Quote:
Originally Posted by tbeltrans
I did a similar thing with an old Oak Publications Happy Traum book "Fingerpicking Styles For Guitar". I just did it in vertical slices so that at each event in the music, I put my fingers where they needed to be and then did the same for the next one and the next. Playing ever slowly at first and then slightly picking up speed, the tune came into being much like drawing stick figures on cards, each slightly moved from the previous card so flipping through them created a sense of motion.
|
Exactly! IMO that's the way it has work. "Vertical slices" - precisely how I see it.
The "independent thumb" idea is a misunderstanding. That's how it feels once you've conquered it, but it's not the way to learn it. I tried teaching that method to students and failed, until I remembered how I'd taught myself (decades earlier).
It's easy enough to get the thumb picking on the beat - they could all do that - but as soon as they'd add a finger the thumb movement would get disrupted. You have to start by interlocking thumb from the beginning - but
slow.
I was glad to see that Mark Hanson's books essentially start that way, with complete patterns.