Scale practice with rest strokes

[knucklebrain1970]

This is kicking my a** folks. What I'm trying to do is overcome a block. Here is the exercize I do. You have frets 1-4 and 6 strings. I start on F and move up to G# on the 6th string alternating I,M and move up to the 5th string, 4th and so on, up to the first and back down again. The problem I'm trying to overcome is the fact that my fingers don't always alternate, I'll do I,M then all of a sudden the I will go twice and I'll end up skipping an I,M here and there and do two I's instead. Also I can only do this about 10x before my left hand is exhausted. Should I push more to get better or rest for fear of injury? I do this daily and it's not getting any better or faster. Another problem is that I'm trying to do it with rest strokes and my nails are catching the strings. Now mind you if I look at my fingertips (print side) I can only see like 1-2mm of nail. So my nails are really short, but are still getting caught on the strings. However when I play appregios and whatnot they sound fine (as I'm not using rest strokes)

Is it just a matter of learning rest strokes properly with the nails? Do you think that's my problem? Also is this a decent exercize to strengthen the left hand for scale practice? My goals are
1. to overcome the I,I thing and get consistent alternating I,M's
2. to strengthen the left hand as it fatigues easily down at the first 4 frets
3. to improve rest strokes for scales.

Am I going about this wrong? Any help is appreciated. I do have the Pumping nylon book, but like a dummy I didn't realize there was a DVD available at the time when I had the money for it.

Any help is appreciated.

Kevin

[MegaBrawn]

It's kind of hard for me to offer any advice since I don't know your standard of playing.

But I suggest that if you are practising rest stroke with a chromatic scale, that you do so SLOWLY.When you practise slowly, it gives you the opportunity to nitpick for both your hands. You can train your left hand fingers to position themselves just a little closer to the strings (without touching them) and you can greatly scrutinize yout right hand tone production.

Speed comes later. Go for control and precision first. Go slow to perfect the technique then speed up. Acheive a good tone when going slow and when you speed up make sure you retain the same tone.

I don't know what your hands/nails look like either so I can't really comment. If your nails are hooked, that could explain it catching onto the strings.If not you may need to adjust its shape. I've never had or heard of anyone's I or M fingers getting caught on strings. It's most common for the P finger to get caught (but this is easily remedied with reshaping).

Is this the first time you are keeping nails to play?

[dap22]

Hey Kevin,
Help has arrived! (well, at least I am going to try.)
There is really is nothing on the Pumping Nylon DVD that isn't on the book except from a superb performance of Dowland's Frog Galliard and Tarrega's Recuerdos de la Alhambra. It is just nice seeing the DVD to be able to watch Scott do the excercises and have a practice 'buddy' to follow along on the excercises.
Scott does an entire chapter discussing I and M alternation and how to practice doing it with rest strokes in Pumping Nylon. The practice excercises he reccomends, and his method of building up scale confidence and speed with proper alternation is probably the best out there. He follows his lesson with a segment of a Bach Partita transcription (I don't recall which BWV # or movement.)
So here are some helpful tips I will try and reccomend:
1) In doing rest strokes, remember, as far as speed goes, its not only a matter of how 'fast' you can do a downstroke to the string, but also a matter of how fast you are able to lift your finger back up and out. Therefore, a great way to build scale speed is actually doing rasgueadas, as you develop the outer muscles of your fingers. I understand that a rasgueada is not a scale technique, rather a percussive technique mostly used in flamenco, yet some classical music; however, even as Scott Tennant mentions, the muscles you develop from doing rasgueadas develop your outer finger muscle, enabling you to lift faster off the strings in small controlled movements. Thats why all those flamenco players always seem to have blazing fast scales!!!

2) Separate your hands. Do it SLOWLY. So since you are doing a chromatic scale, from an F natural to a G#, you will do 4 rest strokes on each string, only paying attention to the I and M alternation.
Then work on yoru left hand slurs (hammer ons and pull offs) and do finger independence excercises. This way your left hands motions should become automatic and you can focus most of your attention on your right hand...at which point after having fixed the alternation, you will be focusing on tone, clarity, and speed.

3) When practicing your scales, practice in speed bursts...example, practice 4 eighth notes, and then 4 sixteenths, and then 4 eights, and then 4 sixteenths, and so forth. Whatever pattern you want to use should work. In Pumping Nylon Scott gives many different patters. This way, with different patterns of speed bursts, you should be focusing on your rhythm as opposed to speed...this way you will have better rhythm, and your speed will build naturally...each day crank up that metronome.
As david russell says, "treat the metronome like your best friend, he may not always be the most fun, but he is the most reliable."

4) Accent certain notes in your patterns, maybe every third, or whatever you like. This will help you develop independent finger strength not relying on other fingers, and will help with control, and also, in the long run, musicality (crescendo, decrecendo, forte, etc.)

5) Don't only practice I and M alternation. Also practice rest stroke alternation with M and A, and I and A. Now, never in a concert or performance or practice of a PIECE, should you ever want to use M and A alternation a lot (only as a last resort) and be cautious with I and A. Developing your weakest fingers will only strengthen your strongest further. It is extremely important.

6) The most important, KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING. What I mean by this, know what notes you are playing, how fast, how loud, tone, etc. And not only that, know what string they occur on. This way you will be able to plan which fingers to use on certain notes in order to avoid backward string crossing. Backward string crossing only makes your fingers more unstable, they will slow you down, destroy accuracy and 'carefreeness' in speed, you will have to concentrate on hitting the notes etc...all in all, they are just bad technique and will hurt your playing. So don't do bacward string crosses.
What I mean by this are, if you are on your G string, and the next string you are playing is is the B string, the last note on the G string should be played with I and the first on the B string should be played with M...it fits the natural position of your hand.
There are few times when you must use a backward string cross, adn that is fine, just as long as you know its there and you are purposely doing it (example: the arpeggio sequence in Villa Lobos prelude 2, where it goes (6 &5) P, (4)I,(3) M, (2)A, (1)I, (2)A, (3)M, (4)I, (6 & 5)P....the numbers indicate which string you are on.)

Also, don't restrict yoruself to only one rest stroke excercise. Do that same excercise in free stroke, and then deep rest stroke, and then shallow rest strokes. Then, do difference sclae patterns in different positions, in different rhythms, at different speeds.
Open up the Pumping Nylon book, all of you questions will be answered there. Just because you don't have the DVD doesn't limit your ability in reading the book...just think...when David Russell was learning he didn't have the Pumping Nylon book or DVD...but he is still an unbelivable player with incredible chops.

Rest strokes are harder to do than people put them out to be. They are easy to do poorly, but consistently and controlled, learning them can be a pain, yet, after lots of work and practice, you will be able to do them effortlesly with a great amount of control and confidence. Be careful when choosing whether to use a rest stroke, free stroke, or slur for scales...they each have different purposes, yet they are often each different to each of us depending on what our musical ideas for the piece are.

Best of luck!
I do hope this long post has somehow been of a help to you.

Doug.

[Graeme]

Just a quick tip that greatly helped when I had the same problem with flamenco picardo imi alternation. By the way, this is a temporary technique since once you've got it, you've got it!

Try making really exaggerated imi movements, possibly with straighter fingers than you'd normally use for rest stroke, so that you're actually swinging the fingers. If you give them some momentum you'll find it very difficult to break the alternation. Think of walking: even if you wanted to take two left steps the momentum in the leg swing wouldn't allow it!
Good luck,
Graeme

[knucklebrain1970]

Thanks guys. I don't really have enough fingernail to shape, they are acrylic by the way, but I have them real real short and they are ramped, meaning if you look at the nail side of the fingers, they only protrude about 1mm or less from the fingertip and are ramped towards the right or the bridge of the guitar if you looked at my hand playing. The underside of the nail is flat. So I don't have a ton of nail and I think it's my technique, not the nail. However I've beat this nail problem to death and it's time to start lessons I guess :(

Kevin

[George Richards]

I'm with Graeme on this one--exaggerate the movement and let your fingers do the walking! This is a great way to develop the "exchange," which I seem to recall Tennant discusses at some point. With your fingers marching in large movements, it is almost impossible to do two i's or m's in a row.

[Travis_Warner]

My instructor has me doing this as well. At first, it did kinda get to me, but I never got frustrated, and got through it. The biggest thing is to practice slow. If you are having trouble with one particular measure, as was I, play that particular measure over and over, "just like a broken record", as my guitar instructor said to me. Some of the I M exchanges get difficult, but once you master them, you MASTER! them.

[RNE2D]

With the ramped nails, try angling your right hand so that from straight on you have a 45 degree angle from the horizontal to your arm. This has helped me with the exact same problem. Also do not pluck the strings, push them. Two tips that doubled my speed and accuracy.