| Right hand staccato technique.
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I'm developing a way of playing rapid, very crisp staccato notes by stopping the ringing string with the next plucking finger. I just wanted some feedback on what I'm doing in case there's some more sensible way of going about things.
It's pretty basic - imagine you are playing a stream of notes on one string with two fingers (1 and 2). Shortly after a note is struck by 1, 2 rests against the string, muting it, and remains there until it's time to hit the next one, where it's already in position. Changing strings is similar - 1 strikes the string, 2 mutes that string, and then 1 moves off to strike the next note. Unfortunately this means string changing takes double the finger movement. I have no doubt that smooth steady 16th notes are possible using this string changing method, and I've had some progress already, but I'd like to get rid of the extra finger movement if I could.
I could mute the string with either finger on the right hand, a third finger brought in just for muting on string changes, possibly RH thumb or palm, or do it with the left hand.
The problem with some of these options is that the interval that the string is left ringing is critical, and getting it even a little bit wrong screws up the feel. I can get this right using just two fingers - once the groove is happening the timing of the whole thing seems to almost happen by itself - but using something else to mute such as the left hand often results in the note ringing too long.
What do you think I should do? Work on the string changing problems on the two-finger method, or bring the left hand muting into it and force myself to get the timing right?
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