Left Hand Technique

Jazzaferri

That ideed is the one Paul and. Bones.

5 minutes a day, start low keeping it clean, proper articulation and even timing particularly on the doubled downstrokes.

If you arent feeling muscle burn after a few minutes you are in way better shape than I.

Passacaglia

Jazzaferri wrote:

That ideed is the one Paul and. Bones.

5 minutes a day, start low keeping it clean, proper articulation and even timing particularly on the doubled downstrokes.

If you arent feeling muscle burn after a few minutes you are in way better shape than I.

Jay, doubled downstrokes - are you talking about when moving between strings, the final stroke and rest stroke on the new string? If so, that really is a difficult thing for me - not only timing, but tone, going from a fretted to an open note. So, truthfully, I keep in mind something you once mentioned to me, re: rhythm playing. When I find myself trying to force the run fast, trying to get that wildly smooth, burbling brook of notes that I've seen Denis do as well, ....well, I stop, slow everything down, and focus consciously on relaxation. A great exercise in relaxation!

wim

FrankieDetergent wrote:

i noticed that there are 2 types of playing with the pick. some people gently rest their ring finger and pinky down, like stochello, angello debarre etc.. and some who keep their palm closed and never touch the soundboard like romane, or yorgui loeffler or me

i'm not sure how this ended up in a left hand technique thread, but i've also noticed this thing. romane has a great sound and i never could understand how he does it comfortably with the closed fist thing.

my ring finger and little finger are held loosely and lightly brush the soundboard. like django:

Passacaglia

wim wrote:

FrankieDetergent wrote:

i noticed that there are 2 types of playing with the pick. some people gently rest their ring finger and pinky down, like stochello, angello debarre etc.. and some who keep their palm closed and never touch the soundboard like romane, or yorgui loeffler or me

i'm not sure how this ended up in a left hand technique thread, but i've also noticed this thing. romane has a great sound and i never could understand how he does it comfortably with the closed fist thing.

my ring finger and little finger are held loosely and lightly brush the soundboard. like django:

Wim, do you do this as well, when rhythm playing? I ask, because I found it interesting, watching Stochelo on the In the Style DVD, the difference between his right hand when picking, and when playing rhythm.

His rhythm hand, the fingers are more closely curled in (and that's a lousy way of describing it, because I can see and hear there's absolutely no unnecessary tension - just meaning, the literal physical appearance of his right fingers), while his lead playing, very much like the pic you show here of Django.

I've come to a realization on my right hand, just how tense I've been holding it (trying to correct an unnatural extension of the non-pick fingers, I went tense in the opposite direction), so this was salient. I talked to Denis about this, and I think his answer is the best, and in line with what you say above - basically, the wrist and fingers taking a natural, loose position, with where the wrist and fingers are actually held less important than whether they're held by tension.

Jazzaferri

Passacaglia wrote:

Jazzaferri wrote:

That ideed is the one Paul and. Bones.

5 minutes a day, start low keeping it clean, proper articulation and even timing particularly on the doubled downstrokes.

If you arent feeling muscle burn after a few minutes you are in way better shape than I.

Jay, doubled downstrokes - are you talking about when moving between strings, the final stroke and rest stroke on the new string? If so, that really is a difficult thing for me - not only timing, but tone, going from a fretted to an open note. So, truthfully, I keep in mind something you once mentioned to me, re: rhythm playing. When I find myself trying to force the run fast, trying to get that wildly smooth, burbling brook of notes that I've seen Denis do as well, ....well, I stop, slow everything down, and focus consciously on relaxation. A great exercise in relaxation!

The doubled one I am talking about going up us S3F2 downstroke S3F3downstroke pushing through S2opengoing back down S1open downstroke S2F4 downstroke etc.

Passacaglia

Thanks, Jay. In terms of lead playing, it seemed to me (for a time - that %^&* self-induced pressure of age, thoughts on mortality, and ego - a lethal combo :oops:) , that until I could get this exercise to sound like Stochelo (or Denis), plenty to work on, this one thing, alone.

FrankieDetergent

when i wanted to learn this style i started with this position too, but i got angry on the gypsy picking and kept the usual rest strokes, but when going up i would rest stroke up, i think this is called economy picking, and palm kept glued to the strings. but i couldn't get power out of this so i removed the glued palm, and the rest-up stroke, and voila.. (the second category picking - like romane)
today i tried to play the old way with the fingers on the soundboard (like stochello) and it's actually easier, way less tense, very relaxed and enjoyable, and way faster, no biceps and triceps pain, BUT it has a more gentle sound, and if i am to play this sort of style, i want to really hit those strings.. like they owe me money.

Jazzaferri

Paul, the reality is you will never sound like Stochelo....neither will Dennis, Adrian, Angelo or me :?:

Everone gets to sound like ...... Themselves. Every one of us has our own musical thoughts....

Yes we can learn lots from others.... Stochelo learned hundreds of Djangos solos. For a time in his earlier days he was technically flash but still developing his own voice. He got that and likely will continue to refine and grow. I really love where his head is at musically now. Really speaks to me.

Miles Davis was never a consUmate technician. Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard could play rings around him technically. But he was a master musician, consummate artist and had much broader appeal to the public. He could say more with half a dozen notes than most with a hundred.

I guess I am trying to say Play what you love and love what you play......relax and enjoy your journey...there really isnt an end of any of our roads

FrankieDetergent

Jazzaferri wrote:

He could say more with half a dozen notes than most with a hundred.

most of the time i find that the notes that are missing, leaving a blank space in the melody are the most important notes. i think it's called cadence. i sometimes, or actually always try to replace the melody notes with drum hits (or claps of my hands), to eliminate the harmonic content and i find that they make a distinctive and unique pattern!! if i try to steal that and put a different harmonic content, everyone could tell that the "new" melody is stolen and recognize the original. so playing lots of notes is counterproductive, it eliminates any kind of sense of what we play..

Passacaglia

Jazzaferri wrote:

Paul, the reality is you will never sound like Stochelo....neither will Dennis, Adrian, Angelo or me :?:

Everone gets to sound like ...... Themselves. Every one of us has our own musical thoughts....

Yes we can learn lots from others.... Stochelo learned hundreds of Djangos solos. For a time in his earlier days he was technically flash but still developing his own voice. He got that and likely will continue to refine and grow. I really love where his head is at musically now. Really speaks to me.

Miles Davis was never a consUmate technician. Dizzy Gillespie and Freddie Hubbard could play rings around him technically. But he was a master musician, consummate artist and had much broader appeal to the public. He could say more with half a dozen notes than most with a hundred.

I guess I am trying to say Play what you love and love what you play......relax and enjoy your journey...there really isnt an end of any of our roads

Thank you, Jay. I do hear you, and appreciate Kenny Werner's perspective on this as well. I don't know if this is illustrative. I hope so.

I used to lead seasonal, intensive martial training periods. Kangeiko, winter training. Outdoors. "1000 cuts." To begin the day, after meditation, a sword, or a staff, and a led series of 1000 practice strikes. "Tanren," forging the spirit. Everything screams in rebellion. Eventually, the muscles themselves become worthless in the further struggle, and the only thing that carries on is the core, one's own hara, and you finally relax.

"One cut, lightning cleaves the dim; morning mist on blue-black pond - herons lull among the reeds."

One cut, or one chromatic run. Six years on the mediation cushion, till one morning. Part of me still holds this perspective, and part of me rejects it. The part that holds it, is not only content to do one thing, and one only, for the rest of time, as a means of acquiring mastery generally - of "polishing the bowl," effacing the ego, as a means to be receptive to art itself; not only content, but finds it necessary.

Part of me is a French-blooded sensualist, a peripatetic bohemian who rejects all this Japanese-martial weltanschauung as nonsense. Add in that no one in his clan made it past 60, and the need to taste, and that, quickly, rears its ugly head.