your soleares line, plugging the open A string by dropping my arm. Now, if the hand is properly relaxed (that's where I spend my practice time on) it will fall into walking hand position automatically and obviously I'm smart enough to make sure this relaxed set ends up exactly there where they can execute the required arpeggio. Beat 2 and 3 I use the weight of my arm again with my hole setup moving to the treble site. What goes down has to go up again which is a good excuse to include that in between "index" stroke again. I might even lift my arm a bit during the binding part of beat 2-3 (without fully lifting the D string located thump) to put in a bit extra bite when playing beat 3 (depending on speed and mood). After I combined bringing back my arm with index plugging my arm drops to play beat 4, again making sure my hand is completely relaxed so the fingers and up precisely there were planned without lifting a finger..... etc. I wouldn't be surprised if I partially combine the imami part with subtle arm/wrist moves every now and then (like the trampoline technique mentioned in the other topic) but obviously I'm able to keep the hand in position and operate the thump indipendly as well. It's nice to have a whole pallete of options.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 26 2022 19:12:02

devilhand

Posts: 1598
Joined: Oct. 15 2019

RE: apoyando thumb during arpeggios (in reply to Erik van Goch)

quote:

For example, in your soleares line the 10, 11, 12 part involves more then 3 strings being covered by the thump in which case I favor to just let my hand fall using the weight of my hand and arm (indeed just like by pulgar). After I played the last thump on beat 12 I lift my arm to bring it back to the bass strings.

quote:

After bringing my arm back (hitting the e string in the proces) I continue with with beat 1 of your soleares line, plugging the open A string by dropping my arm. Now, if the hand is properly relaxed (that's where I spend my practice time on) it will fall into walking hand position automatically and obviously I'm smart enough to make sure this relaxed set ends up exactly there where they can execute the required arpeggio.

Thanks for your detailed reply. Yes, that walking hand position!!! Glad I don't need to change my way of executing this arpeggio section that much. But now I have some ideas for fine adjustments.

Btw, my right arm moves freely on the guitar body when I play, which is, I think, the more superior way and makes everything easier. The main reason for me is to maintain a straight right hand wrist and to avoid the sharp edge of the guitar body. But it comes at a price. I have to accept a certain degree of tension in my shoulder. I only rest my right arm on the guitar when playing pulgar driven techniques. Playing pulgar phrase is kinda my home for releasing shoulder tension. I'm curious to know what you think of it.

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REPORT THIS POST AS INAPPROPRIATE | Date Mar. 27 2022 21:35:33