On Mircea's Stretching course

  • Ariel Elijovich
  • Performer, Teacher @Conservatory M. de Falla and member of Nuntempe Ensamble GQ
  • Ariel.1
  • updated 13 days ago

https://app.tonebase.co/guitar/courses/player/mircea-gogoncea-teaches-on-stretching-lh-technique

 

This is great! I've been teaching this to my students for more than 20 years now and i don't know of many more who do it. This class should be open, free, to all guitar players around (publish it on instagram and other media, full if possible.). You would be doing an incredible service to guitar players around the globe.

 

I have a few comments on it, anyway, some thoughts that are mine and do not need to be shared but have given me great comfort and liberty while playing to the point that i can do fingerings no one ever attempts:

 

-Regarding the parallelism of the palm of the hand, Mircea mentions that in the standard pedagogie it's always supposed to remain parallel to the fretboard and says that he doesn't see a reason not to in most cases. I do. The palm works a little bit like the moon: it's should always face the body. But, if you mantain a parallel palm, the more you go to the left on the fretboard (first positions) the more the palm turns to look to the wall behind you to your left. That turn, if continued turns into a judo press. Plus, if the hand s turned so that your fingers fall from the left, better (lighter) pressure can be done more directly over the fret with out muting the string vibration, as shown here: https://youtu.be/v0xkENaieoA?feature=shared (it's in spanish but i can translate if required).

 

-This way of stretching that Mircea shows is better served, in my opinion, if the thumb isn't placed in the middle of the hand but in it's natural resting side, along the side of the first finger.  At least as a starting point. I think that's the other "dogma" from the traditional pedagogie that prevents from playing with a relaxed hand: the position of the thumb

 

- For the Granados pieces, i think it's better to do the stretch combined (1-3 and 3-4), or at least that's what comes more natural to me:, bear in mind i just studied this passage for 3 minutes, after watching the class. I have changed Clerch's fingerings for that matter, switching 2 for 3 on the G note previous to the ornament: https://youtu.be/h9zg8wTC6F4

I think 3 is better than 2 because having the hand tilted to the left, those who have a smaller 4th finger would be in difficulties to play the ornament. 

 

- I don't think it's the wrist the one to rotate, more like what turns is ulna/radius system. The wrist can finish the movement but it has to be born on a highr articulation for it to be quicker. 

 

Anyways, a great class to be shared with everybody and to make everybody remember that you don't get to enjoy playing as the result of suffering while studying. Pleasure (physical and mental) must be there in each moment of our study.

 

One example of a fingering that i have never seen any other guitar player do and is specifically allowed by this way of thinking extensions is this passage of Ponce's Theme to the Folia Variations: 

while i have seen many fingerings that work and many do the jump to 4th position proposed by Segovia, I prefer much more what i show for you in this video: https://youtu.be/Gt-oa-tdb6s . This way you mantain voicings, you have legato articulation and resolve everything in the same position.

 

The extension here goes from a Bb note in third string with 3rd finger to a G# bass (6th string in D) in 6th fret with 4th finger (that's a 2 fret stretch with a 4 string wide stretch) 

 

It would actually be the same kind of work that Mircea shows for VL Etude 1, but one more fret and 1 more string of distance between 3 and 4. 

 

I also have a 30 minute video (in spanish too) working to resolve step by step the damned passage from Brouwer's "Un día de noviembre" that Mircea shows and I go a little differently about it. You can watch it here, if you wish: https://www.facebook.com/ariel.elijovich/videos/10220609317716964

 

What i like to do here is to keep the melodic E note (12th fret) until the melodic D note even while shifting the 3rd finger from A to G# in 2nd string. I think it creates a better legato in the melody. 

 

does anybody else have more examples of fingerings with this kind of extensions??

Kuddos for this class Mircea!! 

Warmest regards!

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