Left Hand training question

[kazars]

Some time ago I noticed that my left hand get tired after some piece playing (for example Bach Bouree). Also I had some problems in some pieces were left hand needs to hold some chord positions or baree for longer time (I dont know if its correct meaning - baree...). So I started to train my left hand finger muscles with some physical exercises and it become very easy to hold some chord positions and even improved my sound cleanliness. The question is - would it be expedient to train left hand finger muscles physicaly (of course in moderate dose) or it will slow down finger quickeness?

[JoeAlders]

I have the same experience. My former teacher, observing my LH-playing, commented that I use too much “power” placing my LH fingers on the strings. If you also have this habit, ( I assume that this is also your problem) it will not only rather quickly make your left hand go tired but also influences your LH-speed. Scott Tennant, in his video Pumping Nylon, touches this problem and suggests that you should do certain exercises controlling your LH-power. I followed his advice but, when I reduced the LH- “pushing” as much as I could, it went at the cost of accuracy placing these LH fingers. They began to wobble, so I returned to my “bad habit” pushing my LH fingers harder than necessary. When you try to overcome this early LH fatigue by doing physical LH- exercises I experienced the same problem: My LH became indeed more powerful but also slower!
I have no solution for this problem and I try to live with it. This, because I am not a professional.

Joe.

[M. Stephenson]

I have found that playing scales and riffs with a pick at a fast speed over and over and over until my forearm gets stiff has really helped in all areas of my playing. The fast scales make the fingers strong and also make them limber. I use several different scale patterns and some excerpts from flamenco runs and a few McLaughlin licks. I use a pick as I can not play that fast with my right hand fingers. The pick allows me to really get my left hand fingers flowing.

I have noticed that different songs require different muscles. I make a note of a song that really taxes my left hand and use them as my excersies.

A jazz guitar version of "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" had a lot of barres that killed my hand and made it hard to go from barre to open to barre. So I kept at it and I use this piece to keep my barre muscles in shape.

A Nunez thumb excersise is still a challenge for me - it really works thumb accuracy. So I keep at it.

"Cavatina" works on accuracy. It is not a fast piece but the chord changes are hard to do smoothly - the left hand has to move very methodically in a highly choreographed dance. So I keep at it.

These are just a few songs that I noticed target a specific area of my left hand.

[Todd]

Contrary to apparent popular belief,
you do not need a strong left hand
to hold big chords or to play the guitar at all.

Trying to play scales really fast isnt going to
help you either. Absolutly no clue as to why
that was even mentioned. It may help you with
scales. But if you want to play them fast, play them slow.
Speed is a byproduct of control. Again, strength
is not needed.

Anyway
Its all accuracy in placement. Not pressure.

When the fingers are placed accurately, only a minimal
amount of pressure is needed. You have to train yourself
to not clamp down. You have to develop a routine in
wich you purposely finger lightly, in order to train
that hand to lighten up. And of course, accuracy
will have to improve, naturally.

I can hold a first position F major Barre all night long.
But i cant get the lid off of the orange juice jar.

[MSG]

Check the action of your strings. You guys may laugh, but this is where I would definitely check first, before looking at the strength of your left hand. I would then also check the tension of your strings. Go with the lightest tension, to maybe hard. David Russell has often said that if you want to make a guitar sound better, make it easier to play. He only uses normal tension D'addarios. I would also advise not improving the strength of your left hand, but improve your accuracy (placing fingers as close to the fret as possible).

I used to think the strength of my fingers were poor, and I would do all sorts of strength training exercises for my left hand. I also bought a GripMaster to help me out. I realized, after many years, that I developed a poorer LH technique due to trying to grip the neck and press hard on the strings. I just couldn't play for very long, or play very fast either. These problems went away once I figured out that my action was too high (I now go for VERY low action -- you may lose some tone, but it's better than dead notes), and that xtra hard tension strings suck. I worked on my LH for lightness of touch. Not gripping the neck, but letting the weight of my arm pull the strings down. I barely grip, and only on certain barres do I grip hard at all.

Adrenaline rushes cause this over tense posturing too. Whenever I play a piece that gets my blood pumping, I realize that it affects my playing too... usually in a poor way. You have to learn how to sit back, and play a piece objectively. I play to a certain point, where I listen, objectify, and critique my playing. Then I record, and listen, and fix tone problems of the piece i'm working on. Then I turn on the blow dryer (seriously), and play with a lot of background noise. I don't concentrate on what i'm playing, and just let my fingers go. I find the blow dryer relaxes me, and my fingers don't tense up. I don't overly concentrate on my tone, and after doing this for some time, I can turn off the back ground noise, and my left/right hand just blazes. Weird, I know, but it works for players that overly critique themselves while they play.

I can play for 3-5 hours a day, 5 days a week, and my left hand never cramps, tires, or gets sore. Never. My back, well, that's something else.

[MSG]

Damn, Todd, it looks like you and I share similiar philosophies on left/right hand technique. I guess it's like that saying, "Great minds think alike."
:wink:

Contrary to apparent popular belief,
you do not need a strong left hand
to hold big chords or to play the guitar at all.

Trying to play scales really fast isnt going to
help you either. Absolutly no clue as to why
that was even mentioned. It may help you with
scales. But if you want to play them fast, play them slow.
Speed is a byproduct of control. Again, strength
is not needed.

Anyway
Its all accuracy in placement. Not pressure.

When the fingers are placed accurately, only a minimal
amount of pressure is needed. You have to train yourself
to not clamp down. You have to develop a routine in
wich you purposely finger lightly, in order to train
that hand to lighten up. And of course, accuracy
will have to improve, naturally.

I can hold a first position F major Barre all night long.
But i cant get the lid off of the orange juice jar.

[Todd]

Hey, yeah, looks like we called this one the same,
and at the same time! :) :lol:

Totally!!! Strength really has nothing to do with it.

I wish i could find a Lie Ji video to post here.

She's a fantastic example of what we're talking about.

Her left hand just floats over the frets. You can tell she's
barely pressing at all. But the notes are clear as bells.

[M. Stephenson]

Muscle strength is apart of everything that we do.

I really do not see how you guys can say that strength has nothing to do with playing guitar.

Some of us get only get the opportunity to practice sometimes only minutes a day and for us keeping up strength and flexibility is an issue. If I could play hours a day, then the strength would develop naturally. Some people that have the luxury of playing a lot seem to forget that not every gets to play for hours each day.

Strength does not mean pressure. It does not mean lack of accuracy. It means having the physical capabilities you need to get the job done.

I am not talking about playing with a heavy hand, I am talking about good muscle tone. You have to have it. Your fingers must developed that strength to do things on the guitar - you are using muscles in ways that do not happen in normal life.

I challenge you guts to stop playing for two or three weeks and then start again - I bet that your fingers and forearm will feel the exertion.

Playing fast builds strength, flexibility and accuracy. Period. There was a concern about increasing strength at the expense of speed. I offered a solution that increases both strength and speed.

Just because one plays fast does not mean that one is being sloppy - jeez, why does everyone jump to that conclusion. It really make me angry. :evil:

Anyone ever thought that playing fast may actually have some muscle and neurological benefits? Anyone ever thought that it might help create clear pathways for getting your fingers to do what your mind wants them to do? Anyone ever thought that playing fast might help one develops a lighter touch?

No, most people seem to think that playing fast means you are inaccurate and sloppy and that everyone should play slow until they never make any mistakes and until they always have perfect tone. Anything else is stupid and will make you a horribly bad guitar player.

I do what I think will help my playing and I monitor my results. I continue with gets me results and I discard what I think is a waste of time. Playing fast to build accuracy and strength has had measurable benefits in all aspects of my playing.

[Ted]

Accuracy is where its at! Everything else falls into place.
Kazars, here's something for you to try if you haven't already-"Spider walks". With your index finger (1) on the seventh fret/first string, place your ring finger (3) on the ninth fret/first string. Next place your middle finger (2) on the seventh fret/second string, and the pinky (4) on the ninth fret/second string. Continue up to the sixth string, then revers and come down to the first string. This exercise will build finger independence, which will build accuracy, which will build strenth. There are variations of the "spider walk, but I think you"ll catch on.
Regards,
Ted

[Ted]

M. Stephenson,
Question: When you learned to do tremolo (asuming you can) didn't you first do staccato? Slowly building up speed as you became more accurate? How did you maintain volume while increasing speed? Just some thoughts.
Don't want to pee on your cheerios :shock:
Ted

[Todd]

M. Steph,

You have lots of advice their, but unfortunatly, you
havent gotten results.

Or, if you have, i havent seen or heard it.

sorry if that seems harsh, but thats just how it is.
Time for reality.

You dont take financial advice from somebody who
has no money.

When David Russel says, "its not the pressure, its the placement"
I tend to listen, based on his results.

If you have some fantastic results to share, then please do so,
by all means. I'd love to see it.

TK

[M. Stephenson]

Here is a link to the Spider PDF as I learned it:

http://www.lifemusicart.com/Music/SheetMusic/Spider.pdf

Perhaps I missed something, buit I do not remember reading that kazars was a biginner. Sure I walked before I ran, but who is to say that kazars is not already running?

I tried to address the initial question - how does one build strength without sacrificing speed. I gave my answer, which I maintain is a valid way to achieve both speed and strength.

Is playing Spider really so much different? Other than it making your arm tired faster than single note scales, I do not really think so.

I still do not understand why everyone thinks that fast means not accurate. Who is the authority tht gives the green to play faster? Does one have to play slow until they die?

Todd:

I have nothing to say. I have not recorded lately. Most of what I am preparing to record is not even classical - some of it is dobro. Since I started playing in a band with some guys at work several months ago, I have redirected much of my energy toward learning some good ol' rock & roll. That has really taken time away from my recording preperations.

I feel that I am progressing well for the limited amount of time that I play. My instructor stopped charging me for lessons and instead prefers that I bring a bottle of wine and we set around and play. He occasionally helps me with my fingering, but that is about it. He says he has nothing more to teach me and that all I need is more time to practice. He keeps trying to get me to perform.

His faith in my abilities is good enough for me. (For anyone that feels the need to trash my instructor, listen to his MP3 snippets first: http://www.arisguitarist.com/recordings.html )

Also, I get plenty of complimentery E-mails on the MP3's I post when I sell a guitar on E-bay. It may not be up to your standards, but many people enjoy my playing anyway.

As much as I would like to devote hours to practicing, I can not. I am the breadwinner and I have two small children to raise. Family and work come first. Guitar comes when I can squeeze it in.

That does not mean that I do not study hard when I do practice. Indeed, I do everything I can to make the most of my playing time.

Perhaps you are right, someone that has such varied guitar playing styles as me and someone that gets in only a limited amount of practice time has no business responding on this forum. I will leave that to you experts...

[Ted]

It's not WHO is the authority, but WHAT! I.e. mental ability, physical ability, time. Todd hit the nail right on the head with his statement: "Speed is a byproduct of control." As to strength, it too is a byproduct.
Please don't take offense to this. I too am the sole bread winner in my house and given that I started out learning to play 2yrs ago @ 55 without a teacher (I do get good advice though), I'm surely no expert. But, when everyone seems to concur on something, I think it behooves one to listen, reflect on it, and put it through the sifter.
Cheerio :P
Ted

[Mark Lim]

Ted, i think you nailed it. It is true that we need strength and speed but like you said they are a byproduct. What one needs is placement and that i can testify and i am a breadwinner of the family working 15hours a day. I only practice 15-20 minutes at midnight!

I found that my left hand gets fatigued because of all the lactic acid build up and started reading through the past threads and found that i have learnt valuable advise. The most important is the use of the ARM! Small muscles in our hands are just too tiny to withstand the amount of work it has to do and it tires fast, thats why we need to use some of the arm muscle which is a large muscle group and has plenty of energy. Using the weight of my arm has been a real revelations for me.

The other thing is elbow movement. You'll notice that by lowering the elbow or moving it inwrds can sometimes help a bit.

The other point that Todd mentioned is placement. Often times i notice that i am not careful enough with my placement and thus once again used up more energy than i need and thats another few kj of energy lost. Stop and look at your placements and you will notice that a lot of times we just ignore the finger placement.

RELAX! So many times as i reach the middle of a piece and i consciously stop my playing and notice that my arms and body are all tensed up and i forgot to breathe. Also my left hand is virtually grabbing the neck and when i relax it a little i still sound good, that means i have press the strings a lot more than i need.

Mechanical aspects of the guitar i believe is greatly belittled. A lot of people believe that you need to muscle out the guitar and thats not neccessarily so. It is important to have a low action and even more so if you have small hands, get yourself a short scale guitar like 640,630,615mm! A person can vary in size by 20-35% but a 615mm guitar is only like 6% different from 650mm.

Guess what, when i made a conscious effort to do all this my left hand can go on for a lot longer without much fatigued. At least i now enjoy playing Cavatina in a very relaxed mode 8)

[nadine]

"I challenge you guts to stop playing for two or three weeks and then start again - I bet that your fingers and forearm will feel the exertion. "

What would that prove? I haven't played regularly in 8 years, but I can pick up my guitar and read through some music for at least an hour without pain because I use my arms and not just my hands. I don't think I could make it through the entire section of scale in the chaconne from Bach's 2nd violin partita, but that's mostly because I can't remember all the fingerings anymore. I *can* play bits of it, at speed, around 9 years after I learned and performed it though, and this is after an extremely bad case of tendonitis in both hands. It's because I don't rely entirely upon the tiny muscles in my hands.

The only discomfort I feel is the morning after when I've got blisters forming on my left hand fingertips because I've no callous. /shrug

Edit: Mark also makes an excellent point about tension while playing. It's common, I think, for one to hold their breath when coming up to a difficult passage. All the strength in the world means nothing if those muscles aren't getting supplied with oxygen. You cannot play fast if you cannot play relaxed. Which is why people say to practice slowly-speeding up before you're ready is a good way to start tensing up and slowing yourself down.

[Bálint]

Hi guys!
I would also like to post a piece of advice, which may prove interesting (and hopefully useful too). Try to improve your little brain with anything apart from guitar playing. I mean you should try drawing or painting, and you will surely notice after some time that it greatly influences your guitar playing, and vica versa!
I also practice a lot with other instruments and this proves useful too.
Just be careful not to mix them up... it's like learning several similar foreign languages.
Anyway, it's just a tip.
B

[Tony Hyman]

Thanks for that Bailant and nice to meet you.
We had a similar discussion about a year back on practice overload ie getting hungup on one object but not being able to progress no matter what because the brain can only deal with so much at one time.There were some very interesting views and articals posted on the subject .
These diversions you refere to are in the similar vein I would think and the age old "all work and no play makes Jack a very dull boy" seems relavant.

[Great Googly Moogly]

Hi guys!
I would also like to post a piece of advice, which may prove interesting (and hopefully useful too). Try to improve your little brain with anything apart from guitar playing. I mean you should try drawing or painting, and you will surely notice after some time that it greatly influences your guitar playing, and vica versa!
I also practice a lot with other instruments and this proves useful too.
Just be careful not to mix them up... it's like learning several similar foreign languages.
Anyway, it's just a tip.
BI found that playing ping-pong can be a help as well.

[Tony Hyman]

Or maybe watching "Sharks Tale" instead of practicing Brouwer.

[Great Googly Moogly]

Or maybe watching "Sharks Tale" instead of practicing Brouwer.LOL

[Dustyw]

As far as speed, accuracy, and strength are concerned, I have been working a method that I do not think has been touched on.
When we talk about fatigue from a long, complex, piece with lots of barre chords and etc., it really comes down to endurance (just pointing out the obvious).
The way that I have been working to combat this fatigue is putting my left hand (or right hand, whatever the case may be) through a routine of exercises that are long enough that they serve as both weigh training exercises for the LH and endurance exercises for the LH. One of these LH exercises is a series of chromatic octaves that span from the low and middle E up to the G-sharps that lie on the 3rd and 1st strings. I run this exercise up and down 10 times. When playing at a normal, controlled, safe speed; is quite manageable without getting too tired. The trick to making yourself stronger and faster is to time yourself so see how long it takes you to, as quickly as possible, play the chromatic octave study up and down. When going for speed (which I like to call "pushing slop") one should not be concerned with perfect performance! This is a crazy and foreign concept to some so allow me to justify. It is a misconception to think that if one practices fast and sloppy that they will inevitably play sloppy. I actually practice my technique at all speeds and therefore work various aspects of control, precision, and etc.
When I first started to play this series of 10 chromatic octave scales, I think my time was in the 2:00 range after I had learned them and felt comfortable with them. 2:00 was what my muscles would allow. I recorded my time and my goal, every time I went to time them for speed, was to beat my previous time (again, not worrying about cleanliness). I would shave off a second here, a second there and several years later, I think my record now is :53. They are still sloppy when I run them for a best time and I still feel like my arm is on fire when I finish, but now I think back and say to myself "How easy would it be now to play these in 2:00?" What seemed to be the best of my ability before can now be achieved without breaking a sweat and I could probably carry on a conversation while doing it.
Everyone has two maximum speeds--a clean and a sloppy. It is much more effective for me to get my clean speed up by pushing my slop. Another example: If I can play a C-scale cleanly at 120 and an all-out sloppy one at 145, imagine where your clean speed will be if you can get your slop up to 155?
Not only are you gaining strength, but you are also pushing the envelope of what your brain will allow when it comes to LH/RH coordination and RH relaxation.
I could probably go on and on about this technique but let me know if any of you has tried this before or has any questions.

Dusty

[Tony Hyman]

Thats all well and fine if one is training the muscles for a spesific purpose .
But the problem I think lies in the objective .Is it to play a chromatic scale
as fast as possible ? just for the sake of speed.Or is it geared for a spescific
purpose eg to be able to play the chromatic run starting on A just before the
Key change from Dm to D maj in Caprice Arabe by Tarrega.
Playing scales as fast as possible dose overcome technical difficulties ,which otherwise would have taken much longer ,dose make sense of cause,but I
think its actually a waste of time and string life if they are not practiced with the specific goal in mind.
Noads has this to say on pg189 Bk1 "It seems strange that slow practice should help the attainment of greater speed ,but the fact has been proved and restated by musicians and teachers.What seems to happen is that a very positive and accurate habit is formed ,so that there is no vaqueness or uncirtainty ,when the movement is played at a faster speed.A suggested way
to practice a passage would be to play it four times slowly,then once fast."
It has also been stated by a renound teacher ,I cant recall his name,
who states," Any piece of music played correctly in time will always sound faster than the piece played faster and rushed out of tempo,"words to that effect.
Steve Gadd who used to drum for Paul Simon has this to say in his tutor
Up Close "When I first started recording ,my tendency was to play more than
I should .It was like I was going to die after that particular song so I had to get the stuff in .The more dates I did ,the more I found it challenging to try and play less.If you start out simple and they want to build ,then you really have some place to go"
I find Mr Gadds opinion relavant in our context as well.
Slower consistant daily practice will always achieve more than sudden bursts of inconsitant "play as you go" hoping to fast forward a challenging piece .
But then again views might differ,bearing in mind that "it dont mean a thing if it aint got that swing" Louis Armstrong,applies to all types of music I think.

[Westy]

Sounds like most of you are substantially more accomplished than I presently am. However, just wanted to throw out an idea for consideration that I have heard on another forum and tried with seemingly some success. The idea can broadly be termed as buzz or thud fretting, for example playing a simple chromatic scale at just the pressure that creates fret buzz, or to play a piece you are learning at fret buzz pressure. The main idea is that it requires good awareness to apply just the amount of pressure that will allow each fret to buzz, and in the process you will develop a good awareness how much fretting pressure you apply.

My thinking on left hand pressure is that awareness is half the battle. Also, I think developing good left hand finger independence is useful in that it permits you to focus upon the poorly fretted finger, rather than the whole hand - seems my natural inclination to fretting problems is the progressive vice grip approach where I tighten the entire left hand :) . Anyways, just a couple of ideas I thought I might bounce off you.

- Jim

[JoeNo1]

Contrary to apparent popular belief,
I can hold a first position F major Barre all night long.
But i cant get the lid off of the orange juice jar.

The true story:
I can't get the lid off of the orange juice jar because I hold the F major Barre all night long.

haha~ just kidding.

Good point. Todd.

I've never tried physical strength training on both hands for guitar playing. Regular teenage hands which can hold pens and write should be good enough for guitar playing. Very often, I find out myself using too much strength "in order to gain control".

Joe
www.JoeNo1.net

[JoeNo1]

Hey, yeah, looks like we called this one the same,
and at the same time! :) :lol:

Totally!!! Strength really has nothing to do with it.

I wish i could find a Lie Ji video to post here.

She's a fantastic example of what we're talking about.

Her left hand just floats over the frets. You can tell she's
barely pressing at all. But the notes are clear as bells.

Her name is Jie Li(family name:Li. Actually, this is the same last name as Bruce Lee in Chinese).

I agree. She is a perfect sample.

Joe
www.JoeNo1.net