MAIN THREAD: Power and Perseverance - The Elegance of the Left Hand (Week 2)
Welcome to the Main Thread for the second week of the Level Zero Challenge! This is the place to discuss the Week 2 live stream.
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- Watch the live stream (<- click)
- Get the scores! (<- click)
If you want to describe your process (optional), feel free to use the following template.
- Things you found easy:
- Things you found difficult:
- (Optional): a video of you performing it!
- (Optional:) questions
↓ Reply below with your assignments and questions! ↓
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Here are the Play-Alongs for this week's session!
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Exercise 6a. I love arpeggios. The tricky thing for me was hitting the correct bass string. Sometimes when going up, I would hit the 3rd string instead of the 4th string. Somehow on the way back down I had less trouble.
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Elizabeth Uyehara Wonderful, thank you for your numerous submissions! I'd recommend that you try to plant and prepare pim before you play them. So you would at first lay down your fingers on the dedicated strings rather than plucking them from the air (does that make sense? English is not my native language and this doesn't sound right, sorry
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I did a whole live stream on the topic of right hand preparation, you can re-watch that in order to dig further into this topic! Relaxation is always the key, but if a finger is already planted on a string, it cannot play a wrong string anymore! -
Elizabeth Uyehara I noticed that I have trouble hitting the 4th string too (up and down).
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martin Thank you for the link to the previous livestream. I will check it out. I just joined in February so it's great to be able to watch all of these archived livestreams.
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I am practicing the first few exercises, but I also looked at the later exercises. On Exercise 11, I am having a difficult time with my left hand trying to play the "D" note with the third finger after playing the "A" note with the second finger in the third measure. Is it okay to use the fourth finger to play D?
In Exercise 13B, in the second measure, what fingering should I use on my left hand to play this chord?
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Please disregard my first paragraph above about Exercise 11. I have no idea why I was having trouble yesterday. Fingering seems fine today.
However, I am still having trouble with what fingering to use on measure 2 of 13B. I am also having difficulty playing the chord in measure 12 of Exercise 13A. My hand looks all contorted when I try to play the chord.
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Desi Husband That is a perfectly normal phenomenon! For Example, I am always struggling to play a certain passage by heart, but after a good night's sleep I am suddenly able to perform that! I highly recommend the book "Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker on that topic, fascinating!
Now on to 13B: The best solution would be to play this with 4th finger on the d on the second string and second finger on the b on the 5th string, as both fingers are unoccupied (the c octave should be played with the first and the third finger). If you are really struggling with that fingering, you can play this chord with the second and first finger as well! I will show you some possibilities tomorrow on the show!
And now 13A: You are very free to play this chord as before and afterwards you have only open strings! I like to play this combination with 1 and 3 as it gives me the possibility to play the second third in the 13th bar with the second finger. But again: Here you are very free to choose whatever suits your hand best!
I hope that helped, see you tomorrow!
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Exercise #7a at 60bpm. I tried it with free strokes followed by a version with rest strokes. I just alternated between "I" and "m" for the whole piece even though "a" is indicated on the music. Hope that is okay to start with.
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Elizabeth Uyehara Brava!!
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Giuseppe Gasparini Grazie!
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Elizabeth Uyehara wonderful! I think your right hand free stroke improved and you try to play "into" your hand!
Alternating between i-m is perfectly fine, we should aim to make this alternation as natural as breathing! Going beyond that alternation and adding the a-finger is not really necessary for a piece like that! Tomorrow we will dive a little bit deeper into how to write and choose a certain fingering for or final piece!
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Good afternoon! I have a question about left-hand fingering on Exercise 12A of the next-to-last measure. When I play the A with my second finger, I have a rough time trying to reach the F#. Is it okay to play the A with my first finger or should I just continue to work on stretching?
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Desi Husband it is absolutely fine to to change into the "second position". That's how we call the position in which your first finger is placed on the second fret, this would be a good example of going into that position. The stretch between the a and the f# is quite tough, I'd recommend to implement it every now and then in order to improve the agility of your left hand!
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Exercise 7b at 100bpm. I concentrated on alternating my right hand fingers. In the past, I never really paid attention, so this time I wrote in the i and m on the music to help me out. This must become automatic after awhile.
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Elizabeth Uyehara Awesome! Writing down fingerings always helped me a lot!
Btw, I love the dog in the background
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Exercise 7c at 100bpm. It's so fun to play with this accompaniment. The busier second guitar part makes it sound really pretty.
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Elizabeth Uyehara Awesome, we sound like a virtual guitar duo!
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Exercise 8a at 60bpm. On this I experimented with right hand muting. I put my finger back down on the 3rd string before playing the d on the 4th string. Then I put my thumb back down on the 4th string before playing the 3rd string. Right hand muting is new for me, so it's pretty challenging.
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Elizabeth Uyehara Awesome, good job, that's how I would play it as well!
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End of the Year Challenge: Finish Strong!
