Group 4

peter hancock hi Peter! You’re encouraged to submit videos and I will periodically check in and answer questions/ give feedback 

Peter Graneis 

I submitted the videos. I know they are not the best.  Exercise #4 is there twice. Had trouble uploading it. 

peter hancock Hi Peter, Here’s a bit of feedback for your exercises.

It already looks very natural and fluent, try not to sing along though, this will always take away some of our ability to focus on our hands and it doesn’t occur in repertoire. There are definitely cases where this can be helpful, but for this technique I suggest not to do it. 
 

for 1 and 2: in general it’s time to work with a metronome now. I  suggest starting with ~50-55 for quarter notes and concentrating on regularity and flow. Spend a minute or two here, then move up in small steps.

for 3 and 4, set the metronome to ~40-45, always complete one line in one go for a minute at a time, then move up the metronome. Pay attention in ex. 4: you tend to play very short notes, try to play them as Legato as possible. 
 

in general this stage is about control, not speed. Keep it up!

Peter Graneis  Thanks. Will keep trying.

Jack Stewart hi Jack, here’s some feedback for your video:

throughout the video there’s already a nice development. It’s great that you’re using a metronome straight away, sounds like you set it to roughly 60bpm. This could be a great tempo to work with, but I’d advise you to not play triplets, since this tends to train the thumb to play with an accent. 
Another aspect I’d like you to direct your attention to is articulation: the quality of the Staccato tends to vary between different fingers of the right hand. 
 

To work on this, start with eighth notes (2 notes per beat). Pay attention to a regular quality and only switch between very staccato and very legato. 
 

when accenting single notes in groups of 4/5/2, start at half the speed (said eighth notes instead of four notes per beat) and pay attention to the accented note sticking out and the overall sound being either staccato or legato. 
 

hope this helps! Happy practicing 

Peter Graneis Thanks for the response. All very good points that I need to work on. I'll post my progress (hopefully) on them soon.

Peter Graneis Hey Peter. Over the last couple of months I have had to resort to playing with no nails due to deteriorating fingernails. This has led to a blister on my 'a' finger. Therefore I will have to stop playing over the next couple of days.

I have incorporated the 'pmi' technique into my daily practice and was about to record my progress on the G major scale. If the blister clears up in the next couple of days I will post a new video.

If I cannot get another video before the end of this workshop (not sure when it ends), I would like to thank you for this workshop and find the 'pmi' technique very promising and useful. Thank you.

Derek hi Derek. This was actually part of the check in, it’s a valid question. Short answer: I have no solution for playing a chromatic scale with only these three fingers. Tremolo fingering is a possibility, also involving slurs and open strings can help, but the method I have been teaching can not really help in this case. Sorry!

Lázaro Tejedor Hi Lazaro, in principle this looks like it could be working for you, you’re following the principles closely and it looks quite good. However there are two points I like doing differently. For one I like to finish each scale with p, and the first scale is changing position too much for my taste. This is personal preference and it could just as well work perfectly for you, but for me this tends to slow down the left hand a little and result in problems with synchronicity. Hope this helps!