Quiet Hands Are the Angel's Workshop

In the last few days I have been spending my practice working on "quiet hands," as I've taken to calling it when my hands move as little as possible. For now, I'm just concentrating on my right hand, trying to keep it as close to the guitar as possible and as efficient as possible.

In the below video, I'm playing the finger exercises and trying to use quiet hands. I'm not entirely successful, but it seems I'm doing a bit better with it.

In the next video, made two days later, I'm playing "Simple Gifts" and trying to minimize movement. I'm not completely succeeding, as I see that whenever I pluck two or more strings together I move my hand away from the guitar somewhat more. I am working that, trying to make even the chords not "jump" away.

Practice Makes Perfect

Today I decided to put this idea into practice: I started video recording my practices. It took me a while to set something up, but I think what I came up with was useful not only to get used to recording myself and playing to an "audience," but also to see what I'm doing and how I sound. Having a recording allows me to analyze my performance and see how some of my errors can be corrected.

I'm posting the clips to YouTube because they're so large. The first video, where I am playing Minuet in G, is here:

When I looked at this video, I saw right away that I was lifting my hand off the guitar on almost every note. My instructor would not approve!

So in the next video, I tried to pay attention to that. I don't know if I succeeded completely, but I think I did better, at least.

Imagine an Audience. Imagine! An Audience!

Well, it's been quite a while since I've posted here, but I've been doing a lot of private journaling about music in the meantime. Since the last post I've learned quite a bit and my fingers are getting more agile and stre-e-e-etching to accommodate some of the more far-flung chords! Plus, I've upped my lessons to once a week and my practices to 1.5 to 2 hrs per day. That last change alone has produced very gratifying results!

From 3Q Digital

Today I was explaining to my instructor that I write blogs about many things, and one of the reasons I write them is to keep my writing skills sharp. And even though hardly anyone besides me reads my blogs, I benefit by writing to an audience, however imaginary they might be.

When I got to thinking about that today, I realized that one way I can get used to playing for an audience is to start recording myself playing and then to post the video to this blog! In so doing, I will learn to play with an audience in mind! Now, I don't intend to post all the practices, especially not the bad ones. But if I strive to play to an audience, then those performances that do come out well I can share with any blog readers that might stumble upon them.

It's a scary thought, but I'm going to try it! Soon . . .