G scale Positon 2 at 60 for review

[GAA43]

Hi Jamie and minions,

I had been working on this at up to 100 @ 8th notes and although it superficially seemed fairly relaxed and fluid, I recently realized there was a lot of BS going on. In particular lots of tension and spurious movement by the pinky while descending the scale from string 1 back up. Here is the results of some work on that, also working on the tendency for my hand/fingers to lean when doing the scale in this position.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdgKvN3_nJE

One particular thing I'm interested in: on the way back down, I had been in the practice of placing two fingers, say 3 and 4 on the 3rd string, simultaneously. I thought this was pretty clever (really planning ahead you know), until I noticed a regularly occurring rhythmic glitch when going from say note C to B. And I was getting bad tone. I'm not doing this now, and it seems to be an improvement. Any comments on this?

I want to emphasize that somewhat contrary to my approach from a few months ago, I'm really keen to hear as many nit picky comments at this stage as you are willing to spare. I have a much better understanding than I did of how these exercises reveal (and can help fix) underlying flaws and am not in as big a hurry to speed up just because I can, sort of.

Thanks,
Greg

[Jamie]

It is very good Greg, almost where I want it at this speed. But you are still leaning a fraction to much in the hand over to the left, right from the first note. It is really a whole arm thing. There needs to be an adjustment, this weakness will intensify with speed.

Placing two fingers can be a good training technique. It "tightens the action". In actual playing, it is usually an encumbrance. The 2nd finger is better off staying close, maybe even touching the string behind the one going down, and then shifting weight, going down as the other comes off.

[GAA43]

Thank you Jamie.

Here is an update, really trying to utilize the 'whole arm' hint. I looked at this one side by side with the one from the other day and the differences are pretty small, but I'm really interested in your feedback.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9wPTdUV5VM

Re the two fingers thing, I don't think I would know what you meant by 'tighten the action', if not for the comfortable, and yeah, tight, feeling it gave when I first started doing it. However at this point in my efforts doing the scale, it feels smoother without doing it.

[Jamie]

Oh yeah, to me that is a BIG difference, in the right direction!

Notice the difference between how your 4 looks on that 2nd note, from the first take to the 2nd.

As I said, this intensifies with speed. Without this correction, you would be introducing lots of tension into the whole arm and beyond, more and more the faster you went. Good work!

[GAA43]

I had a feeling that you'd see more than I did. Indeed there is a big difference there now that you point it out.

Another question: the walking exercises utilize this mostly vertical orientation for the fingers, but then one largely abandons it when doing the rock/blues scales and licks. Of course the finger control, and relaxation, and separation, from the walking ex carries over tremendously to the more slanted position of the R&B stuff.
With these major scales its back to the vertical position, and I can feel what you are saying about the reduced tension in the arm, and also the pinky, from getting rid of this lean. Can you say something about the relationship between this correct non leaned approach to these scales and the slanted position of the R&B scales and licks. I suspect that there is more to it than just tolerating the lean in order to be able to bend properly.

Thanks very much for the great feedback.