Hand Excercise

[Rikk Manning]

Hello Adam,

Recently I joined Michael Harris Tranz-Fusion for some upcoming shows which means I am spending the next month trying to get my performance execution up to Adam Nitti studio level for the tracks you did :-)
Being mostly a funk player in my past I have rarely pushed myself to execute the more intricate arpeggios/runs on a regular basis.
I am interested in what short term and long term routine you may suggest for stamina and articulation?
(Currently I am working the actual material every other day and sticking to just metronome guided whole tone stretches and varied timing arp sweeps.)

Really enjoying the challenge btw, love the work.

[adamnitti]

hi rikk!

great to meet you. michael is awesome... so cool that you'll be working with him! i had an absolute blast playing on that stuff. thanks for the kind words regarding my parts. i really appreciate that!

for stamina and articulation i always liked to do a lot of 'speed burst' work. for example, concentrating on a particular passage or segment of a passage and working it in a cycle of 3 iterations slow/1 iteration double time continuously. in other words, let's say that i was working up a 1/16th note challenging passage and trying to get it up to 140 bpm or something... i might start with this routine/cycle

50bpm:
play passage using 8th notes 3x followed by passage at 16th notes 1x
(the 16th note passage would essentially be a 100bpm)

then raise the tempo to 55bpm:
play passage using 8th notes 3x followed by passage at 16th notes 1x
(the 16th note passage would essentially be a 110bpm)

etc, etc, until you get to 140 bpm and beyond...

as you get better, increase the number of double-time iterations to 2x, 3x, and beyond. that is the stamina part. obviously, keep everything perfectly clean with even dynamics before increasing tempo.

hope that helps!

adam nitti

[Rikk Manning]

Perfect.
I tried this approach on an intro part I struggled with last night. After an hour or so I was clean on the part. Then I picked it up this morning and the muscle memory had really kicked in.
It is so rewarding as a bassist to be able to observe physical gains like this. Thanks for the tip, I would have never thought of that approach.
Glad I found your forum.

[adamnitti]

Originally Posted by Rikk Manning

Perfect.
I tried this approach on an intro part I struggled with last night. After an hour or so I was clean on the part. Then I picked it up this morning and the muscle memory had really kicked in.
It is so rewarding as a bassist to be able to observe physical gains like this. Thanks for the tip, I would have never thought of that approach.
Glad I found your forum.

total awesomeness!!! thanks for the update, rikk!