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Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 11:56 am
by RandyBuckner
Rande -

You're spot on with your observations. Like you said, everybody's life and schedule is different. I tell my students that that amount of practice I require of them is inversely proportional to how crazy their lives are. One of my jazz instructors at MTSU-Murfreesboro, Bruce Dudley, said that we should take advantage of the free time that pops up throughout the day. Keep a guitar handy so if you're waiting on your wife, a ride, or whatever, you can practice for say, 5 or 10 minutes. Put the guitar down, go do your business, and then practice again when the opportunity arises.

There is no law stating that practice time should be in a prescribed block of time - that's just how it plays out in my life. I teach guitar 6 days a week and also gig. My daughter is in school, and my wife also works; so I have free time during the day - which is broken up between practice, booking gigs, and transcribing music.

Again, as you said, practice is like performing music - it's very personal and varies from person to person.

Thanks for the great post -

Randy

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 5:42 pm
by RandeDager
Randy, you're obviously much more formally "plugged in" than I've ever been. I've had two guitar "students" in my entire life and they were already pretty good when they came to me. They just wanted to learn my arrangements to include in their gigs. I was honored and I really enjoyed doing it, but all I did was to show them where to put their fingers. They had to make their own formal sense out of everything.

Your music life sounds interesting. Thanks for your insights and your posts, both written and audio. Thanks also for the positive affirmation of my thoughts.

Rande

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Thu Feb 10, 2011 8:32 pm
by keener
One of the reasons I'm trying to get back into a habit of practice is that I suck at arpeggios. So, the arpeggio exercise that Chet talks about in the Fret magazine (refer to my original post) quickly captured my interest. And, as with everything else, I decided to tinker with it and turn it into my own exercise. For anyone interested, here it is:



I estimate that, at my current rate of progress, it'll take me a few months to get at a decent level with arpeggios. Of course, there are other arpeggio exercises I need to do, and Parkening's books seem great for that. But, I like this one for a start.

With me, I find that anytime I can personalize an exercise, then working with it feels a little less stilted, and a little more natural. But, of course, I can't personalize every exercise, for in many cases I would the point of the exercise.

As for time spent, I am not a pro and never will be. If I were, 4 hours a day might make sense to me. As it is, I find that anything more than 90 minutes seems counterproductive. Instead of getting better and better at arpeggios, for example, I get worse. But, as you guys have noted, mileage varies.

Thanks for the great conversation fellas.

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Fri Feb 11, 2011 11:26 am
by RandyBuckner
I like your arpeggio exercise, Bruce! :D

Thanks for a great conversation guys.

Randy

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 9:23 am
by Billy Anderson
Bruce, you could have fooled me with this post by just stating it was a practice piece by Segovia, Williams, Bream, etc., and I would never have known the difference. Of course I haven't put my hearing aids in yet this morning but I'm sure that has nothing to do with my assessment. Seriously, It sounds like a good exercise to practice with in my spare time. You bad, man, but that's good! KOPAP. Billy

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Sat Feb 12, 2011 12:11 pm
by keener
Randy and Billy, glad you like my arpeggio exercise. I find that it helps me to do some left-hand activity to keep me from concentrating Too Much on the arpeggios, helping to make them more automatic. Of course, there is a point where one has to concentrate. Nonetheless, I find it helps me automate something when I do not over-concentrate on it. (It does seem like I have to concentrate a lot more now, though, than when I was younger.)

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 8:39 am
by Roger Hardin
Great arpeggio Bruce. I have come up with several things like that using an alternating thumb. That is neat. Another good right hand arpeggio is the Villa-Lobos Etude 1. I just play the right hand part over my own left had creations. This is a great excercise for the rh. Here is a scanned image of the right hand part. The notes are just a standard E minor Chord you would find in a Mel Bay book.

Image

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:15 am
by RandeDager
Thanks Roger, I appreciate this pattern. I don't read music and therefor don't know what these notes are, nor would I know where they were on the guitar even if I did, but I can still understand the right hand fingering and will try to create a left hand part to use it with.

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:31 am
by keener
Roger,

That's a great exercise! Thanks for sharing it. I am an admirer of your finger movements, and it's good to know where some of it comes from :)

Take care and thanks again,
Bruce

BTW, I am finding that Huttlinger's exercises, from the video linked at the beginning of this thread, are a great way to start the picking day out. I like exercising one finger at a time while keeping a beat going. Simple, but seems to help get me into picking a little easier than my typical picking what pops into my head.

Re: Fingering Exercises

PostPosted: Sun Feb 13, 2011 9:49 am
by Roger Hardin
Here is a good shot of Segovia playing Villa-Lobos etude no 1. Hope this helps Rande. You can see the rh pretty good on this. I do use a thumb pick while doing this myself. The music I posted above is just an E minor Chord.