I appreciate Mathew's submission and Chris' response.
Chris: Please! Come back to New York. As far as I know you haven't been around since August, except for maybe a tapeing of Prairie Home Companion. Come play a show with Jules or Michael. Please!!! If you did a duo with Chris it would probably be cost prohibitive unless it was on the D/L at Jalopy or some place super low key.
Chris: If you're playing in open/first position, practically speaking, will that not necessitate a different left hand "position" than say if you were playing up the neck in a closed position.I notice when I picked up a mandolin, of which I have very little experience with, my left hand moved almost perpendicular to what I understand to be correct positioning. When I say perpendicular - this is what I mean: my finger nail is facing the fret as opposed to facing the ceiling. It's hard to explain in words. It just made aware of something I could fix on the guitar fingerboard. Are your fingers always finger-nail-facign-the-ceiling?
Hi Mike, thanks for the kind words! I love NYC and there's always plenty of it in my future. Re: hand position and finger orientation, yes, the positioning of your hands should be dynamic and able to adjust. Usually my fingers are mostly vertical but with a slight forward angle toward the body, but other times they will be totally vertical. There are times when I may be reaching back with my index finger toward the headstock to grab a note in a chord and that finger might have a "backward" tilt. Ultimately your hands should be dynamic and able to conform to all of these different needs. It's easy and natural to do this if your hands are really relaxed. If you hold much tension in your hands this sort of adaptability will be limited.
Check out carter-style, where you strum lightly on the brightest (maybe two, three our four of them, I'm not sure what is the ''right way'), between the melody/flatpicking. Seems like a good way' for you since you got the melody good! Left hand doing exactly the same.
1) your right arm is oriented more vertically than horizontally.
With that sort or orientation your wrist is barely able to contribute to a pick stroke because what would normally be an up-down movement of your wrist is now functionally more side to side relative to the strings. Try dropping your arm a little lower around the side of the guitar so that your forearm can be more horizontal. Check the video of me playing it at the top of the lesson for an example of what I mean.
2) There is very little movement in your wrist.
This makes sense to me because of the orientation of your forearm that I noted above. I think that once you adjust the angle with which your right arm is addressing the guitar a lot of things will get better. I will make a video describing all of this later in the day when I have a guitar accessible.
YES! Awesome! This has so much more flow to it! How does it feel?
I appreciate Mathew's submission and Chris' response.
Chris: Please! Come back to New York. As far as I know you haven't been around since August, except for maybe a tapeing of Prairie Home Companion. Come play a show with Jules or Michael. Please!!! If you did a duo with Chris it would probably be cost prohibitive unless it was on the D/L at Jalopy or some place super low key.
Chris: If you're playing in open/first position, practically speaking, will that not necessitate a different left hand "position" than say if you were playing up the neck in a closed position.I notice when I picked up a mandolin, of which I have very little experience with, my left hand moved almost perpendicular to what I understand to be correct positioning. When I say perpendicular - this is what I mean: my finger nail is facing the fret as opposed to facing the ceiling. It's hard to explain in words. It just made aware of something I could fix on the guitar fingerboard. Are your fingers always finger-nail-facign-the-ceiling?
Hi Mike, thanks for the kind words! I love NYC and there's always plenty of it in my future. Re: hand position and finger orientation, yes, the positioning of your hands should be dynamic and able to adjust. Usually my fingers are mostly vertical but with a slight forward angle toward the body, but other times they will be totally vertical. There are times when I may be reaching back with my index finger toward the headstock to grab a note in a chord and that finger might have a "backward" tilt. Ultimately your hands should be dynamic and able to conform to all of these different needs. It's easy and natural to do this if your hands are really relaxed. If you hold much tension in your hands this sort of adaptability will be limited.
Check out carter-style, where you strum lightly on the brightest (maybe two, three our four of them, I'm not sure what is the ''right way'), between the melody/flatpicking. Seems like a good way' for you since you got the melody good! Left hand doing exactly the same.
Torgeir
Hi Mike,
I notice 2 things immediately:
1) your right arm is oriented more vertically than horizontally.
With that sort or orientation your wrist is barely able to contribute to a pick stroke because what would normally be an up-down movement of your wrist is now functionally more side to side relative to the strings. Try dropping your arm a little lower around the side of the guitar so that your forearm can be more horizontal. Check the video of me playing it at the top of the lesson for an example of what I mean.
2) There is very little movement in your wrist.
This makes sense to me because of the orientation of your forearm that I noted above. I think that once you adjust the angle with which your right arm is addressing the guitar a lot of things will get better. I will make a video describing all of this later in the day when I have a guitar accessible.
We’ll get to the bottom of it!
Can you demonstrate how you achieve your left-hand vibrato?
-Mike-