Improving without playing

[Drew Barton]

Have been struggling with my left hand getting weaker, finally went to the doc and it makes sense. pinched nerve. my sudden inability to fret any notes now makes sense. It is literally so weak I could not depress a set of fingernail clippers hard enough to clip a nail.

He says it will be 6-8 weeks before it is useable...which seems an eternity.


Are there exercises one can do maintain if not improve their mandolining when they cannot physically use the instrument? with the piano I can work on right hand stuff, with the mandolin I can do some pick stuff I guess, but it feels like that would be marginally useful without improving my fretting...

Actually, as I type this I think...resting fingers above the correct scale and chord locations would be one thing. I will do that. But with so much combined, accumulated experience and wisdom wondering what other ideas folks might have

[sblock]

Work on developing your crosspicking? No left hand required (if you're a right-handed player).

[dhbailey]

I'd be careful of "resting fingers above the correct scale and chord positions" -- what did your doctor (and I would presume a physical therapist also) have to say about doing anything with your left hand? Will moving your fingers even lightly like that exacerbate or help your condition?

Now might be a great time to do a lot of reading up on the history of the mandolin, biographies of the greats.

And do a heck of a lot of listening -- pick out some songs you really want to play and listen to them over and over and sing them and imagine your hands playing them on the mandolin. Really absorb those songs by listening while in your car, while you're doing chores, whatever. You may well find that spending 6-8 weeks totally away from the mandolin will allow you to come back with a greater appreciation for proper left-hand position and technique as you essentially begin all over. You may find that your fingers pick those songs out with very little effort.

I really feel for you not being able to play an instrument you love, but be very careful and don't do things which might prolong your time off the instrument or make your condition worse.

Good luck!

[jaycat]

Harmonica!

[JeffD]

I think the best exercise would be listening to the music you will be playing. Just listening over and over. It really seeps in.

[CarlM]

Listening is good but listening conscientiously is better.

A few ideas:
Listen for the chord changes.
Try to call them out by number system ie: I-IV-V.
See if you can pick up on the III-VI-II-V-I changes and portions of that turn around.
Listen for minor or other chord flavors
Try to sing or hum back the melody accurately with all the notes
What is the rhythm and timing of the song
Listen to solos phrase by phrase and break them down for things like crosspicking, slides, hammer ons, double stops, etc.
How much can you figure out just by listening without the mandolin in hand?

[Explorer]

First off, although it's unclear whether the doctor or physical therapist said not to use the hand while it's recovering, then the question thn becomes, which will be regretted more? Not playing for up to 8 weeks, or doing more damage and not playing well for even longer?

As for what to practice, there are videos on YouTube teaching how to build tremolo speed in the right hand, which allow one to merely mute the strings with the left hand. There are also crosspicking and string-skipping exercises which are all about the right hand.

Just as a real-life example of things I practice without the instrumemt in hand, I've been spending quite a bit of time recently building myself a chord book for mandola, with the chords all having a root or fifth in the bass, a third interval, and the upper extensions on the high strings... *and* which minimizes the use of all four fingers to fret (in other words, more barres and partial barres). That has been requiring me to look at a chart of a fifths-tuned fretboard with the scale steps of a major diatonic scale mapped out. I look for a chord cluster which matches my criteria, and then sketch it out, marking the scale degrees on it instead of making it about a particular note as root.

I've been working on it for two weeks, and my understanding of both the fretboard as a roadmap, and of chord progressions and substitutions, has grown just from my thinking about it even without the diagrams in front of me.

[BrianWilliam]

Piano?

[lukmanohnz]

If you have not yet memorized the notes of the fretboard there are some good apps for mobile devices that will test and improve your ability to quickly identify the notes of the fretboard.

[Mark Wilson]

Work on developing your crosspicking? No left hand required (if you're a right-handed player).

Cross picking is a cool tool to have. Mostly requires training the mind and right hand to learn the patterns. Can be done on open strings. Great suggestion

[mandocrucian]

There's a complete lack of info about the OP which makes it difficult or impossible to give advice relevant to his situation. Advice for a basic player would be different than for an intermediate, and a whole lot of skill factors are involved with that. An advanced or pro wouldn't need advice; they'd know enough to shift their focus to other facets of playing/musicianship that needed strengthening.

Do you read tab? Notation?
Can you sing?
Do you know the notes in scales of various keys? How is your basic theory?
Do you have any familiarity with Sol-Feg?

The hands are only a third (or fourth) of the playing equation. There is the EAR and sonic memory. Then there is the LOGICAL MIND that deals with concepts that have "names"; stuff which can be explain either on paper in in words and or notation, or verbally. You could also consider the EYE , especially in regards to reading notation, as a fourth component.

In much of the world, music and an instrument is not taught through paper. It is done verbally, with vocal sounds which mimic the sounds of the drums ( Dum bek , Boom chuck) giving you the instruction book before the student may even get an instrument. Or it's Mouth Music, lilting etc. - verbalizing the melodies with either nonesense sounds, or a system on syllable representing specific scale degrees. The rationale is that the tune/music needs to be in your hear/ear before the hands can sound it on the instrument.

Of course, the INSTRUMENT can be used to train the ear and the voice (which is a physical manifestation of the ear). That's where the Vulcan mind comes in.... if you can read the notation or instructions of the tune, or drill, then you can PHYSICALLY "press the buttons" to make the sounds without really knowing in advance what the sounds are. So you play the whole-tone scale, or the Lydian dominant from the written instructions on a $25 casio keyboard...and you get the sounds/notes which you vocalize with the keyboard. (i.e. match your note to the keyboard note). You can also attach specific pitch names, or movable sol-feg syllables to your sung notes, to drag the Vulcan mind in the scenario.

Or you could count-out rhythms (and alternate between numerical counting and the plectrum directions which the rhythm SHOULD have.) You sing drills alternating between the count and various D D Dudu, Du uD D, etc, you'll know which direction the pick should go from the learned association of the verbalized rhythm and the verbalized pick direction.

If you don't have a kid keyboard at hand or can't borrow one, go to WalMart and pick up something cheap. You can write down the pitches on the keys (or a piece of label you stick on the keys) if you aren't familiar with the paino keyboard. Your right hand is OK to play stuff, and you aren't trying to become a "piano player"...you just want to generate the sounds to vocalize with. And it doesn't have to be fast.

I have no idea where you reside, but I'm pretty sure it isn't anywhere near Winchester, VA. In a two-hour session I could give you a template of various drills./exercises etc. which would last you for 2 months if not more, which would train the other components which actually drive the hands.

Niles H

[Frankdolin]

Listen to your favorite music with an emphasis on study as much as enjoyment. Try to imagine playing and just hold the mandolin. Even get some picking work done, mute the strings with a rag if you tire of listening to GDAE. Good luck!

[UsuallyPickin]

Yup .... listening and studying theory and chord form and construction ....... crosspicking patterns are worth some extra time too.... R/

[Josh Levine]

I have a right hand picking exercise that I do sometimes with a metronome. It helps my rhythm and speed immensely. If I just did that for 6 weeks it would be amazing for my playing... but I don’t have that kind of dedication and am always working on a million things at once.

[JonZ]

Creating a mental image of a physical task that you want to master can be very effective.
Scholarly Articles

[Pete Martin]

Niles and Jon bring up good things. I will add SING OUT LOUD SLOWLY tunes you are learning, and if you are an improviser, what you want your improvisations to sound like. You'd be amazed at what you can learn this way!

I went through bad overuse injuries in the early 90s where I could not play anything for about 3 years. I started to sing slowly what I wanted to be able to play. When I was able to return to playing, my improvising was WAY better. Because I knew much more about how I wanted things to sound.

[Jim Nollman]

I mangled some tendons in the thumb of my picking hand 18 months ago. With the brace on, I kept playing through it, experimenting with my picking technique so I didn't inflame the injury or reach a place of pain. Basically, I practiced as usual but using almost no pressure either to hold the pick or to push the pick across the strings. Along the way, I learned a few important lessons that I've retained since healing. Most importantly, I learned that I could actually hold the pick more lightly and yet play faster. I also changed picks to one that kind of stuck to my fingers better, making it easier to hold. I also read some things here on the Cafe about pick position and discovered a better tone by simply pointing the pick tip backward instead of straight down.

[Drew Barton]

appreciate all the feedback and some great stuff in there. As it turns out...I actually have lost so much motion in the left hand I cannot spread the fingers far enough to practice at all. I can only manage a 2 fret spread on a guitar...

I have been doing a ton of listening to the songs I am working on, though it is a bit rugged...part of the reason I am working on them is the only known recording was on a cassette that sat in a pump house in Bend, OR (high desert) then in a basement in a little town just outside Portland. Shockingly, there is a lot of hiss, some skips and jumps and incomplete lyrics/voices...so I am listening to highly corrupted source material.

I bet everyone wants to hear what comes of that (said no one ever)

But yeah, I will work the pick a bit, listen to the music a ton and continue my theory study which I have been doing pretty intensively. Last count I had over 700 flashcards made...