Post by painkiller on Jun 14, 2007 2:23:08 GMT -5
This is a preliminary assessment. I have recently switched from elbow picking to wrist. For many, many weeks I was making no progress. I kept varying the position of my hand and angle of attack on the string until finally I arrived at something that seemed semi-comfortable. I had been reading tons of articles and posts about how tension while playing is horrible and bad and it means you are doing it wrong and so fourth...anyways, as a result, I was extremely vigilant of muscle tension, and anytime I noticed myself tensing up I would consciously slow down and relax my arm muscles. After some time went by I would try to speed up again gradually but I noticed that the tension would creep back into my arm again, sometimes all the way up into my jaw and I would catch myself grinding my teeth. No matter what I did, I could not play fluidly at a fast pace without tension, and slowing down and relaxing wasn’t getting me anywhere. Needless to say I was more than frustrated.
I took a break for a few days and decided to put some distance between me and my guitar before coming back because at this point I was really fed up. I came back after almost a week and began very slowly again and after a while noticed the same tension except this time I decided to go with it. I said screw it and picked as fast as I could for as long as I could bear until my arm tired out and I would stop for about 15-30 seconds and start up again. Now mind you that just because I was tense doesn’t mean I was sacrificing my technique. I was picking correctly, but I realized that I was just tense because it was something new that my muscles (wrist muscles in particular) hadn’t experienced before, so naturally my other muscles would jump in to try to help. I think that this is natural. I noticed amazingly that I was actually improving. I would play in 15-30 second bursts, then stop for a few seconds, and then start up again. I came to find that over the course of say 15-20 min, each time I would staccato pick, there was less and less tension in my arm, and I could pick faster and faster. Of course when I would speed up, the tension would return, but I now embraced it and viewed it as allowing my muscles to endure the uncomfortable period of committing this new type of action to memory. Eventually, this faster speed would become easier and easier, and the tension would vanish. Now, I am still in the beginning phase of this, so each day when I sit down to practice, I kind of forget exactly what I was doing yesterday and what the action is supposed to feel like, so I have to train myself anew. Eventually it will become second nature and will become so ingrained that I won’t have to go through this retraining every day.
Anyhow, in my long winded way, I just though I’d put this out there for anyone who is stuck or trying to master or improve a technique. I remember when I first started playing the guitar way back when, I had a lot of tension, but over time, muscle memory allows you to relax and refine your movements. That being said, I do hold to the maxim that tension while playing is bad, but tension while learning, I now feel is different, and perhaps beneficial. If you practice something continually and the tension never goes away, or the motion never becomes second nature, then you might be doing something wrong and want to consider altering your technique in some way. But for me, I now find playing through this initial “learners tension” as I like to call it is working nicely. I hope this helps people out there like me. I’m sure the experts on this forum will add their own caveats and experiences, but I’d also like their opinions. I even welcome criticism. It just really sucks to be frustrated and practice for a long time without improvement, and so I find when I discover something that helps me, I like to put it out there and also find out if others have tried similar things or what their approaches might be.
Rock On!
;D
I took a break for a few days and decided to put some distance between me and my guitar before coming back because at this point I was really fed up. I came back after almost a week and began very slowly again and after a while noticed the same tension except this time I decided to go with it. I said screw it and picked as fast as I could for as long as I could bear until my arm tired out and I would stop for about 15-30 seconds and start up again. Now mind you that just because I was tense doesn’t mean I was sacrificing my technique. I was picking correctly, but I realized that I was just tense because it was something new that my muscles (wrist muscles in particular) hadn’t experienced before, so naturally my other muscles would jump in to try to help. I think that this is natural. I noticed amazingly that I was actually improving. I would play in 15-30 second bursts, then stop for a few seconds, and then start up again. I came to find that over the course of say 15-20 min, each time I would staccato pick, there was less and less tension in my arm, and I could pick faster and faster. Of course when I would speed up, the tension would return, but I now embraced it and viewed it as allowing my muscles to endure the uncomfortable period of committing this new type of action to memory. Eventually, this faster speed would become easier and easier, and the tension would vanish. Now, I am still in the beginning phase of this, so each day when I sit down to practice, I kind of forget exactly what I was doing yesterday and what the action is supposed to feel like, so I have to train myself anew. Eventually it will become second nature and will become so ingrained that I won’t have to go through this retraining every day.
Anyhow, in my long winded way, I just though I’d put this out there for anyone who is stuck or trying to master or improve a technique. I remember when I first started playing the guitar way back when, I had a lot of tension, but over time, muscle memory allows you to relax and refine your movements. That being said, I do hold to the maxim that tension while playing is bad, but tension while learning, I now feel is different, and perhaps beneficial. If you practice something continually and the tension never goes away, or the motion never becomes second nature, then you might be doing something wrong and want to consider altering your technique in some way. But for me, I now find playing through this initial “learners tension” as I like to call it is working nicely. I hope this helps people out there like me. I’m sure the experts on this forum will add their own caveats and experiences, but I’d also like their opinions. I even welcome criticism. It just really sucks to be frustrated and practice for a long time without improvement, and so I find when I discover something that helps me, I like to put it out there and also find out if others have tried similar things or what their approaches might be.
Rock On!
;D