It is currently Fri Mar 29, 2024 12:00 am




Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 12 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next
 Greg's Arm Motion technique 
Author Message
Multiple Donor
Multiple Donor
User avatar

Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:59 am
Posts: 2593
Location: Maine
Post Greg's Arm Motion technique
As much as it might seem I'm doing a bit of butt-smooching, I have to say that there's one very nice result I'm already seeing from Greg's DVD.

I really don't have all that much time to work on my instrument (although I'm still being tapped for drumming on my friends' sessions, I now consider myself a Stickist - albeit a nascent one), and so my progress has been fairly slow. I accept that as a fact of life, and it saves me some needless self-imposed pressure and anxiety. (Except for how far along I might be at the Northeast Seminar in June. Gulp.) HOWEVER, when I got Greg's DVD and started working with the arm motion technique, it didn't take very long before working on scales got easier. My fingers don't have to work so hard to stretch now; before, I was trying to really stretch them to reach the next whole tone. Because I'm more comfortable with my arm placement, I'm also starting to gain some better accuracy on my notes, and my clams are starting to be reduced.

As a newbie, I also find it extremely helpful to observe the principles of finding more efficient fingerings that Greg has espoused in his first book as well as the DVD. I'm working on being able to play my first "actual song", The Beatles' "Here, There & Everywhere", and those fingering techniques have made for a nicely-reduced workload for my right hand.
(I really can't seem to find a way to say that without it sounding dirty. Sorry. :lol: Hey, even my wife has some impish fun when I try to explain all this "fingering" stuff, so it isn't just me!!)

Seriously though, maybe you've been playing for years and you're perfectly comfortable with what you've been doing all this time, and it works for you. That's fine, but let me present myself as an example: I totally revamped my drumming 9 years ago via the Steve Smith DVD, and it helped save my playing career from tendonitis and made my playing a lot easier and a touch more musical - and I had been playing drums for 24 years at that time.
Maybe you're a beginner just looking for some help because, like me, there's no one nearby to take Stick lessons from. My humble opinion is that, in either case, it couldn't hurt to check this stuff out, because it really could lead to some real benefit for you. Yeah, I'm a fan.

_________________
Luc Bergeron
#R6453 Railboard
http://www.LucBergeronMusic.com
http://www.facebook.com/LucBergeronMusic


Mon Apr 16, 2012 10:43 am
Profile My Photo Gallery
Contributor
Contributor
User avatar

Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:26 am
Posts: 195
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
I'm glad to hear it makes life easier once you get into it. My instant impression as a beginner is that I can hear the improvement in tone and attack arm movement makes, but it adds one more dimension to think about in playing a note.

To explain - from playing fiddle and other mostly single note instruments, I'm usually deciding what finger to play the next note with, based on the second or third note along, i.e. I'm reading or thinking a few notes ahead of what I'm playing. On Stick, I need to figure the fret, what finger to play with, and now what direction to hit it from so I'm heading the right way for the next two or three notes.

One thing that complicates this is that I'm also trying to pick out some folk tunes I know on other instruments to get a better grasp of where the notes are on Stick. A lot of these folk tunes have many 4ths and 5ths intervals, so I very often find that the next note is on the same fret but the next string up or down. So they involve lots of Greg's same fret different finger' warmup exercise, but across the strings. Add say 6/8 rythm to that where the accent on each group of three is made with a different arm movement direction, and things get kinda busy - I guess that just comes with time of the fretboard?

Max


Mon Apr 16, 2012 2:19 pm
Profile
Multiple Donor
Multiple Donor
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:07 pm
Posts: 7088
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
Thanks for such a nice thread, two sides of the same coin, ready for flipping...

For starters, I didn't invent this way of tapping. If you watch videos of Emmett playing you can see much of the same energy, especially as he solos in the right hand and powers through his motors in the left. I just came up with a certain vocabulary for it, and a way to break it down into elemental movements. I probably use more hand energy as a percentage of overall tapping energy, but Emmett is no "typist". His hands are truly free.

Here are a couple of great examples of Emmett's technique in action:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdbi1Qzu4uQ[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqbS6BLfJpo[/youtube]


To BergerStick I say, DIG IN! Now that you "feel it" apply it to everything. Expand the position further and further along the string. Every note can have some element of hand movement, even if it is just a little "nudge" for a half-step at the 20th fret.

and to Max, trust me, I hear you. I have been hearing the same things from my students who come from a guitar or violin background for a few years now. This is a really different way to stop the string. But...if you practice the traverse move across the strings as it's show in the DVD for just a few minutes each day, the shifting movement will become a more natural part of your playing very quickly. The traverse is the way to smoothly integrate 4ths in the melody and 5ths in the bass into melodic lines.

In addition to all the things you said you need to think about, you also need to think about when to play the note, and with what kind of articulation and expression. This is too much responsibility for the fingers alone, and it's one big reason why Stick players often have such a hard time developing real independence skills. Give the timing and the dynamics to your hands and arms, and the rest will come into line. Watch pianists hands and arms. They use them to such great effect. Don't make your fingers do all the work.

I've been doing it a long time, but I can easily say that I never think about which finger I'm gong to use when I'm playing, I only think about where the note is. The fingerings, and all their instant variations, are embedded in muscle memory.

You already know how much better the sound is. Take a step back and play through the scale-based intervals in the Melody Movements section, and really focus on the hand movement. The more you do this the less you will have to think about doing it. It will eventually become second nature, but it is very different from the violin, so give it some time.

I know the piano is different from The Stick, and that it takes much less energy to make fretted strings vibrate than it does to play a piano key, but...check out how much the hands and arms are involved in the phrasing when this man plays. I started listening to Oscar Peterson when I was 15. I saw him twice in concert before I was 18. Though I don't play the kind of music he does, his ability to play independently has always been my model.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swLnc_KSm4Y[/youtube]

We can have that kind of command over the instrument. But we will never have it if we don't get physically more "into" it. Hand movement is the way. I'm certain.

PS, tapping the left foot....

_________________
Happy tapping, greg
Schedule an online Stick lesson


Mon Apr 16, 2012 6:49 pm
Profile My Photo Gallery
Contributor
Contributor
User avatar

Joined: Fri Feb 26, 2010 6:26 am
Posts: 195
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
Thanks for all that Greg, very interesting. I'm the same as all (well, most?) beginners on any instrument, in that I want to run before I can walk - on Stick I guess that means playing a few very simple tunes with both hands before establishing any kind of technique level. When you begin to get that working to some extent you think 'Yes! I might have a chance with this thing'. I find that then gives you confidence to go back and work on technicals like e.g. the interval exercises, scales, chords, and all the muscle and brain memory stuff. Of course, I guess that's at the risk of developing bad habits right at the start.

When I took up cello (after playing violin/fiddle 30 years) I worked out some fiddle/violin pieces on cello by ear till they sounded almost passable. Then I got out the old 19th century cello methods and did it from the ground up, Book 1, Book 2, Book 3 kind of thing. Interestingly, on the classical side, in those days each successive lesson was often a quantum leap over the previous one, rather than a gradual succession. That approach seems to work OK for me - do most people find that Stick presents a pretty steep learning curve at the start?

On another subject - left foot tapping. I learned Highland bagpipes as an adult, and the guys in the band were taught to tap time with whichever foot felt natural - and when it got tired, you swapped and tapped with the other foot (not in performances, though). Bagpipes isn't left or right hand rhythm specific, and maybe only 25-30% of the guys found that difficult. Is there a reason why it should be so on Stick?

Max


Tue Apr 17, 2012 5:01 pm
Profile
Multiple Donor
Multiple Donor
User avatar

Joined: Thu Mar 15, 2012 6:59 am
Posts: 2593
Location: Maine
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
My two cents' worth:

Foot tapping serves to keep you grounded. It helps keep a strong reference to the quarter-note pulse, which really helps when working on syncopated stuff. It also helps keep your time steady. Playing an instrument is really a whole-body experience no matter what instrument it is, and if you're thinking of the instrument only, your playing from your extremities, not from your center, which is where all energy comes from. Involving the rest of your body helps get you unstuck from feeling everything exclusively at the hands. That's my philosophy (which I didn't come up with), and when I involve arm motion, as well as moving the rest of my body, I feel like it helps with that.

I'm convinced that this is why so many classical players are often so stiff (although please understand that I love classical music); aside from the fact that their faces are buried in sheet music that must be strictly followed, they're forced to sit in the stiffest position, and it's like they're not allowed to move from the waist down, and from the waist up, they're allowed to move no more than 2 inches in any lateral direction. :lol:

Speaking of time: When I was in college, one of my professors said that when playing really fast tempos, don't think of trying to count quarter-notes; they go by too fast and you end up playing like you're hanging on for dear life. Try instead to think of a swinging pendulum (emphasis on "swing"-ha!) that reaches its far extremes every measure or even two measures.

_________________
Luc Bergeron
#R6453 Railboard
http://www.LucBergeronMusic.com
http://www.facebook.com/LucBergeronMusic


Wed Apr 18, 2012 4:20 am
Profile My Photo Gallery
Elite Contributor
Elite Contributor

Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:42 pm
Posts: 2530
Location: Jersey
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
So Greg, I was watching the post of Emmett on Soundboard doing "Backyard" and I put on "Parallel Galaxy" AT THE SAME TIME and my brain blew up and leaked all over my shirt. Two Emmetts are too much for this novice Stickist to handle. But seriously, your DVD is helping immensely. I NEED MORE PRACTICE.

_________________
Peace, Marty
"The present day composer refuses to die" -Edgard Varese


Wed Jul 18, 2012 3:04 pm
Profile My Photo Gallery
Multiple Donor
Multiple Donor
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:07 pm
Posts: 7088
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
AnDroiD wrote:
So Greg, I was watching the post of Emmett on Soundboard doing "Backyard" and I put on "Parallel Galaxy" AT THE SAME TIME and my brain blew up and leaked all over my shirt. Two Emmetts are too much for this novice Stickist to handle. But seriously, your DVD is helping immensely. I NEED MORE PRACTICE.
Hi Marty,

As long as you didn't get your strings dirty you should be fine.

Glad you're digging the Basic Free Hands Technique DVD.

_________________
Happy tapping, greg
Schedule an online Stick lesson


Thu Jul 19, 2012 4:42 am
Profile My Photo Gallery
Elite Contributor
Elite Contributor

Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:42 pm
Posts: 2530
Location: Jersey
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
FingerEase. Brains wipe right off.

_________________
Peace, Marty
"The present day composer refuses to die" -Edgard Varese


Thu Jul 19, 2012 9:04 am
Profile My Photo Gallery
Elite Contributor
Elite Contributor

Joined: Mon Feb 22, 2010 12:42 pm
Posts: 2530
Location: Jersey
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
Greg:[quote]I've been doing it a long time, but I can easily say that I never think about which finger I'm gong to use when I'm playing, I only think about where the note is. The fingerings, and all their instant variations, are embedded in muscle memory.

I was listening to "Too High" S. Wonder right after reading this, Greg, and I started to play it and immediately understood what you ment. I just got my hand in the area, and I was able to play the repeated note w/ any fingers that happened to be there. (this is l.hand, 5ths bass) WOW. (profound revelation).

_________________
Peace, Marty
"The present day composer refuses to die" -Edgard Varese


Fri Jul 20, 2012 9:24 am
Profile My Photo Gallery
Multiple Donor
Multiple Donor
User avatar

Joined: Sat Dec 22, 2007 3:07 pm
Posts: 7088
Location: Charlottesville, Virginia, USA
Post Re: Greg's Arm Motion technique
Just watched this video again and thought it illustrated the act of hand movement, and the accompanying arm motion, very well:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVNNUHKZWLw[/youtube]

_________________
Happy tapping, greg
Schedule an online Stick lesson


Wed Aug 01, 2012 7:47 am
Profile My Photo Gallery
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 12 posts ]  Go to page 1, 2  Next


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 12 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to:  

board3 Portal - based on phpBB3 Portal Powered by phpBB © phpBB Group. Designed by Vjacheslav Trushkin for Free Forums/DivisionCore.
Heavily modified by Stickist.com. Stickist.com is an authorized Chapman Stick® site. The Chapman Stick® and NS/Stick™ and their marks are federally registered trademarks exclusively licensed to Stick Enterprises, Inc., and are used on Stickist.com and NSstickist.com with SEI's permission.
Click here for more information.