(no subject)

[catsittingstill]

Good news! Such as it is. I called support for iRiver (the maker of that mp3 player/recorder I've been trying out) this morning, got a live human on the phone with admirable promptness and discovered that the reason the player software can't tell when the player is hooked up is probably a bad usb port on the player. It means driving all the way back into/through Knoxville, but I can swap the player for another one and that one will probalby work. Think I'll bring my computer along so I can try it right there in the store.

Also my back is definitely getting better. I'm still eating ibuprofen, but I'm down to 2 every eight hours, and going to my mando lesson today was no big deal back-wise.

The mando lesson was...interesting. I've been practicing every day, usually twice a day, but I'm still having real trouble getting up to speed. Roy (my teacher) thinks that pick control is the real issue for me--apparently it's important to pick with small motions, so the pick doesn't move very far from the string it's supposed to strike. The pick should kind of dance or bounce over the strings. Me, especially when I'm trying to play fast, I keep dragging it through the strings and waving it around. Sometimes I miss the string altogether--sometimes I can't get it across the string fast enough to get to the next place I need to go. I haven't actually thrown it away yet. But I'm sure it will come.

So Roy suggested I spend the week working on tremolo, try to get that fast and even and so I can change strings without missing a beat, and then work on matching the left hand to the right hand. I'll try it--I'm desperate.

Comments

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

"And don't play any faster than you are capable of playing."

Interesting--this accords pretty much with my own instincts on the matter. But Roy wants me to deliberately push the speed to where I *can't* play it accurately, work on it there, then slow it down a bit for accuracy--but not as slow as it was before. I've been trying, but I'm a little concerned about picking up the habit of playing sloppily as a result. Perhaps Roy is just trying to push me out of my comfort zone.

But stuff that's played at 120 (bpm) on the CD I can only play at about 80 or so. And strangely enough--stuff I knew perfectly well at 70 I can't play at 80, not because I can't make the speed but because I don't remember what comes next in time. How strange.

[braider.livejournal.com]

It may be that you play too deliberately, and that's what he's trying to break you out of. (Note: unless you're already comfortable, playing with a deliberate sound tends to be linked to being too stiff...)

[tnatj.livejournal.com]

I concur with Mary.

In a sense, your instructor may be saying, "Cat, your brain thinks too much. Let the muscles of your fingers, hands and arms do the thinking. So do your exercise at a speed that you can't do it while thinking about it."

Use the Force, Cat. ;-)

[musicmutt.livejournal.com]

I can see the merit in what he is saying, however I have followed the advice of Eric Weissberg, (who played banjo on the 'Deliverance' sound track); "Practicing slowly and evenly leads to playing evenly at all tempos." Trust me, it works. Since you are noting your tempos, I presume you're playing with a metronome. I'm a big advocate of metronomes and click tracks. I don't believe I have actually met you, nor have I had the pleasure of seeing/hearing you play but I have certainly heard of you. Please forgive me for being a bit pedantic but the "strange" you point out may be made even stranger by the fact that I suffer the same affliction. It just takes time for your fingers to start listen to your head saying, "if you do it this way, it will sound good. Trust me.""

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

"Practicing slowly and evenly leads to playing evenly at all tempos." Yes, this is my instinct too--and playing with the metronome sometimes disturbs me because I'll fall off the beat and then hurry to get back on again, which can't be good for learning to play evenly. On the other hand I've only had a metronome for a few weeks, and maybe it just takes time to learn to play with it instead of racing ahead and dropping behind :-)

I don't think we've actually met either, but it's a pleasure to hear from you, and I've heard of you too :-) Maybe now that I live on the east coast I'll get a chance to meet you face-to-face sometime.

It's nice to know I'm not the only one who forgets what notes come next :-)