Hand(Finger) Speed

[mike_s]

I am pretty new to the (Anglo) concertina, but am experiencing the same thing as on guitar and mandolin. That being the ability to play up to tempo. I can play a tune OK and in time, but not up to "session speed". Same in the two stringed instruments I have played for many years at least for melody. Do I just have slow hands? Should I just be content to do accompaniment on guitar or are there some exercises to increase hand/finger speed at that tender age of 69?

 

Thanks

[RAc]

I'm sure there's bazillions of books and research papers from all kinds of pros out there on this issue, so apologies if either of this should be trivial or nonense (it's probably both):

 

I believe it's important to separate the muscle speed from the brain speed. I'm typing on a keyboard fairly fast, but coordinating this (motoric) movement with what your ear hears and feeds back into the system is a totally new game altogether.

 

If you would like to know how fast you can get in terms of physical movement (without the added complication of the music behind it), you can try practicing scales (I know this will cause rather heated debates, but see below) or arpeggio exercises until you don't have to think about them anymore, then slowly speed them up with the aid of a metronome - best record yourself doing this. Go as fast as you possibly can, then check your progress with that exercise periodically.

 

I think scales are useful for this BECAUSE there is little musical challenge and distraction in them once you have them memorized - of course your goal is still to play every single note as clean as possible, but your brain will be able to focus simply on the motorics.

 

Now trying to make this sound *musical* will dramatically slow you down as you now need to multitask (speaking in computer terms). I believe that the techniques to speed up the playing technique is drastically different from speeding up the musical experience - both will require lots of discipline and drill, but in different areas.

 

Btw you may want to check out the work of Woody Mann if you haven't already done so. He's a fingerstyle guitarist whose strength is playing slow and beautiful at the same time (which is even harder on the guitar as the acoustic guitar has little inherent sustain). Music ALWAYS outweighs speed to a listener's ears, meaning a tune well played slowly will always sound much more pleasing than a mediocre fast rendition of the same piece (of course, the better one is as a musician, the more he or she can do both...)

Edited June 7, 2016 by RAc

[Don Taylor]

This is what I am trying to do - YMMV!

 

Use slowdown software like the Amazing Slow Downer, Transcribe! or Audacity and start at the end of the tune. I really like Transcribe!

 

Set it to play at your comfort speed, but only the last few bars in a loop - maybe only one bar if it is hard, maybe a complete phrase if it is easy. Play along until you feel you can do it without thinking about it, maybe try reading or watching something else at the same time once you feel you have got it to try turn your conscious brain off your playing. Then gradually increase the tempo a little bit at a time until you get up to full speed. Then go a little faster.

 

Once you have the last few bars down then go back another few bars and repeat the same process.

 

When you have got up to speed again on the second set of bars, loop both sets of bars together and play along at full tempo until they meld together.

 

Now go back another few bars and repeat the process, basically working up to speed but learning it backwards so the the most practiced section is at the end and the new stuff is at the beginning. If you fluff the new stuff then picking up the better practiced section will give you back your confidence and hopefully stop you (I am talking to myself now) halting on every mistake.

 

In order to capture a tune for playing in the slowdown software: You can use something off Youtube, Soundcloud or a CD. You can also capture the audio out of an ABC player. Basically you need to get an mp3 or a .wav file out of your ABC player and give that to your slowdown software.

[Jody Kruskal]

HI Don, I've been using Audacity for this but I want to try something more convenient. Do you think Transcribe! is better than Slowdowner?

[Don Taylor]

HI Don, I've been using Audacity for this but I want to try something more convenient. Do you think Transcribe! is better than Slowdowner?

The Master asks the Supplicant!

 

I don't know if it is better than Slowdowner, I will just say what I like about Transcribe! and maybe somebody else can pipe in about Slowdowner. I have used Audacity and I think that Transcribe! is easier to use for looping practice. Audacity can do things that Transcribe cannot do - like mix audio streams.

 

I am sure that they all do the same basic reduce the tempo while maintaining the pitch trick.

 

Transcribe! has a bunch of other tools designed to transcribe music, but that I find very handy for practice.

 

Organizing and annotating: You can playback some music and tap out the beat on your keyboard. Transcribe! marks each beat tap on a rolling ribbon above its frequency display. Once you have got the beats marked then you can mark and label measures and sections. I do this first when learning a piece because these markers are so handy for finding your way around and relating the music to a score - if you have one. You can also add text annotations in another ribbon bar, but I find this tool a bit clumsy to use and only use it to mark out major pieces.

 

Note and chord guessing: There is both a piano roll and a keyboard display. The piano roll shows piano roll marks for the notes that it thinks are being played. You can select a piece of the music and get the keyboard view to show you the notes that it thinks are in that passage. You can get it to do overtone analysis to help you find the original note.

 

Loops: There are lots of tools for marking loops and saving them for future use. You can even set it up to play a loop repeatedly and gradually speed it up for you without you having to take your hands off the concertina.

 

Footpedal: You can use a foot pedal to start/stop playback. I have a VEC USB foot pedal that works great with Transcribe!

 

I could go on but there are lots of tutorials for Transcribe! on Youtube.

 

Cons: It is a complex piece of software with many features and there is a definite learning curve to get past the basics. It does a lot that I have not discovered yet. It has not been updated in a couple of years - not really a problem, but as a retired software developer I am always suspicious of developer silence.

 

It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux and you can try it for 30 days without charge. Purchase price is US$39 which I consider to be a bargain.

 

http://www.seventhstring.com

[Jody Kruskal]

Well based on your enthusiasm, I've got the trial version. I stuck in a session recording I made in Texas at Old Pal of some tunes with Trish and Howard and the gang. Works well so far with much greater ease in navigating around the session. I think I'm going to like this tool. Thanks.

 

Not that I will ever stop loving Audacity. It's a very nice sound editor that is oh so useful and easy.

[John Moran]

Hello

 

I have found that it is extremely hard to play with any speed on the anglo without the use of alternative fingerings. One of the reasons that I can play with speed is that I try to play a group of notes so that they are all going in the one bellows direction. The reverse G/A on the outside row are very handy for this. It takes some thought to try to find the right pathways but it is certainly worth it in the end. On the left hand side there is only one E and one F so you have to work around them.

 

cheers

 

John

[Will Moore]

Just to throw something hopefully helpful into the pot.

 

For those of you with iPads, I swear by an app called forScore (http://forscore.co/) at its core it is a digital storage system for written music, however it has many features that I think are useful for concertina playing.

 

You can add mp3 files to the music, slow down the playback by 1/2 or 1/4 speed, loop the entire track, or just loop sections as you learn. You can also annotate sheet music too, and it offers many common tools to help. Oh and it has a metronome

 

It has been (and will be) invaluable for my learning, and I hope it helps you too. It's only £7.99 ($9.99) too, which I think is very reasonable.

 

They have an iPhone version, but obviously there are limitations to a smaller screen.

 

Cheers!

 

Will

Edited July 1, 2016 by Clevercode

[cboody]

There are at least 4 apps for iPad intended for slowing down and looping: Anytune, Tempo Slow, Audio Stretch, and Amazing Slowerdowner. I didn't check to see costs, though I know I got all of them free. Some may be easier to use, or fit your approach, better than others. Amazing Slowerdowner is also available for the Mac, and I think PC. I'd recommend something like these rather than adapting Audacity, ForScore, or Transcribe, all of which I have used and find very useful for their intended purposes. I'd recommend ForScore if it had more flexibility in tempo choices.