by DemoEtc » August 18th, 2004, 8:21 am
Pretty nice. I was also watching the video you made and imagining you playing this one. If you're open to suggestions, I have a couple that may help a bit.
First of all, you have great left hand shape and position. I notice the knuckles are nice and even, even when you do a slide upward everything remains stable. That's really good hand positioning.
You also keep your thumb behind the neck and your fingers nice and curved so that the tips of the fingers are straight down on the strings. This also is a good thing; prevents accidentally touching other strings, etc. You can actually see between your palm and the back of the neck.
When you do the little runs and pentatonic things using the middle two strings -- you know, the little bits that are like hammer-ons from say, the fifth fret to the seventh -- they're pretty clean; almost too clean. One thing that some guys do when playing those little parts of the scale is to actually not use just the tip of the finger (in this case your ring finger) to hold down the notes on those two strings. They actually lay the pad of the last section of the finger across the two strings at the same time -- sorta like a mini-mini bar -- while they're playing two notes that are close together. Then they lift off again when they go to another string. So instead of having to make their thrd finger hop over from the 3rd string to the 4th string, you just momentarily lay the pad of the ring finger flat on both strings. It lets the notes sorta blend together for that moment and makes the scale smooth out at that point.
It's rather like how some guys will do the barre "A shape" chords by barring with their index and then just laying the flat of their 3rd finger over the 2nd, 3rd and 4th strings (2 frets up)
This little technique can be applied also to when you're playing the 1st and 2nd strings in that 4-fret spread. You just lay your pinky tip flat across both strings -- say you're in A -- at the 8th fret. You can do pull offs (because you have your index covering those two strings at the 5th fret) and then lay the pinky (or third finger as some people might do) on the 8th fret and so on. It lends a certain fluidity to scales.
The other thing is your bending of strings. I notice when you bend you sorta single out whatever finger you're going to use and quickly push it up ot bend the string, while the other fingers and the rest of your hand remain stable. Again nothing wrong with this per se, but most folk will use more of the entire hand in that bending motion, letting the thumb move a little up toward the edge of the back of the neck and use that for a pivot. To check out the motion, just hook your thumb on the topside of the neck -- with your hand behind the neck of course -- and then just relax your hand and let it sorta 'hang' just by your thumb.
Then sorta swivel your hand -- as if you were trying to turn your palm toward your face -- and then back the other way so you can see the back of your hand. A sort of wagging motion, but having not only your wrist in on the twisting motion, but your forearm too. It's a loose motion, like you were shaking out your hand; everything turning from the elbow up.
THAT is the motion both for bending strings and for vibrato. You obviously don't leave your thumb hooked over there -- though lots of people do when bending -- but it's that same sort of thumb-as-center-of-rotation concept. Place your thumb maybe a little up from center at the back of the neck, put your 3rd finger on a string and then do that wagging motion while holding the note down and picking it. Then use that same wrist motion and try doing a bend. You'll see and feel how the thumb becomes a fulcrum point for the bend and the bending finger is no longer just on its own, pushing up against the string. It becomes the lever and the string is the thing it's pushing up.
These are just a couple of little things that may open up a lot of other things for you. Sometimes it's just small things that can help.
Take care and keep going like you are. You're obviously serious about this so I thought I'd pass along something you might be seriously able to use.
really? damn i have to figure out how to bend with my whole hand
