Light bulb moment with the Heavy Arm

[aussiepete]

Lately I have been using the intro to Sweet Child O Mine as an exercise in using the heavy arm and firm fingers.

An awesome thing happened tonight. As I was focusing on directing the weight of the arm through the fingers to push the strings down, an effortless feeling developed. It's a bit hard to explain, but as I transferred the weight of the arm through the various fingers as I played the riff I swear I was using no effort at all. It was like doing the clamp exercise from the Principles book, but moving the clamp quickly from one finger to the next as needed. I literally sat there and looked at a hand playing the riff which did not belong to me

If that is what relaxed, effortless playing feels like, I want more

EDIT: Hey Average Joe (where you goin' with that gun in your hand), I just read your topic below entitled Heavy Arm. It seems we have allowed the same thing to be revealed to us.....I would have added my post to yours but I posted this first.

Cheers, Pete

[Average Joe]

I agree... What I found more difficult is to pass from heavy to floating arm to shift position. I work on that by now.