In my essay "Discover
Your Discomfort", I urged you to become
aware of the sensations of discomfort you
experience while practicing and playing. The
reason is very simple. Until you do, you
will not be able to be aware of the
sensations (that is, your mental awareness
of the physical feelings in your body) a
good player has, the sensations that you
must have to play well. I call this
sensation, or feeling in the body, "The
Incredible Lightness". I call it this,
because once you experience it, and allow it
to grow by Correct Practicing, well, it's
Incredible. This feeling of lightness is
what makes fast, accurate playing possible.
Unfortunately, because of ignorance of how
to practice correctly, far too many players
create for themselves "The Incredible
Tightness".
I will quote myself to bring this point
home:
"The relative state of tension or relaxation
in the muscles is one of the hardest things
to be aware of. I once saw a person play
with so much tension in her right shoulder
that it was up to her earlobe! Always trying
to be helpful, I pointed this out to her
when she finished. As she let her shoulder
down a few inches to it's normal position,
she told me I was wrong, she wasn't tense,
but very relaxed!
The reason she felt this way is because we
very quickly become used to whatever we
experience, and consider it normal. We never
question whatever tensions we experience in
learning new skills on the guitar, and in
fact consider it part of the doing of it.
And it often is, but it doesn't have to
continue to be that strenuous. We can learn
to do the movements with less effort.
However, when we first try something, it is
often not possible to do it without a lot of
excess tension. The mistake is, we assume
that the tension is inevitable, and never
realize we can get to a point where we can
get the result we want without all the
huffing, puffing and straining. Often, more
stretch or muscle development is required,
which will come with a correct approach.
Of course, as we continue to try the new
skill, and assume the effort we feel must be
that way, it becomes ingrained into our
approach, and gets worse. So we have a
vicious circle, that leads to frustration
and bad playing.
So extra tension in the muscles, which every
advanced player knows is the number one
cause of playing difficulty, becomes a blind
spot for us. Usually we are only aware of
the result of the tension, which is that
mistake we just made. Often it happens we
are not even aware of that, because we start
to filter out those unpleasant reminders of
our troubles. A As you will see shortly, the
correct approach to dealing with "mistakes"
caused by tension, is to repeat the movement
extremely slowly, with a great focus on
keeping all muscles relaxed. With each
repetition, the muscles learn the relaxed
way of moving to produce the result you
want.
"So you see, it is lack of understanding of
how the body/mind functions, and lack of
honest attention while practicing, that gets
us in to trouble.
You must start to observe your own
"Tightness", and replace it with
"Lightness", then you will see your level as
a player change upward, what I call Vertical
Growth. Since many players have no idea what
this lightness feels like, here is a very
simple way to connect with it. You must then
begin to cultivate this feeling in actual
playing. Believe me, it feels good! In fact,
when you see a good player "making it look
easy", it's because it is easy, when you
have the "Incredible Lightness".
Let's discover "The Light Finger"
The first step in finding "The Incredible
Lightness" is to discover The Light Finger.
The Light Finger is the completely relaxed
finger, brought to the string, and touching
the string, with only the weight of the
finger. It does not press the string down
until told to do so. To discover the
sensation of the Light Finger, do this:
1- Raise your arms in front of you, without
the guitar, and take hold of the index
finger of your left hand with the thumb and
index finger of your right hand. Completely
relax the left index, and wiggle it around
with your right hand. This is the Light
Finger.
2- Touch the palm of your right hand with
your left index. Raise the left index two
inches from the palm. Now let it drop by
it's own weight back to your palm, touching
it very lightly, with no pressure. This is
how the finger feels when it first touches
the string.
3- Now hold the guitar, paying attention to
the being comfortable and relaxed throughout
the body, and slowly raise your relaxed left
arm up to the neck, bringing the hand up so
that the index finger is lined up with the
ninth fret. Have your fingers in a relaxed
curl over the 6th string. Allow your Light,
relaxed middle finger to fall to the 6th
string, behind the 10th fret, so that it
touches the string, but applies no pressure.
Look at the string under your finger, and
see the distance between the string and the
fingerboard. Make sure the string does not
get move at all down toward the fret.
4- Raise your finger an inch, and then bring
it back to touch the string again in the
same way. Do this over and over, touching
the string with the Light Finger, bringing
it away, and touching it again. This is
called Finger Flapping. Do this a few times
with each finger every day. Make sure you
keep the inactive fingers as relaxed as
possible while touching the string with the
active finger. This will get you used to the
feeling, and over time, very sensitive to
the feeling of complete relaxation.
This light feeling is how your fingers will
be when they first touch the string to play
a note, and it is the feeling they will
return to when they release from a note. It
enables them to be prepared for their next
job. Many people never have this light
feeling, and play with tense fingers all the
time, and their playing suffers greatly
because of it. This exercise is what I call
a Foundation Exercise, one that should be
done regularly, no matter how long you have
been playing. It will continually act to
increase your awareness of the correct and
necessary sensations you must have in order
to play well. Learning how to bring this
feeling in to all playing situations is
often a tricky matter, and there is much
else to know, but we have to start
somewhere!
Here is why. Speed, or the ability to
execute movements rapidly and accurately, is
simply the result of continuous correct
practice that promotes "The Incredible
Lightness". If you are creating "The
Incredible Tightness" when you practice, you
will suffer because of it. Think of walking
and running. Does a little kid have to
practice running? No, it just happens after
balance is mastered, and the ability to
place one foot in front of the other, and
have all the body parts work together to
keep the movement going. After the two year
old gets that down, don't worry, he'll be
running!
In closing, let me say that all the
preceding is founded upon the first two
Principles of Correct Practice. I will state
them pretty formally, and they apply to all
instruments.
Principle of Correct Practice #1: Your
aware, thinking mind is your primary
practice tool. Principle of Correct Practice
#2: Control of the fingers is developed by
infusing conscious awareness into the
muscles through the mechanism of attention
while practicing. Remember, as in all things
in life, you get out of it what you put in
to it (and believe me, it makes me feel
pretty old to hear myself saying that, but
it's the truth.) So read this over and over,
and do the exercise, and apply these
understandings to your practice. Good Luck!
For more information, and to get answers to
your questions, visit my site. |
