Practice Technique and relaxation

[sniffyduke]

I have been hearing that practice and relaxation
is the key to speed and accuracy.

Just wanted to share my experience.

I had some old blues guys years ago tell me, that when I practiced
with a metrenome that I really needed to dig in. Push hard on the
fretboard and there was no mention of relaxing my picking hand.

It was the school of no pain no gain. My right hand was weak
due to me being left handed and playing right.

I did not follow this advice in my young days and practiced
relaxed on .009 strings on an Ibanez. I could smoke.

But.... later on, I had a friend want me to switch styles to a
blues country sort of playing. He handed me a strat with
.11 strings and took away all my effects and It was like
I never learned guitar. I could not keep up, kept missing
notes due to lack of strength.

If we are supposed to stay relaxed and not overdue.
how do you explain players like Stevie Ray, Etc.

They just dig in... and there endurance is unreal.

I started pushing myself then, like weight lifting, when I would
start to wear out I would just push through it.

If I was stuck at 120bpm on the metrenome, I would painfully
push through dayafter day. For some strange reason, going against
all the right things to do, this was the only way to pass my Plateaus.

Can anyone shine some light on this. I am really confused.
When I warm up, I go slow but I really dig in.

Is it style?

For being a student of Berkely and I am shure knows technique.
I watched John Mayer in concert, and that guy was reallydigging
into his guitar, I did not see any relaxation in his face.

SRV's fingers used to bleed.

Help, I read about all this meditation, but I an confused.

Some of the best local players I know, only practiced when they where young by playing along with backing tracks for hours.

[sniffyduke]

Oh yes, by the way, I do have a buddy that does the relaxation
tech. He plays super fast on .009 strings usually with lots of
distortion, like through a line 6 rack unit.

[Cap'n Fingers]

Muscle tone and relaxation are different things. How you play relaxed depends on how strong you are. If your fingers, hands, forearms and shoulders are strong you'll be fairly relaxed while playing styles that require more exertion.
It's a bit of a catch 22 at first. You can exercise some of those muscles not playing but some are better worked out while playing. You want to "dig in" to get the workout so that later you can relax more.
I think relaxed is a relative term in guitar playing. Removing non-productive tension is the way I look at it.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

[Kingpin]

That's the total opposite of my approach. The more I want to relax, the less I dig in, and the lighter I try to make the touch of both hands. I also don't try to "play through" fatigue, that's an easy way to develop tendonitis. Listen to what your body is telling you, is my mantra.

[TPeroda85]

There is nothing wrong with digging in. Its something we all have to master to have dynamics in our playing. However that being said, we have to also master playing without carrying tension in our bodies as that can cause physical issues. I usually try to practice slowly (40bpm) or so once a week to just practice breathing and making sure my shoulders, kneck etc are relaxed.

[guitarjazz]

Many pups have trashed their hands and guitars by putting on the big strings and trying to be like SRV. You're not him.

[sniffyduke]

Originally Posted by Cap'n Fingers

Muscle tone and relaxation are different things. How you play relaxed depends on how strong you are. If your fingers, hands, forearms and shoulders are strong you'll be fairly relaxed while playing styles that require more exertion.
It's a bit of a catch 22 at first. You can exercise some of those muscles not playing but some are better worked out while playing. You want to "dig in" to get the workout so that later you can relax more.
I think relaxed is a relative term in guitar playing. Removing non-productive tension is the way I look at it.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

That makes perfect sense. I tried the relaxation and gentle fingers
at first. But when I played an accoustic guitar I could hardley
get the notes to ring.

[sniffyduke]

Originally Posted by guitarjazz

Many pups have trashed their hands and guitars by putting on the big strings and trying to be like SRV. You're not him.

I am aware of that. I am not SRV. What I am asking is, where are these super blues players relaxation and light fingers playing style.

Did SRV spend lots of time using relaxation techs in the early days?

I am just trying to understand.

I don't need to use him as an example. I was tought by the guitarist from Jimmy Buffet. There are worn out marks
all over his fretboard from the amount of preasure.

[sniffyduke]

What comes first, the chicken or the egg?

I could shread all day with .009 or .008 g strings with a very small pic.

But even when I went up to 10g strings from all the years playing on .009s I was having trouble.

Example, If I play legato on a les paul with .009g strings with
lots of od and effects, It sounds ok, I do not have to use
alot of energy.

When I found out how poor my playing really was, was when I pluged
in a Strat with single coils (Not EMG hot Humbuckers) in to a
Dry Marshall plexi. It was a bad. I had to apply alot more power
to achieve the same results and I was twice as slow. I wore
out alot faster due to the need the use power on every note.
Esp on picking

[Tomo]

Originally Posted by sniffyduke

I have been hearing that practice and relaxation
is the key to speed and accuracy.

Just wanted to share my experience.

I had some old blues guys years ago tell me, that when I practiced
with a metrenome that I really needed to dig in. Push hard on the
fretboard and there was no mention of relaxing my picking hand.

It was the school of no pain no gain. My right hand was weak
due to me being left handed and playing right.

I did not follow this advice in my young days and practiced
relaxed on .009 strings on an Ibanez. I could smoke.

But.... later on, I had a friend want me to switch styles to a
blues country sort of playing. He handed me a strat with
.11 strings and took away all my effects and It was like
I never learned guitar. I could not keep up, kept missing
notes due to lack of strength.

If we are supposed to stay relaxed and not overdue.
how do you explain players like Stevie Ray, Etc.

They just dig in... and there endurance is unreal.

I started pushing myself then, like weight lifting, when I would
start to wear out I would just push through it.

If I was stuck at 120bpm on the metrenome, I would painfully
push through dayafter day. For some strange reason, going against
all the right things to do, this was the only way to pass my Plateaus.

Can anyone shine some light on this. I am really confused.
When I warm up, I go slow but I really dig in.

Is it style?

For being a student of Berkely and I am shure knows technique.
I watched John Mayer in concert, and that guy was reallydigging
into his guitar, I did not see any relaxation in his face.

SRV's fingers used to bleed.

Help, I read about all this meditation, but I an confused.

Some of the best local players I know, only practiced when they where young by playing along with backing tracks for hours.

You don't have to use softer dynamics all the time. Find out JM & SRV's dynamics in slower tunes.

Tomo

[Tomo]

Originally Posted by sniffyduke

I have been hearing that practice and relaxation
is the key to speed and accuracy.

Just wanted to share my experience.

I had some old blues guys years ago tell me, that when I practiced
with a metrenome that I really needed to dig in. Push hard on the
fretboard and there was no mention of relaxing my picking hand.

It was the school of no pain no gain. My right hand was weak
due to me being left handed and playing right.

I did not follow this advice in my young days and practiced
relaxed on .009 strings on an Ibanez. I could smoke.

But.... later on, I had a friend want me to switch styles to a
blues country sort of playing. He handed me a strat with
.11 strings and took away all my effects and It was like
I never learned guitar. I could not keep up, kept missing
notes due to lack of strength.

If we are supposed to stay relaxed and not overdue.
how do you explain players like Stevie Ray, Etc.

They just dig in... and there endurance is unreal.

I started pushing myself then, like weight lifting, when I would
start to wear out I would just push through it.

If I was stuck at 120bpm on the metrenome, I would painfully
push through dayafter day. For some strange reason, going against
all the right things to do, this was the only way to pass my Plateaus.

Can anyone shine some light on this. I am really confused.
When I warm up, I go slow but I really dig in.

Is it style?

For being a student of Berkely and I am shure knows technique.
I watched John Mayer in concert, and that guy was reallydigging
into his guitar, I did not see any relaxation in his face.

SRV's fingers used to bleed.

Help, I read about all this meditation, but I an confused.

Some of the best local players I know, only practiced when they where young by playing along with backing tracks for hours.

Dig in ..means "intensity" not all about strength. You don't want "truck driver's hand" for playing blues. You are not alone. You are taking people's opinion too straight. You need to find behind of these ideas etc. Go deep! Otherwise, you (evertone)can be so great if you just go to school or learn from books! Not that easy if you want to be "free"

PS, if you live in Boston, study with Kevin Barry or George MaCann for blues playing.

Tomo

[stereoaction]

playing relaxed vs. digging in just produce 2 very different feels / tones. it's no different than many other instruments. If you an drummer and want to sound like Bonham don't practice with light small sticks finessing the drums. You need to learn to hit the living daylights out of them. Or vocalists, you're not going to sing like Bon Scott with classical vocal training. What sound are you looking for? if you want to be able to play both ways, practice both ways.

I dig in pretty hard but really don't every have fatigue from it. if your hands start to hurt, back it off a bit.

[stereoaction]

I remember reading somewhere that Scott Henderson would spend a good deal of time preparing for when he would go from his fusion tours playing with lower action and lighter strings to his "bluesier" gigs on strats with higher action and heavier strings where he wanted to have to player harder.

[sniffyduke]

Everything you guys are saying makes perfect sense.

Example:

If I was (with a metrenome) exercising a specific scale.
how do you determine tension?

One of the best players I know gave me some exercises
and told me to play them slow like at 70bpm but
put alot of preasure on the fretboard.
He said alternate between these 5 excercises
for hours and when it starts to burn, to push through
for endurance.

This goes against everything.

And belive me this guy smokes.

Youtube Mike Zitom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B6-P5SMbbY

This is the guy who told me. I listened and my endurance improved.
But if you don't keep at it, like weight lifting it will fade.

Picking also, he said smooth from the wrist but you have to
have some power behind it or it will be sloppy.
My fingers and hands would ache.

[sniffyduke]

Anyone know any good workout DVD's or books.

I have chopbuilder DVD but sometimes its just to fast.

I can keep up on my Ibanez low action with .009's

But on my strat even with 10's I strugle a bit.