Just an update - been working on my shifts - honestly!   Trying to  make sure my elbow leads (it really does work) - and in Maria Luisa interestingly It helps if I have my thumb lead on the I-V shift. Weird. Still trying not to tense up when those shifts are coming though. If only there was some  mantra I could think of  that would make me relax (unfortunately as soon as I think about relaxing I tense up - go figure!). Anyway the De Visee prelude is benefiting from working on it slowly - it's definitely getting closer to where I want it.  Soon it will be time to  think of a new piece to learn though I will be working on this and Maria Luisa for a while yet.

I decided to spend a couple of weeks relearning a few of the things I forgot while I was resting my arm. So that's it for the time being☺️

Ask the Teacher! What are the most important things to think about when shifting?

I have a guest expert this week!  (Peabody faculty, Zane Forshee)

I've been thinking a lot about relaxation recently, partly because my tennis elbow is finally on the mend and I don't want it to happen again, but mostly because I'm finding that my usual methods of moving around the fretboard, i.e. take a deep breath and go for it! are not working too well any more.

I just started working on my new piece  - De Visee's Prelude in D minor.  It's short, it's pretty, what's the problem? Fact is, I've discovered it poses some interesting challenges, such as separating the different voices while maintaining the legato lines, and doing clean shifts (with barres 😱 ).  Unfortunately those shifts are where, yet again, I am coming unstuck.  How to get from one position to another without losing the continuity in those flowing musical lines? How not to "grab" the next position in desperation?

Here is what the De Visee sounded like after a couple of weeks practice...  I thought I was making progress in keeping the lines connected, but when it got to the shifts, not so much.  So I asked my guitar teacher, Zane Forshee:

Me> "What are the most important things to concentrate on to get those shifts smooth and connected?

Zane> Hi Julie (AKA Creamburmese)!   It’s an honor to visit and share my thoughts with your readers. With regard to left hand shifting, I’ve put together a short video (well, it’s about 12 minutes, so not “internet short”) where I demonstrate the main points to consider.

I find (both as a player and as a teacher) that it helps if I organize my thoughts about technique into categories. With shifting on the guitar, there are, to me, three possible movements:

· Horizontal: towards the body or the head of the guitar on a string(s).

· Vertical: stays within a position but moves from the lower strings to the higher (6th string up to 1st) or vice versa.

· Combination: Brings a change of position (shifting up or down the neck) with a change of register giving a diagonal path for the hand to travel.

Breaking that down a bit further, we get into the elements of the shift:

· Targeting: Identify where you are going before you shift, and focus your eyes on that particular fret/string (i.e. aim for your target). Whatever you do, don’t watch your fingers—they have no idea what they’re doing! You are the boss, so lead them to their collective destination.

· Setup/Launch: Prepare the left hand to move. This means having proper left hand position (which could be a whole post in itself!) The main points to watch for are to keep your fingers on their fingertips and avoid hitting any adjacent strings with your left hand fingers.

· Shift/Elbow: Once you know where you’re going (targeting) and your hand is ready to shift (set up) you’re ready to go, but don’t forget to lead with your elbow! I’m underlining this because it’s that important. The elbow leads the charge and the hand follows the arm–try it out! It makes a huge difference.

· Landing: This is all about left hand finger placement. Avoid blindly “grabbing” at your target. Instead, think about placing the fingers once you arrive. The analogy that helps me is to imagine setting a plate of food down on a table. There’s a sense of grace in this act (well, at least I like to think that there is) that sets the whole tone of the meal. That moment of placement allows the guest an opportunity to appreciate the meal before they begin. Your hand and the music want the same thing—a moment of grace before moving on to the next step within the piece. If you tense up, you’ll inadvertently accent the note and the melodic line will become disjointed (to continue with our metaphor, you slammed the plate down on the table!)

One thing I will also mention: you should be configuring your hand for the next position as you shift—yep, you’re multitasking—it’s happening everywhere, why not with your guitar, too? This allows you to arrive prepared and ready to execute the next passage.

With these ideas in mind, let’s zoom in a bit closer to details that can really help improve your consistency and confidence with left hand shifts:

· Guide Shift: This is taking advantage of a finger that is already on a string as part of your setup and is used, on that same string, in a new position on the neck. You can see several examples of this in the video. This is an incredibly helpful tool to use in your playing and will boost your accuracy. Say goodbye to the “leap of faith” (where you take all your fingers off the strings and hope for the best) and say hello to the guide shift.

· Sequential Shift: This is a biggie! As in life, you can’t do everything at once. You can try but often you end up with a whole lot of “not so great” (or downright awful). The same can be said for shifting. Guitarists often find themselves having to making substantial changes to their left hand configuration from one position to the next. Here’s an opportunity to explore the sequence of fingers needed for moving between figures within a piece. Do you really need to have all the fingers down at once in the next position, or is there an opportunity to place them one at a time? By studying your score (you do look at the music when you practice, right?) you can determine with incredible precision the order in which notes are needed and when—work smarter, not harder.

· Open Strings: This is the fluent guitarist’s secret weapon: we’re always looking to find an open string when we need to change positions. This creates a sense of legato for our musical gesture and allows just enough time to get to our next destination. Think of it as taking an airline flight with a connection, and upon arrival discovering that your next flight is only a few steps away—you’d have time to get that much needed cup of coffee from the kiosk in the corner and take a moment to look out the window, too. So, get that sheet music back out and look for those open strings!

Hope this is of some help. This is a big topic, and while I can’t touch on every detail in a single post, I do hope this information is helpful. If you have questions, concerns, or simply want to say hello, you can reach me at my website, find me on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter.

Good luck, GO SLOW, and practice with a purpose!

Zane

Be careful what you ask for... you might get it

Recently I became convinced I'm not really moving forward with the guitar - the graph on left refers to how new technology gets adopted, but it serves my purpose quite well.  Yes, I made great progress for a while  (making me think I would be playing ~Asturias in a few short years), but now I think I'm in the "trough of disillusionment", where it seems quite likely this is as good as it's going to get.   Yes I am learning new pieces, and maybe they are getting a mite more difficult, but to my ears they don't really sound any better than those I learned last year.   I know this isn't for want of being told what to do (I am fortunate in having an amazing guitar teacher), but perhaps I've been selectively ignoring the advice that I need to become a better player.  So I asked my guitar teacher - what was preventing me from moving forward?...What do I need to do? It's not like I don't practice...

His response was something to the effect that I wasn't going to like the answer!  I think I have probably added my own interpretation, but this is what I took away from that conversation...

1. Significant improvement involves a lot of hard work, not just reaching a stage where I could play a piece through without too many mistakes, and then moving on.  I would probably have to work on something for many months to "finish" a piece.
2. I needed to learn pieces I didn't particularly like so as to teach me specific skills rather than - or in addition to -  pieces I just liked the sound of.
3. I was trying to do too many things to make significant progress in any one area.
4. Did I mention it was going to be hard work?

Phew!   Well I did ask...

As a result I'm trying to pay attention to what I'm being told rather than doing just enough to  'kinda' get it. I'm spending less time just "playing through"  piece and more time working on small parts and individual skills. This might involve working on one measure slowly for days or weeks, perhaps to master a a tricky fingering, stop the bass, add dynamics or separate out the melody.  It may even be starting to change the way I practice...  It's going to take me a few more helpful hints from my guitar teacher before I truly start thinking about this differently, but I like to imagine I might soon embark upon the "slope of enlightenment"

Did you know?  A bunch of flamingoes is a "flamboyance"

Learning to relax: why is it so hard?

I have absolutely no problem relaxing - just sit me down on the sofa with a glass of wine and I guarantee I'll be so relaxed I might even fall asleep.   However put me in charge of a guitar and ask me to play it, while remaining relaxed, and I have absolutely no idea how to do it.  We all get tense when we are doing something unfamiliar, but you would think after a few thousand tries I might have figured this out by now.  No such luck.

I’ve got lots of excuses – lack of flexibility so I need pressure required to keep my fingers in place, unfamiliar hand/arm positions, and of course, how much does it matter anyway?
But maybe the biggest reason is I don’t know what it feels like to truly relax, I pretty much always play tense. However recently while working on some Carlevaro octave shifting exercises I managed to relax on my way up the fretboard (aided and abetted by gravity).  I actually experienced what relaxing my left hand feels like. Wow! My arm/hand movement was much easier and more fluid.  

However incorporating this into general playing is still not easy.  Perhaps it's because I have always assumed that relaxing was an absence... ie "don't tense up"!   Then while reading Daniel Nistico's email newsletter, I noticed that he talks about actively relaxing - in other words it's something you actually have to make an effort to do! This may seem like semantics, but there seems to be a big difference between trying NOT to tense up vs. trying TO relax  - in fact it was my guitar teacher telling me to actively relax various fingers that resulted in me experiencing 'that relaxing feeling'.  As a first step to incorporating this into my playing, whenever I'm having difficulty I'm stopping what I'm doing to see if I have too much tension and can manage to relax something. Perhaps not surprisingly it often works.