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Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
Building finger independancy
Hello, I'm a new member on this nice forum and truly a beginner. I even consider myself a beginner on overall guitar, but I have always had a great work ethic when I try to learn something. Well... today I started to work on my finger movements and I realised I have a very very stiff "a" finger in the left hand and some trouble stretching it away from the middle finger. I'm wondering if anyone here has some tips to build finger independancy to help me out with that problem. Thanks for any inputs!
Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
I don't know... I've really been trying... but this finger just doesn't want to flex without the pinky or the middle finger.
I've tried this basic stuff : moving fingers from 6th to 1st string then back up, one finger moving at a time with the index on 3rd fret, middle on 4th, auricular on 5th and little one on 6th. The thing is, I can easily place each fingers on the 6th string, then my index moves easily to the 5th string, so does the middle one... but this auricular has a really bad time flexing down to 5th if the little finger remains on the 6th string, plus it touches the middle finger and I can't even flex it down from the 2nd to 1st string. So I was thinking there could be some exercise to work this out, especially when I'm away from the guitar, at work for instance.
Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
I just realised I messed up the previous post... the problem isn't the auricular, but the annular finger. I can't flex it independantly, like I said. Are there some kind of finger muscle exercises out there that could help me out?
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
Well, to my knowledge they are connected by tendons and can never be fully independent. Put your hand on the table, palm down, and try to lift the annular by itself. It's not possible (except for Grisha probably). They are tied together forever, but you can achieve enough independence to work with them.
Practice scales, being careful to use only the force necessary. Then play scales in octaves. This trains you to use two fingers at once. Also, do slurs--hammer-ons and pulloffs--daily. These things will help you achieve your goals if practiced with mindfulness.
Personally I don't believe in exercises away from the guitar. Put a bat in a golfer's hands and he's no better at it than an average person.
Posts: 907
Joined: Mar. 13 2006
From: Vancouver, Canada
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
quote:
Put your hand on the table, palm down, and try to lift the annular by itself. It's not possible (except for Grisha probably). They are tied together forever, but you can achieve enough independence to work with them.
I was taught this as an exercise when I was a child. With some practise you can get some independence, but you have to always prevent the other fingers from following, so it's not true independence.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to Escribano)
Simon, how far can you lift it? I can lift it almost an inch but its very constrained. By comparison my other fingers lift quite freely. Is yours different? [calling Men in Black]
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
quote:
Put your hand on the table, palm down, and try to lift the annular by itself. It's not possible (except for Grisha probably).
I have very small skinny hands and I can lift it a full 1.5 inches without moving any other fingers (I just measured). However, I can't play the guitar worth a ****.
Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
Well... I practiced the same pattern I described 2 days ago, 1 hour a day... I seem to build independancy more and more in that anular finger. For a second I thought I was stuck with a bad morphology or something genetic that would mess up with my plans ;) I just can't wait to recieve my Graf-Martinez package and dive into flamenco.
Posts: 6447
Joined: Jul. 6 2003
From: England, living in Italy
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to Miguel de Maria)
quote:
Simon, how far can you lift it?
Flat on the table with my fretting hand? About 2 inches for each finger independent of the other. My other hand is oddly less cooperative but I put a bottle of Pernod through that one in France when I was 15
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
Doctor, Im sorry but duende is right. I mean, you can call yourself even lucky or gifted or fast learning, if you can do "it" in one year. It all depends on how much time you invest on a daily basis.
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
Probably not ten... well I mean if you train for 1 minute every day, yeah it might take ten years. And no, its definiteley not fun in the first time. If I remember right, the first 6 months/first year was horrible. After that I could do some things on my own. It'll get better everyday, coz you learn new things, but there will be always a bit frustration, coz there are things you cant play.
Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to XXX)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Deniz
Doctor, Im sorry but duende is right. I mean, you can call yourself even lucky or gifted or fast learning, if you can do "it" in one year. It all depends on how much time you invest on a daily basis.
I know it's a long learning process... but I always loved guitars and now is the time to learn before it's too late. I plan on doing exercises 1 hour a day, at least 5 days a week for the next 5 years and using other free time to learn songs when I want to. I see progress every single day and I'm really psyched. Anyways, I'll be studying overseas for the next 6 years so I'll have a lot of free time and hopefully will go to Spain looking for a teacher when I nail in the basics, but that would be in 5-6 years.
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
Deniz, Ericsson and Charness' research on expert skill development is a must read for anyone with aspirations to play at a high level. Basically the conclusion is that everyone has to spend a fairly standardized time and mental energy to get there. And that expert skill mastery is a cross-disciplinary state.
Here is a teaser:
"When experts exhibit their superior performance in public their behavior looks so effortless and natural that we are tempted to attribute it to special talents. Although a certain amount of knowledge and training seems necessary, the role of acquired skill for the highest levels of achievement has traditionally been minimized. However, when scientists began measuring the experts' supposedly superior powers of speed, memory and intelligence with psychometric tests, no general superiority was found --the demonstrated superiority was domain specific." [so maybe Grisha's NOT smarter than me? he seems to be, maybe it's just an act!]
"For example, the critical difference between expert musicians differing in the level of attained solo performance concerned the amounts of time they had spent in solitary practice during their music development, which totaled around 10,000 hours by age 20 for the best experts, around 5,000 hours for the least accomplished expert musicians and only 2,000 hours for serious amateur pianists. More generally, the accumulated amount of deliberate practice is closely related to the attained level of performance of many types of experts, such as musicians (Ericsson et al., 1993; Sloboda, et al., 1996), chessplayers (Charness, Krampe & Mayr, 1996) and athletes (Starkes et al., 1996)."
For the best experts: 10,000 / 365 / 4 = 6.85 years with 4 hours of deliberate practice a day 13.7 years with 2 hours For the least accomplished experts: =3.4 years with 4 hours a day 6.8 years with 2 hours a day
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
Hm, I just thought ten years was a bit too much sceptical for what Doctor was aiming at. It didnt sound as if he was going to become a "best expert" "in piano" "by age 20". I am generally conservative in forseeing the future. Overall its not really important anyway. Important IS to do the neccessary no matter what level your aiming at, and if not, not to wonder why it doesnt work (thats not an accusion, doc).
quote:
ORIGINAL: DoctorX2k2
Hello, I'm a new member on this nice forum and truly a beginner. I even consider myself a beginner on overall guitar, but I have always had a great work ethic when I try to learn something. Well... today I started to work on my finger movements and I realised I have a very very stiff "a" finger in the left hand and some trouble stretching it away from the middle finger. I'm wondering if anyone here has some tips to build finger independancy to help me out with that problem. Thanks for any inputs!
(Hehe, I wouldnt even be able to tell how much I practised in the last 4/5 years. What if i said, i havent practised at all in my lifetime )
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
@Mike:
What would be interesting though is, to "research" why it took a "2000 hours guy" to learn what he learned in 2000 hours and a 10,000 hours guy to learn what he learned in 10,000 hours. THATs what interests me.
Posts: 377
Joined: Nov. 22 2005
From: Quepos / Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
Doctor, I have a similar problem. Its not too bad, but I want to get rid of the stubborn ring finger also. I noticed this problem when I try doing a G chord by placing my little finger on the string first, then M and A after...it would just take too long for my fingers to get into position. heres what Ive been working on with some success: I place the little finger on the first string, 3rd fret. My A finger on the 2nd string, 3rd fret, and finally my M finger on the 2nd string, 2nd fret. Now i just do picado and work M and A up to the 6th string on their corresponding frets. Having the pinky planted makes this movement a little trickier...which is the point. After about a week I felt no pain at all when I got to the 6th string.
I am also working on left hand rasgeos, and I have to say that so far I´m sold on the idea. My fingers and tendons are sore as hell, which tells me that I´m strengthening the muscles, just like I felt when I learned normal right hand rasgeos.
Basically Ericsson and Charness have done a lot of reseach on just this topic. The answer, very basically, seems to be that we evolve different mental _strategies and patterns_ that enable us to act more quickly and with much more range. There seems to be a natural progression or hierarchy that occurs over time, but only with _concentrated work_. That is the key, just messing around isn't going to get you there, but focus will.
I think it's just that you need to learn a before you learn b. a and b are prerequisites for creating c. a b and c are prereq for d. And so on, until you have reached z, or whatever, where you have all these patterns at your fingertips.
It kind of sounds new agey almost when I say it like that!
Posts: 3532
Joined: Oct. 20 2003
From: Phoenix, AZ
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to DoctorX2k2)
I found this very interesting, too.
Investigations of long-term practice effects provide some relevant evidence. Sloboda, Davidson, Howe & Moore (1996; see also Sloboda, 1996) found no significant differences between highly successful young musicians and other children in the amount of practice time they required in order to make a given amount of progress between succesive grades in the British musical board examinations.
Group differences in average progress were no greater than would have been expected from the differences in the amount of time spent practising. Consistent with these results, Hayes (1981; Simonton, 1991: see also Ericsson & Lehmann, 1996; Howe, 1996a; 1996b; in press) found that that all major composers had needed long periods of training.
Hayes (1981) concludes that at least ten years of preparation are necessary. Simonton (1991) considers this an underestimate of the amount of time required. He estimates that, on average, prominent composers produced the first of their compositions to gain a secure place in the classical repertoire between 26 and 31, having begun music lessons around the age of 9 and started composing at around 17. Chess players likewise need at least ten years of sustained preparation to reach international levels of competitiveness (Simon & Chase, 1973); and those who begin in early childhood take even longer (Krogius, 1976). Comparable periods of preparation and training are essential in various other areas, including mathematics (Gustin, 1985), X-ray and medical diagnosis (Patel & Groen, 1991), and sports (Monsaas, 1985; Kalinowski, 1985; see also Ericsson, Krampe & Tesch-Römer, 1993).
Posts: 211
Joined: Jun. 14 2006
From: Quebec City, Canada
RE: Building finger independancy (in reply to fevictor)
quote:
ORIGINAL: fevictor
Doctor, I have a similar problem. Its not too bad, but I want to get rid of the stubborn ring finger also. I noticed this problem when I try doing a G chord by placing my little finger on the string first, then M and A after...it would just take too long for my fingers to get into position. heres what Ive been working on with some success: I place the little finger on the first string, 3rd fret. My A finger on the 2nd string, 3rd fret, and finally my M finger on the 2nd string, 2nd fret. Now i just do picado and work M and A up to the 6th string on their corresponding frets. Having the pinky planted makes this movement a little trickier...which is the point. After about a week I felt no pain at all when I got to the 6th string.
I am also working on left hand rasgeos, and I have to say that so far I´m sold on the idea. My fingers and tendons are sore as hell, which tells me that I´m strengthening the muscles, just like I felt when I learned normal right hand rasgeos.
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