Today's practice discovery

[Bill]

Hi Jamie,

While practicing 10 measures in a piece today that wasn’t as smooth or as dynamic as I would like, I tried something a little different during practice.

I would alternate the tempo with each measure starting at 80 BPA then dropping down to 60 then back up to 80. I alternated the tempo like this and when I returned to the beginning, I started with 60 and went to 80, so each measure in both rounds experience a fast and slow tempo.

I then raised the tempo to 100 BPA and 80 and went through the piece again, alternating tempos with each measure. After I completed this go round, I played the piece straight through at 100 BPA for two rounds.

At the 100 BPA tempo, the piece was overall much smoother and the dynamics were better pronounced. I did make a couple of mistakes on measure 5 and 6, but overall it was much better than before.

I think by alternating the tempo like this it broke up whatever stress chains had been present in the piece – making the end result at 100 BPA smoother and more dynamic. I also found a new tool than can be applied to not only this piece but others as well.

One thing I have notice in my playing is that I am trying to be very conscious of keeping my right hand relaxed while strumming but, I find when picking it cannot be as relaxed as when strumming. The picking itself is strong but it is not very fast, nor does it feel as relaxed as when strumming. If you can make any suggestions or comments to this, it would be appreciated.

All the best.

Bill

[Guillaume]

A while ago, I also tried to get my picking motion as smooth, flowing and relaxed as my strumming motion.

I could see that the picking motion is similar to the strumming motion but on a smaller scale. On this topic, Ney has said that it's like a fractal version of strumming or something like that.

What I did was to strum 6 strings in, say, 8th notes, and then strum 5 strings, then 4, then 3, 2, and then 1. Everytime you reduce the range of motion, try to keep the flow and ease of the strumming motion. Go from strumming to single string picking and then back to strumming. Do it many times and you'll begin to see how to pick with flow.

Try that and tell me if you find that little approach useful!

[Bill]

Hi Guillaume,

Thanks for the suggestion, I will give that a try and add it to my daily technique practice.

Bill

[Jamie]

That sounds like a good method Guillaume.

Bill, your approach with the tempos sounds a bit like the "Spacing" technique from my book "Beyond the BPA"....do you have that?

[Bill]

Hi Jamie,

I do have your book "Beyond the BPA". I don't recall though this variation to it (I will have to double check). I think having to interupt the tempo and scale it down or up after each measure and then restart it at either a higher or lower BPA is what is causing the benefit.

I will be curious to take this technique further not only with this piece but others as well.

Bill

[Jamie]

Hi Bill,

Yes, it seems to be a sort of variation of the main idea of using a non-linear approach to tempo variation. Great going there, in your experimentation! That is what it is all about!

[N E Y]

.


In my experience the following is occurring: You are giving your mind a relative rest break during the lower tempo segment. At this point your mind cannot yet sustain the concentration to play a the top tempo enough to stay there for longer periods, so what you are doing is a mix of the technique I have in my DVD for pure speed practice and a coarser version of the BPA.

I Mean coarser in that the tempo increments are very steep. Yet,This type of practicing technique still acclimates your mind to the faster tempo in a gradual manner and your mind has more time to acclimate.

A musical tempo is not just a speed. That is a common misconception, but an understandable one. A musical tempo is an experience in the realm of musical reality. Every tempo is a different experience . Tempos are simply access points to that specific reality pertaining to that speed, not just the speed.. So it really goes much deeper than speed, as you can see. And that musical reality pertaining to that specific tempo has to be accepted by the mind as well as the physical factors involved. If not given the time to adapt , the mind will trip up a perfectly adequate physical technique so it takes some time for the mind to feel comfortable at any speed from slow to hyper-speed.


Something to keep your eye on:

It remains to be verified by you if this method will not induce low grade chronic excess tensions. That can happen as big jumps in tempo are undertaken without enough experience in detecting and knowing the symptoms of low grade excess physical tension. Awareness is a very subtle level of experience and what you are doing requires a near prodigy level of awareness of future injury inducing tensions at higher speeds Hence the wisdom of following the precise methodology Jamie prescribes: BPA coupled with no tempo as a safe way to absolutely injury free progress.





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[Bill]

Hi Ney,

Thanks for the feedback and I will certainly pay attention to the points that you made in your response.

I have been working on this piece for a while and so these steep jumps in tempo would not be appropriate for new piece I was beginning. I will continue to experiment with this (along with No Tempo) and if I need to decrease the jumps in tempo I will certainly do so.

All the best.

Bill

[Jamie]

yes, when I know the piece well, I take bigger jumps when reviewing, or warming up a piece. I believe I state that in "beyond" in describing the spacing technique. Use the increment needed by your control of the movement process. When just learning new movements, we must go granular.