Hi Y'all.

Just been practicing what is my first period of dedicated scale practice & just wanted to offer a little inspiration/experiment from what I've found.


I remember when I first got my Stick almost 7 months ago I was twisting my left hand & getting sore trying to do all sorts of wierd shit, favouring the bass side as many of us enjoy the rumble down there. A guitarist friend of mine pointed out the need to keep the line of the forearm pretty straight. This has been explained by our mentors in the various texts.

The second thing is in regards to the role of the left thumb. I don't know about U but I find I go through periods of increasing the pressure of the thumb on the back of the fingerboard. To convert this into a more relaxed technique I tried the extreme opposite. See how little pressure U can play with, in other words just gliding underneath the fingerboard with thumb, almost as if U have no thumb. Later try more support from the thumb for bass playing roles, otherwise I find the "no thumb" approach good for scale stuff.

It's been said before but I find going to extremes with relaxation & technique can reveal alot about how U might be approaching the instrument. Going back and forth from ultra easy to a little more muscular approach can help in discovering how your technique is affecting your sound.

That's all Y'all

Radkon

Thanks for the info! As new stick player myself, I found your post to be very helpful. Actually my stick won't even arrive until next week, but I've had a similar problem on my bass....

-Matthew

Hi!!

Great post! The light pressure to one can use to play the Stick, and still play it masterfully, is in my eyes a godsend!!

A little bit about me. I'm 32 on Monday, and I've been a musician since the age of 7. I've played guitar and bass since I was 13.5. I was a prime candidate for Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI). When I was 26 I came down with bilateral Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS), Cubital Tunnel Syndrome, and Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (TOS). Talk about a big old bummer. After a long dark time I discovered a way to self-treat my RSI's and prevent future returns.

Right now I'm am finishing up my book for musicians to prevent and treat their RSI's and I hope to find a publisher by the fall. If I don't I'll probably self publish it. Also, starting in the fall I'll be giving clinics and seminars to music schools and companies to teach musicians, young and old, these techniques and the science behind them. It'll probably be awhile before I get to place near you, but I'll make my best effort to get there as soon as I can. (Perhaps when I attend a Stick Seminar in the future, I can give a hour class on self-treatment and care. ) In the meantime, you can goto my website PainFreeMusician.com to find out more info and the other books published by my mentor, Julie Donnelly. The site will be updated and made more interactive by August.

Back to Stick playing. . .Any focus we can give to our posture, form, and how ergonomic we play is only to go make us better musicians and make us healthier in the long run. (That applies to other instruments as well.) The advice and tips that more experienced players, like Greg Howard and Steve Adelson, have given and continue to give on posture and arm and hand position have been spot on.

So again, great observation! Thank you for posting.

Musically yours,
Jim
Teak 10-String #934

P.S. Just another thought with ergonomics and Stick playing. Remember that RSI's are Cumulative Trauma Disorders (CTD) which means that it is repetitive strain over time is what does the damage. Playing the Stick probably isn't the only repetitive activity you probably do with your arms and hands. It is worthy to look at the other activities you are performing in your life, like typing on the keyboard right now, and analyze their impacts on your arms and hands.

Man, I'm just a beginner on Stick, but have been playing drums for 30yrs. I'm just feeling intoxicated with my own efforts now re Stick & working on Chris Cain's Stick e lessons, which I think are a fanastically well graded learning system.

I'm also someone who's lucky enough to love the "meditation" of practicing motor stuff like scales.

I just had another nice little idea today as I practiced. Try combining Chris' 4 finger method with say Greg or Emmetts' 3 finger exercises, after your feeling like You've got some strenght up with the 4 finger method. E.g. Start on C Maj with unison octave (both hands) playing each key 4xs ascending/descending in 4 finger then 4xs in 3. Then change key, good fun hey!

Thanks so much for Your thoughts & experiences with RSI & education, & hopefully we'll get to hear each others Stuff one day.

Love & Regards

Radkon

Hey another thing I found this morning. In regards to getting strenght from the 4th digit, I tried rotating the hand clockwide as i struck the notes. Even though this added a predisposition to an accented note within the scale, I eased back from that posture to play more from just the finger without rotating the hand, as in a more nuetral flat hand position. This managed to incorporate a more subtle influence of the "rotating" mechanism.

Seems to be working well for now. Has anybody had similar experiences, or can anyone offer some technical tips re said 4th digit?

Enthusiastic-Techni-Rad

One tip given to me by an outstanding player (tapping + guitar + luthe) is that, since your pinky is your weaker finger, you should try to make it easier for him. When playing in 'position' you should try to line your fingers strarting with the pinky and not the index; your pinky will be perfectly aligned with the n+3 fret, the third will be 'almost' aligned with the fret n+2 and so on; finally the index will have the 'worst' alignment with its fret but since it is a strong finger you can compensate it easily. It's not always easy to do this, for instance if you have to do a barré in guitar but you should think about it whenever possible.
Of course this is less important when playing with 'hand motion' as Greg advocates but I think it is complementary; even when moving your hand try to make your pinky the less 'streched' finger. I know that if you really move your hand no finger should strech but I'm not there yet and I don't think I'll ever be...

Cheers, Daniel

Great points, Konradical, I often tense up sometimes when practising, will try and be more aware of it.

Jim - keep us posted on the book, I'll order a copy for sure. Have been playing bass for around 20 years, but also doing I.T for longer, so way too much of my time (the I.T portion!) is spend performing RSI-prone activities! Still have some CTS from a job I had many years ago, tends to flare up occasionally.

Don't tend to find my pinky is much of a problem, maybe that's because I've always used it often for bass playing, so it's relatively strong for a pinky.

Cheers,

EG

Same, I find that kind of thing very theraputic. Fortunately I've only had one injury regarding rsi etc (Thats probably rare for a "shredder") and that was when I felt the need to take a guitar on holiday 2 summers ago armed only with my Ibanez RG and a copy of Rusty Cooley's shred manifesto hoping to improve my technique while enjoying the Welsh sun( )...
Two days into the 2 weeks I was practicing a particularly stretchy legato line and my hand just felt as if it had been split in two, it was very painful! I had to not play for several weeks after it to let it recover. These weeks were very hard to stop myself having just a "little" play. Bt when I went back to guitar everything was fresh and exciting again and I found myself to be more creative as all my ruts had been forgotten slightly! So RSI related injuries are good for you!!!! Only joking but I learnt alot from the experience!