Control Technique – Contrary Motion for better finger-independence – part 3

The last Finger-independence exercise we did (in part 2) I called SPIDER exercise.
We began with a simple one where the fingers did not stretch to much, they just change to the next string. IMPORTANT is that you repeat the complete exercises chromatically on each fret.
One important issue for us guitarists is, that when we begin to stretch the fingers, reaching out for the strings further away (e.g. one finger changing from the b-string to the a-string) the angel of pressure changes, and thus changes flexibility, independence and strength.
We can practice the different elements with a variety of exercises. But I believe that it is always better combining different element like independence and strength or flexibility and as already said, always with sound using the right hand attack.
For now we only talk about one direction, moving upwards, since they return has a additional challenge using both pair of fingers in anticipation – we will cover this later on.

The next step in our Spider exercise is to expand the stretch of the fingers. This creates also more challenge for our independence training.

As you can observe the number of string changes are less then in the exercise 1.1.
Here again we create a certain contrary motion of our fingers, which it the most important part in order to improve independence.  Specially working with  the combination 1-3 against 2-4 creates  a tremendous improvement of our hands ability.
IMPORTANT is that you hold the notes as long as posible!!!
When you play the 4th note – in this case finger 2 – in that very same moment you change the finger 1-3 anticipating its position, but we keep the fingers 2-4 under pressure.

Always practice in slow motion!! You have to clearly feel the contrary motion, by lifting the fingers as high as possible before changing the string. This means: vertical motion and horizontal motion are the main focus, together with the anticipation.

HAVE FUN!!!

 

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