Tenor Guitars, Classical Guitars

[Down Up Dick]

What exercises? Enquiring minds want to know! I do try to do Rob MacKillop's finger independence exercises but that's about it.

It’s “Faster Fingers in 1Week” by Lauren Bateman. I follow some of her stuff, and she has helped. I’ll check on Rob MacKillop. Thanks.

 

[Rllink]

I’ve been doing an exercise to increase my left hand flexibility. Up to now I’ve been havin’ trouble reaching and holding some chords. It’s keeping me from playing Finger Style and forcing me to try and try and try to pick the C chord. I haven’t had time for Classical Guitar because I’m busy whackin’ away at the fretboard. Bah!

My guitar teacher wanted me to be able to span four frets with my four fingers. At first it was a challenge but over time the span got wider and wider. Mostly he had me playing scales and shuffles while keeping my fingers anchored on their assigned frets and nothing more. I've been doing that for a long time and at that festival I was at this last weekend I took one workshop where I noticed my span was far wider than the other people there. That wasn't always the case and I recognized the other students struggles because they were the same as mine last year.

I have also been working on strengthening the pinky finger by squeezing a ball. The pinky is the weak one when it gets four frets out. A lot of times it is just the pinky not holding its own that is making it hard for the rest of them.

 

[clear]

For the right hand, my gutiar teacher recommends alternating i-a and m-a finger as part of the warmup; you'd alternate i-a on string 1, then string 2, etc. until string 6, then 5, 4, 3, etc. and repeat. Then switch to m-a finger. He mentioned that the pinky is used very seldomly so no need to incorporate it.

For the left hand, I like the spider walk. In fact, we're doing very similar exercises for this month in my online guitar class:

 

[Down Up Dick]

Thanks a lot, Clear. I’ll give ‘em a try tomorrow. They look like what I need.

 

[clear]

Thanks a lot, Clear. I’ll give ‘em a try tomorrow. They look like what I need.

Happy to help.
Here're the music for those exercises; they are played with rest strokes.
Don't get too discouraged if you don't sound good at frist; just surf over to delcamp and you can hear none of us sounded too good on these exercises ATM. But we still have half a month to practice them.

 

[Down Up Dick]

My guitar teacher wanted me to be able to span four frets with my four fingers. At first it was a challenge but over time the span got wider and wider. Mostly he had me playing scales and shuffles while keeping my fingers anchored on their assigned frets and nothing more. I've been doing that for a long time and at that festival I was at this last weekend I took one workshop where I noticed my span was far wider than the other people there. That wasn't always the case and I recognized the other students struggles because they were the same as mine last year.

I have also been working on strengthening the pinky finger by squeezing a ball. The pinky is the weak one when it gets four frets out. A lot of times it is just the pinky not holding its own that is making it hard for the rest of them.

Yeah, the spaces between the frets on my guitar are huge and difficult to reach, yet my hands aren’t particularly small. I can play most of the chords I need, but I can’t hold them for fingerstyle. Reaching the bass notes were kickin’ me too.

What’s a shuffle?

I could live without the guitar. I much prefer my mandolins and banjos.

 

[Ms Bean]

Happy to help.
Here're the music for those exercises; they are played with rest strokes.
Don't get too discouraged if you don't sound good at frist; just surf over to delcamp and you can hear none of us sounded too good on these exercises ATM. But we still have half a month to practice them.

Clear, can I ask a question about the notation in exercise 8?
By playing the chromatic scale, I quickly understood the circled numbers (they tell you which string to fret), but I have no idea what the asterisks/flower/snowflakes/suns are meant to indicate. At first I thought it was also a warning to change strings, but the very last symbol has it on the open string, just before moving to the E string. It could just be a typo though.
Are either of these (the circled numbers and the asterisks) conventions in guitar books?

 

[clear]

Clear, can I ask a question about the notation in exercise 8?
By playing the chromatic scale, I quickly understood the circled numbers (they tell you which string to fret), but I have no idea what the asterisks/flower/snowflakes/suns are meant to indicate.

The asterisks indicate muting the previous note. In these cases, the muting can be done, for example:
- by collapsing the left-hand pinky finger (to press 2 strings); or
- by touching the string with "i" finger (since we're only using the m-a fingers ATM); or
- by touching the string with "a" finger after playing its note; etc.

At first I thought it was also a warning to change strings, but the very last symbol has it on the open string, just before moving to the E string. It could just be a typo though.

I agree with you that it is a typo.

Are either of these (the circled numbers and the asterisks) conventions in guitar books?

I don't know if the asterisk is standard guitar notation for muting. (It is standard notation for piano pedal release; since I play the piano, I have no trouble extending it to guitar string mutes.)

 

[Ms Bean]

The asterisks indicate muting the previous note. In these cases, the muting can be done, for example:
- by collapsing the left-hand pinky finger (to press 2 strings); or
- by touching the string with "i" finger (since we're only using the m-a fingers ATM); or
- by touching the string with "a" finger after playing its note; etc.



I agree with you that it is a typo.



I don't know if the asterisk is standard guitar notation for muting. (It is standard notation for piano pedal release; since I play the piano, I have no trouble extending it to guitar string mutes.)

Thanks so much for all of this information. You've greatly helped my understanding of the notation here!

 

[Down Up Dick]

Today, I spent some time listening to Marcin on guitar. Wow! Somethin’ else! I really think he’s great. Have you heard him? Wadaya think?

 

[ploverwing]

Today, I spent some time listening to Marcin on guitar. Wow! Somethin’ else! I really think he’s great. Have you heard him? Wadaya think?

It's something else alrighty! I like the combination of skills, great sounds. Thanks for the introduction to Marcin. I'll check out more of his work.

The first time I was exposed to this style of playing guitar was International Guitar Night probably 8 or so years ago. Mike Dawes didn't play classical music like this, but used a lot of these techniques.

Another guitarist from that performance who played totally differently to what I'd ever seen until then was Pino Forestiere. I just went to his website to see what he's been up to and he's got a new release where he uses a

LAB Guitar (19-string), tuned in 5 different tunings modified live during the performance.

19 strings! I'm trying to find an image but I'm on my mobile and the effort is currently eluding me.