David Leisner: The Left Hand - Using Large Muscles to Prevent Injury
Playing with Ease!
This is a workshop on how to prevent musicians' injuries in the left hand. Over the years, I have developed some major concepts of how to engage the large muscles when playing the guitar.
These ideas can be used by any player as a way of preventing injury. Chapter 5 of my book, Playing with Ease (Oxford University Press), is devoted to describing this approach. In this presentation, I will discuss and demonstrate these ideas, as well as interact with each of you, to make sure you understand how to engage your large muscles correctly.
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During the "pushup" of the fingers, I kept feeling like my thumb blocked the downward pressure and instead produced a lateral force and bent the string (like Stefanie). I started letting the thumb hang below the neck and come up to the neck at the end of the pushup. Is this going to produce the same effect?