Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiromakuta  Ouch! It hurts just seeing it. Would there be any significant benefits if one were to follow his program? |
Hi all, of course there are significant benifits to following Gregs programs....but why would you?
The answer to the above question is part of the argument for not doing it rather than doing it. I post Greg and similar peoples videos as an example to prove what is possible with the hands as far as dexterity and control are concerned.
When anyone, and i mean anyone starts an instrument, or even a sport, there are two main factors, the mental and the physical. For most it is a physical challange at the start of learning the bass ( i shall use the bass guitar as my example) not a mental one. Your hands and fingers will not do what you want, you use your eyes to reinforce what you do instead of you ears.
By that i mean you look at what your hands are doing rather than listening to what they are doing, you look to the plucking hand then the fretting hand all the time. Your hands and fingers fatigue, you get blisters, you get sore, it is all physical, till frustration and the realisation of "This is harder than i thought" sets in. Now the mental side has kicked in with an emotion or two, frustration, impatience, usual followed by dispair and the instrument is put down.
It is the test of the players will and fortitude to master and learn that will make him pick it up again. This is the same in later life players, but the instrument is a part of the furniture in their house.
If not then no big deal, bedrooms all over are filled with instruments that have followed this patteren, and parents who believe they have humoured a "phase" they were going through.
In the others we now have people who have the potential to be players. They will harness the mental side in theory and learning, and soon the physical side takes a back seat to the mental, they are equal partners in going forward. They will change though, some days it is all physical, you can't just seem to do anything your hands won't respond or a new playing lesson is hard. Other days it is all mental, you just feel lost confused, frustrated by a piece of music or you playing level...unfocused if you will.
As learning is something new for the mental side, as in reading or watching something and working it out in your head how you will approach this, so is exercise for the hands. give ny good musician a new sheet and he will read it in his head, work out the parts that might give him trouble, visualise fingerings, practise fingering before he even attempts to play it. If this happens at a show or a gig then that proccess mat take 10 seconds or so as he prioritises the sheet for himself.
Myself...i was a classical trained Tenor Horn player, i started on Trumpet but eventually arrived at Tenor Horn. I stopped playing at 16 when i left school and picked up a bass guitar. In my case it was all phyisical in the fretting hand only, never the plucking, and never mental.
My classical training of the past 7 years had given me the tools to handle music, and unknown to me at the time my right hand valve playing was to give me a 3 finger technique for plucking. When i started everyone used to comment on my use of 3 fingers in plucking, for me that was never a problem, i focused on looking and listening to the fretting hand. i was playing to a good standard after a couple of weeks and never looked back.
So my own case gave me a head start in one area of the physical side..the plucking hand. My fingers were developed already from the valve work of playing a brass instrument. I had allready gone through the physical frustration of controlling those fingers years ago and could now just concentrate on the fretting hand. So many of the things you want or need to do to play bass guitar i had covered before i even picked the instrument up, the last part was the left hand fretting which i could put all my energies into as the others were in the bag so to speak.
So now to the main part of the question.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Hiromakuta Would there be any significant benefits if one were to follow his program? |
I answer "why" and it still stands. If you want to play you need skills specific to playing and in my pre-ramblings hopefully you will see skills over lap. Gregs skills over lap what we want, so there is benefiit to develop in all of what Greg does.
But more importantly there is benefit in just some of what Greg does. That's right some..a small part, a little..call it what you will.
In the same way you don't have to train like an athlete to just walk run and jump, train for years to be a chef to cook a meal,
hit the pool every morning to swim, etc etc, so it is with Greg and the exercises, take from them and apply to your needs.
If you have weak hands, exercise and bring them on to a better level. If you suffer from stamina or dexterity, then exercise to bring them on, etc. If you have no problems then don't, if you want to keep your hands healthy then do..common sense is the key as it is in all exercise to do with the body. Because the hands are not an aerobic exercise as such ( raising the heart, and respiration) it is easy dismissed that exercising benifits them. For me i have a warn up, exercise, and warm down programme is use every day that takes apprx 2 mins. The benifit is i use it everyday and that 2 mins a day is better than doing nothing all week and execising for 2 hrs. at the end of the week. It is the regularity of the exercies not the quantity as in, if you have a headache an asprin will do fine, 10 asprin will not.
Have fun with playing because that's why we do what we do, and again mis-use and over-use are the main culprits in hand injuries and problems.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSvZE0vq0Y8
