Group 4

Stefanie Mosburger-Dalz You're welcome! See you all on Thursday (link pinned above!). All best, E

https://youtu.be/AuTyEAvn_kE

Hello Daniel Beltrán ,

Firstly – apologies for taking a little longer to get round to this. I wanted to make sure I had enough time to watch the entire video and give you an informed response. Secondly – thank you so much for your commitment to the TWI!

I can see two things which I think will be quite important:

1) Very often, your R.H. strokes deviate slightly to the side when moving into the palm. This can sometimes be used to produce a rounder sound (if the sideways movement is left towards the basses), however, it is important to note that this kind of movement is controlled by tiny little muscles that live in the hand and can get easily fatigued and are generally not as strong as forearm muscles... this sideways movement should, in my opinion, be used sparingly. Instead, it is the forearm muscles which we should rely on for moving the fingers straight into the palm of the hand, not the tiny hand muscles. Therefore – I would encourage you to avoid moving your fingers sideways, as this creates some tension and encourages the other fingers to join in. In fact, I can see that when your 'm' finger moves in straighter towards the palm of your hand, without deviating to one side, the other fingers are less likely to join the movement and you have greater independence.

2) at around 7:30, I noticed that your R.H. is very angled in relation to the strings... this feeds into the issue described above, as you need to engage more of the small muscles in your hand to make your fingers push through the string which is in contact with the left side of your nails. Thus, more tension and more engagement of the other fingers... more shaking and less independence. Additionally, your wrist is going up and down a bit with each stroke, which seems to be somewhat involuntary.

Overall, I'd say that a goal would be to find a R.H. position where the fingers are less angled and try to avoid shifting your wrist too much... from here, the goal is to isolate the movement of the individual fingers and try to make them as straight and simple as you can towards the palm of your hand... this is important – don't add tension to make the movement straight, but rather try to relax your fingers into following a much simpler and less complex movement.

L.H. exercises are looking great!

Hi Emmanuel ! Many thanks for your very helpful response!

These two things you've noticed on my R.H. I do have seen them, just as you describe. My i and  a fingers do this type of movements that I know that end up wasting energy that could and should be saved, as well as that uncomfortable position of the hand and wrist in which I end after a few bars. I've tried to work on some of those things (not exhaustively on making sharp the towards the palm movement of each finger) as well as the hand position which my current teacher and some past ones have told me that looks tilted upwards (sort of like Thomas Viloteau position). But the comments you've given me made re-observe some things related to them, like the deviation of the fingers, and with it, the position of the hand or fingers. And I've found some interesting things  I've been, not only deviating the fingers upwards or downwards (towards the basses or trebles), but also twisting them like in this first picture:

   There I'm exaggerating a little the position, but I mean that it's like a twist which roots in the knuckle joint, could be to that or the opposite direction (Please nobody do it ). My position, according to that idea, has been mostly like this: 

 Which results in a big "C" curve on the knuckle joints that falls mostly towards the pinky finger. That's what I think that's actually what makes my hand look facing upward, and not so much that I twist my forearm or something like so, which I've tried to use to adapt my position, but always failing.

This is what my hand position has kinda looked like the past two days: 

I'm trying to place every finger and knuckle joint the most perpendicular I can to the top of the guitar, and not stressing the hand or the fingers

And some results so far: the descending arpeggios are way easier, sound way more even and fluent; better sound quality of each finger, specially the a finger which was hitting the string with the right side of the nail; I do have to make a little effort to maintain this position, but overall, most of the movements so far don't feel painful or produce strain in my hand, as well I feel a little more independence between the a and m fingers.

So to conclude, your comments have been hugely helpful, Emmanuel! I do have to keep on working on this and improve each series of movements and exercises, but I'm greatly thankful for your help! I hope to share something on the forums these days!