Bit of fun - J'attendrai improv with 2 fingers

Jon

Hey all,

Here's a quick video of an improvised solo on J'attendrai with 2 fingers. Good practice. Funny how lots of phrasing problems and stylistic things evaporate when you do this (there are still plenty present of course). I haven't gotten around to working on the chording though - that's a whole nother thing. I also can't do much flashy stuff like this, so the tricks are missing. As an exercise in melody and phrasing though, I can't recommend it enough. Hope you enjoy

crookedpinky

I enjoyed watching that. I occassionally play with just two fingers for fun but also I believe it leads you to play things you wouldn't normally play. Sadly though none of us have the length of fingers that Django had.

Jon

I actually think even more that suggesting things that I wouldn't normally play, this technique edits out guitar baggage that I have but don't want in this style. It sort of cuts through the confusion of a thousand things to play, and just leaves the stuff that works available.

* NB this statement betrays my essentially backwards, conservative bent when it comes to this music, and, considered by some, is probably quite shameful

crookedpinky

I agree. I think my playing is too twiddly with too many pull-offs and trills. Playing with 2 fingers limits my tendency to "twiddle".

Jon

Very interesting @stuart. I didn't know about the sitar technique. I taught myself to use mostly three fingers (down from a pretty studied four finger technique) to copy Tchavolo a few years back, and found that it greatly improved my playing (in modern jazz also). It seems that that was a pretty standard contemporary guitar technique before the advent of formalised jazz education and fusion. It's fascinating to me how much your technique determines the kinds of things that come out when we play. You still use you ear when playing, but the things that occur to you are different, just be altering the physical possibilities. That's what it feels like to me, at any rate.

crookedpinky

Great find Stuart and a fascinating video, really interesting that Sitar players play along the neck rather than across. One other bonus I find with using two fingers is I can bend strings more accurately and easily as I can use the two fingers together to do this. This gives me more available strength which I lack in single fingers due to a little finger deformity.