Four FInger Roll

[primospal]

I'm an old dog trying to learn some tricks. I'm still kicking my self in the arse for giving up guitar lessons when I was in second or third grade so I could play little league. Needless to say I am not a professional athlete. So 40 some years later, here I am. I'm trying to do a roll or arpegate a chord quickly. I've been trying, but I feel like I'm too spastic or something. Is there an exercise that would help? I practice by trying to speed up a medium speed roll, if you will, but can't seem to get it up to a good speed. Like I'm hitting the sound barrier.

Any tips on how to hold my hand or execises? Any tricks of the trade? Maybe I just have to keep banging at it until I hopefully break through.

Thanks!
Tommy

[ME@VT]

---------4-
------x----
---4-------
-x---------
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This is a roll that I have been practicing on Tommy Emmanuel's song "Mombasa." The way I do it is thumb hits the 'x' on the D string and then immediately after my index, middle, and ring fingers roll the next notes off.

The way that I usually play fingerstyle pieces is with my pinky on my right hand resting on the guitar, but recently I have found (in rolls particularly) that my fingers are more free and roll more easily over the strings when I play with the more classical approach and have my hand floating over the strings.

Thats how I do it anyway Just practice it over and over.

Hope that helped!

Devon

[architectx]

I'm assuming you mean an arppegio, not a "banjo style roll". If so, do two things:

Listen to some Doyle Dykes stuff - he uses a really graceful arppegio (I don't know how to spell that) all of the time. Listen to what he does and try to emmulate it with some simple first position chords.

Play a chord of you choice, hitting four notes (thumb & three fingers) simultaneously. Then, do the notes in slow succession starting with your thumb & "rolling" through your three fingers. Keep doing that, gradually quickening the pace till you're almost back to playing the notes simultaneously. That's how I learned it, and I find myself doing it now without even thinking about it (maybe even too often in some songs).

[DeadHead]

Good advice guys !! I'm going to try this too !! Thanks !

DeadHead

[architectx]

Oh - the other thing, like Devon mentions: Don't let any part of your hand or fingers rest on the guitar top (right hand that is). It is any easy habit to get into, and will really kill lots of potential fingerstyle moves. I've found that keeping my right hand in a more "classical" floating position (as well as holding the guitar "properly" on my left knee) have made a huge difference in my ability.