DAILY UPDATES (Week One, Main Thread) - Submissions, Questions & Discussion
Welcome, everybody, to the Main Thread for Week 1 of this challenge!
This is where the magic happens - the thread where we'll be posting our daily updates for the first week.
- Watch the KICKOFF Livestream for help with all exercises, demonstrations of correct practice techniques, and more.
Every day between January 29th (kickoff stream) and February 5th (second stream), we are hoping to read your daily updates in this very thread right here!
Please use the following format when commenting (feel free to copy & paste!):
- Exercises you worked on:
- One thing you found easy:
- One thing you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions, metronome range
Sample daily update:
- Exercises you worked on: 1a, 1b, 1c, 2a
- One thing you found easy: I started practicing these very slowly and had a pretty easy time making all the notes sound even!
- One thing you found difficult: I keep forgetting which finger I last played with and ended up repeating fingers sometimes.
Feel free to make these updates as short or long as you wish!
↓ Let's do this! Post your daily updates below ↓
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- I was only able to practice for 5 minutes today but tried each exercise without metronome this time. (Better some than none at all, I figured.)
- I found it easier to use free stroke using i and m than I did with rest stroke and p easier with rest stroke (as someone else also pointed out).
- I forgot to extend my fingers this time but will work on that tomorrow.
This challenge is such a good idea! I had been drifting away from practicing, but this will put me back into picking up my guitar again!
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Desi Husband That's perfectly okay! I was just asking because I might have given different advice if you had been playing with nails - the tips and tricks that usually work can be a bit different in places.
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Excercise I worked on:. Rest stroke
Something I found easy:. Holding the guitar.
Something I found hard:. In general rest trikes are hard. I've learned playing folk fingers rule, so free strokes feel pretty natural, but rest strokes are new to me, and I find my nails keep catching on the strings...
I tried the trick recommended by Mircea to use a pen or pencil to help improve the timing of my stroke reset. Below are the results:. It made my brain hurt. Without the penc I could generally keep time with the metronome. With the pen, well, you can see the sloppiness... I'm going to keep working at this, as I see how this could help execute my notes better especially as speeds increase.
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Michael Michael, this is looking great! The pencil exercise is working, I see your i finger moving further from the guitar than before. It would perhaps be even more effective if you held it even a little further away from your strings and tried to hit it there. Don't overdo it though - a couple of minutes a day of doing that exercise should suffice!
What I'm noticing on the recording is that there is a little bit of bounce in your right hand when you play rest stroke, I think your forearm might be slightly compensating for the unusual "muscle request" you are doing to your i, m.
This might not help, but it might be worth a try: place both i and m on the same string while gently planting the thumb on the 5th string. From that position, remove one finger without moving the palm of your right hand (you might need to gently touch it with the left hand to check) and try to play only from your fingers, without moving the palm of your hand at all.
Let me know if it helps!
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I worked on 1a, 1b, 1c and 2a, 2b, 2c.
I noticed that my fingers stumbled on the strings while changing between the E string and the B string.
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Desi Husband I see that I attached two similar videos. Oops. I’ll try to attach the b exercise.
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Desi Husband This is great! Congratulations on sticking with the challenge
And great job on both exercises! The rest stroke is sounding good and powerful, just like it's supposed to! I've noticed that your wrist bends quite a lot more for rest stroke as opposed to free stroke - that might be intentional, I just wanted to bring your attention to it. Keep up the great work!
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Mircea Thank you for the suggestion about my wrist. I'll try to pay attention today when I practice.
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Day 3:
Did all three exercises up to 110 BPM using a m.
What I found easier was Thumb with rest strokes
What I found difficult was freestroke thumb with exercise 3c as it feels natural to "follow through" to the next string which makes it a rest stroke. Also lots of problems with a finger but it improved from yesterday.
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Mehmet Great job, Mehmet! Congrats on sticking with the challenge and good job going all the way through!
I'll reply to your other comments in a bit.
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Feb 1 practice:
Exercises I worked on: thumb rest stroke and thumb free stroke.
Something I found challenging:. Two things really:. On the free stroke I kept having trouble with may nail making noise on the E string while I was plucking the A string on the way back up. Assuming this is just because all 3 strings were oscillating, but have no idea why this wasn't an issue on the rest stroke. On the rest stroke I noticed I had trouble keeping my thumb outside my fingers. It kept slipping back so that it would make contact with my index finger. I am assuming that this is because my wrist was changing angle as I play, but is setting to watch for.
I've posted both videos, but I'd avoid them unless you are really interested in watching some pluck the E, A, and D string over and over for 5 minutes +. It can get pretty monotonous...
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Michael Michael, great job with these! Congratulations on sticking with the challenge and well done for recording and posting it, too! I did actually watch your recordings - nerding out about guitar technique is exactly why we started this challenge
The thumb exercises did not require rest stroke practice at this stage, but of course, that does not mean that practicing them in that way is bad. It's just a bit harder than I initially wanted to go with this challenge - I welcome all the hard practice in the world, though
great job! Well caught with the wrist changing angles while you play possibly causing the issue you mentioned! That sounds very likely to me too.
The nail noise can also happen because you are catching the string on the pure nail without any of the finger tip skin at all. Landing on a pure nail surface tends to create that noise. I suspect that - the point of attack - is what caused the difference between your free and rest stroke
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Day 4
Did exercises 1a-c and 2a-c trying different angles of attack for my fingers. kept a steady 70 BPM.
Worked on "preparing" the alternate finger at 60 BPM using rest strokes and planting.
What I found easier was the action of my i finger - it moves smoothly back into position ready to strike.
What I found difficult was my m finger moving cleanly back into position.
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Mehmet great job, Mehmet! Yes, interestingly enough, after all these years, I also find that my fingers tend to react a little bit differently from each other sometimes. I guess we must keep in mind that we are all natural beings and nothing in our bodies is ever perfectly symmetrical
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After practicing all of the exercises today, I realized that I too practiced the rest stroke with the thumb exercises. Oh well, it was good experience. As you pointed out to me, I tried to pay attention to my wrist while doing the rest strokes with i and m. As someone else mentioned, I also tried to pay attention to whether or not my wrist leaned away.
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I did tempo again with 1 a-c and 2a-c. I was able to hit 150 BMP free strokes in exercise 1 where notes were still clean and even.
I also tried crescendo and Diminuendo.
What I found easier was free strokes.
What I found difficult was controlling dynamics - especially with free strokes. It was very difficult gradually changing volume - my hand was tensing up. It was far easier with rest strokes, it was still uneven but my hand wasn't tensing up.
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- I practiced all exercises.
- Playing individual strings without hitting the next string seems to be getting easier. (That's a relief seeing some progress! Ha!)
- When I rush is when I make more mistakes, so I concentrated on following the metronome in 5 bpm as you instructed. I started at 60 bpm and worked up to 90 bpm. It really surprised me how easy it seemed when you sneak up on that speed little by little.
I am really glad we can go back to the live session to rewatch. I wanted to rewatch your technique; it really helped me to see it again.
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I have been practicing all of the exercises daily. I found the comment that Mircea left for Michael about the pencil was incredibly helpful. I didn't use an actual pencil but visualized one. This has helped with my m finger attacking the strings
End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
