slickery

Post 59 of 90.

I spent the morning drifting in and out of sleep. I felt justified in my decision not to go out last night when I would wake up and hear cars grinding around on the icy country road about an eighth of a mile away.

Laundry, and then I watched a few episodes of Firefly from the complete series DVD set I picked up last week. Great show.

More work on "Intergalactic Boogie," even though we won't be playing it at the performance.

I'm getting to where I can play the opening polyrhythm and then maintain the pulse to enter with the seven note picked sequence, but only at a slow tempo. Much work yet to do, but it's beginning to seem possible that I could play this peace.

When I open with the polyrhythm, it's crucial that the second chord chop in each series of three coincides with a foot tapping on the 1 of the second triplet.

Keeping track of either which beat I'm on in the measure or the number of chords I've played is still beyond me. It seems as if I can instinctively find my way through it by feel, but I need to be able to count it reliably. Otherwise, if I have an off day, the whole thing could crash and burn.

A lot of work on microscopic examination of my picking and fingering using no-tempo practice. The feeling of lightly touching the string with a relaxed pick or finger before allowing pressure is easily lost at even moderate tempos. No unintentional hammer-ons, please!

No-tempo work is not realistic for everything--there is so damn much stuff to learn!--but I am keeping a definite space for this work in my practice. I'm banking on the concept that in-depth work of quality on even very basic things will spread to other areas of my playing, as I've heard described on courses by people who should know.

A while back I came across an article by a double bass player where he talked about the necessity in physically practicing an instrument to replace muscular tension with "pressure, weight, and balance" wherever possible. Something about this resonated with me, and it seemed to me that release was the means to access pressure, weight, and balance.

In no-tempo work on picking, rather than slapping at the string with a tense arm, I'm pursuing this thing of first touching the string with a relaxed pick, and then allowing pressure onto the string from release of the wrist (and perhaps some weight of the forearm--the mass of my hand by itself does not seem to be quite enough to overcome the resistance of the string as it pushes back slightly against pick). Then there's a moment of balance. The pressure of my arm and wrist transmitted through the pick to the string is balanced by the resistance of the string. The entire hand and forearm balances on the string like a tightrope walker.

Then the balance is broken and the pick goes through the string (or rather, it seems that the pick flexes a bit and the string and pick slip past each other).

And now there's the question of what to do with the mass of my hand and arm as it goes flying after dropping through the string. No matter how slow you go, the picking hand and forearm seem to take off like a rocket, especially if you've applying pressure with the thumb to stiffen the pick, which seems to raise the "break point" threshold. I'm still working on what exactly to do with this. Once it's moving, the picking hand and arm have inertia. It takes some time to recover. That mass and velocity has to be directed and counteracted in the "recovery phase."

There's a tendency for my arm to "start" and flail outward if I'm not paying attention.

I've also noticed a tendency on the trip downward for the pick to bury itself into the next string. If I'm going to cross-pick, that velocity must be directed elsewhere. In many cases, it needs to go over the next string, so I'm having to adjust my attitude in the moment of balance so that the resulting movement is directed in a slightly more upward/outward direction. Some of this goes back to having the pick truly perpindicular when it touches the string. There may also be a slight rotational movement in the forearm (clockwise if you're looking down from the headstock). Just the tiniest bit.

I've tried a variation where I immediately take the pick to the next location it needs to be. If I have to cross over the string below for the "return"/up-pick, I direct the resulting velocity of the hand and forearm and use it to help me get the pick where I want it to go. I'm looking for a controlled movement here, so that at the end of the sequence I am once again touching a string with a relaxed hand and pick.

I'm also working on programming in a "default setting" where I'm only using the tiniest bit of the tip of the pick, no more than the width of the string if possible. I have a tendency to "dig in" with the pick, and this definitely slows me down. There may well be times when the music calls for it, but I don't believe it's necessary or appropriate for my default.

In the left hand, I'm working on First Primary variations in no-tempo. When I firm up the relaxed finger and fret the string, I'm moving slowly and working on inhibiting the sympathetic tension and relaxing those other fingers.

There's also a sympathetic reaction in the right hand where it wants to dig down into the strings with the pick in response to happenings in the left hand.