Re: New article from Sean Malone: Sticks and Nutshells
Yes, this
is interesting...
I think what Sean refers to as "pressing" I'd be tempted to call 'tap-and-hold' - for however brief a 'moment in time'... - ('happy pressing'?) - but this could be simply a matter of semantics and it seems to me that these are really quite subtle distinctions that we're talking about in any case, and everyone plays with a slightly different feel anyway, I guess, to an extent.
One thing that occurs to me when reading this, however, which it might perhaps be helpful to clarify to people with older instruments which have Rods, or Sticks with filed-down Rails (like mine) or to newer players, is the degree of lightness of finger-pressure that Sean talks of and which is also mentioned in the recent (excellent...) .pdf 'Tip Sheet' in the part entitled 'Finger Pressure.'
When I'm playing on my Rods or my filed Rails, my 'pressing' (or 'tapping-and-holding') means I make contact with the wood of the fingerboard - something which 'full' Rails doesn't seem to require, and which could actually be detrimental to technique and sound with those, I suspect, in a number of ways.
Any thoughts on this ?
(Either way, I totally agree that turning up the volume is much better than hitting the strings too hard, like it says in 'Free Hands', and as I discovered the hard way when I first started playing...
)