Group 1

Dean Allan glad you enjoyed it. I hope you will find the course useful:)

Great to have you here, Barney ! I look forward to working together.

Derek Best of luck with the exercises. I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday!

Hi Barney , that is correct! The idea is to incorporate at least some string-crossing in our practice. Though we will always prefer avoiding string crossing in 'real life' wherever possible, it's good to be prepared for when we decide to use them.

Barney You're very welcome!

Hi Barney 

I would use the L.H. preparation wherever convenient on those frets to be used – all 4 fingers on a string for a chromatic scale, but often only 3 or 2 fingers per string in a diatonic scale. This reduces the amount of movement necessary to secure each of the frets and has the additional benefit of significantly increasing security as each necessary finger is already safely on the string before it plays rather than having to find it for every single note. As both of these aspects have a positive impact on the smoothness, relaxation, and stability of the left hand, I'd say it does contribute to both legato and speed.

It's not necessary for the left hand to have more active movements for the sole purpose of 'balancing' with the active movements required by the R.H.... if it is possible to have a L.H. which moves less and achieves just as good a result (or better!), then there is no reason to give it more work. Our body and brain are very much able to learn to dissociate the different amount of effort required by each hand at different times.

Well spotted – I agree that arpeggios are essential! So essential, in fact, that they will be the sole focus for next week.

Barney My pleasure!

Michel , you're very welcome. Happy practising!

Hi Phill ! I would say that for the purpose of the excercise and furthering our R.H. stability, it can be very worthwhile approaching the excercise from a single position. I use a less complex version – repeating the very same finger in rest stroke followed by a free stroke and so on, rather than alternating i-m. This puts further emphasis on the switch between strokes from a single position. Also, altough it might be a little challenging at first, it is usually possible to gently relax the tip joint, even from a slightly higher wrist position (as the one usually used for free strokes). This is worthwile training for those occassiones where we might find ourselves in need to slip in a rest stroke without being able to adjust the hand position.

Now, in 'real-life', it's not a bad idea to make a very small adjustment as the one you've described if it gives you a good musical result and some added security... The excercise, practised as above, though, would hopeully make us less reliant on these adjustments.

Hi Romy ,

Some time ago, in a completist obsession, I would want to practise as many different exercises as possible, so I needed to switch them up to cover them all within a few days. This meant that days looked pretty different. Now, however, I've experienced more benefits from playing the same exercises for a more limited amount of time. Sometimes I'll make up a special exercise for a particularly challenging piece of repertoire I'm learning and throw that into the mix, or I'll change the order... but, tbh, now that I've found what works best for me, I tend to stick to it, especially as I'm fairly convinced that doing a smaller amount of core exercises is more beneficial than practising a lot of outlier technical situations.

That said, make sure you don't force yourself to do something to the point of boredom, which isn't very sustainable in the long run. I'd opt for playing a shorter warm-up in that case to make sure I'm always fresh and engaged.

All best!